Biden is back at camp David, and has yet to speak to any world leaders. What a disgrace.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/568228-biden-yet-to-speak-with-world-leaders-after-fall-of-kabul

I have a cynical view. As others have already noted, the Afghan war can be seen as a massive money-funnelling operation. The best way to erase the evidence of such a scheme, in my mind, was what happened. Hence the horrendous intelligence and the Biden lies.

Thank god. All you can produce is snark and statism. It’s boring.

The idea that government is a cooperative endeavor, and that politicians represent their voters, is a complete farce. If your idea of cooperation is to mark a piece of paper and step aside then I would never want to embark on any endeavor with you whatsoever.

I don’t think we can transition out of state dependency save for it’s complete collapse. And because we rely on governments and have done so for so long, we’re never going to take it upon ourselves to fix it. Personally I’m optimistic, but if I adopt the doom and gloom I’d say we’re screwed.

The leaders of governments. And here I was told no one was raised to believe the government will solve all our problems.

A great irony is that Taliban are running much of their operation through WhatsApp, an American company with American servers, owned by Facebook.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/26/world/asia/afghanistan-whatsapp-taliban.html

I hope not. But when I wrote that Greta Thunberg was petitioning world leaders to mitigate climate change and she received massive fan fare for it. She got her start protesting outside Swedish parliament. I wonder why she did that if she didn’t think government could solve her problems? Whatever makes you feel better.

It is unjust to force or coerce another to make a choice. But you cannot force or coerce another to make a choice if that other doesn’t already exist. The question arises as to who it is we’re being unjust to.

Religious enthusiasm and secular enthusiasm are nearly indistinguishable, no matter the contents of their thoughts. I would prefer some religion to Juche socialism.

But I think one can appeal to the conscience no matter the content of one’s beliefs. I seem to carry around this unseen witness to keeps tabs on my own behavior.

The soldiers abandoned by leadership; the weapons, aircraft, and ammunition left behind for the Taliban; the utter failure that was the withdrawal. 20 years, unfathomable tax-dollars, and many lives for nothing.

When Biden told allies, “America is back”, he wasn’t kidding. It’s more of the same piffle that got us into this mess in the first place.

You can’t even fathom such an idea. What a drone.



Confusing having a vote with ownership, control and autonomy is little more than casuistry in my mind. In practice you own and control nothing, and your autonomy extends as far as the mark you make on a piece of paper, the parameters of which are decided without you.

The problem is, unlike yourself and 180proof, I am incapable of envy and don’t feel entitled to owning someone else’s business.

My opinion hit quite the sore spot. Sour grapes, no doubt.

I don’t conform to anyone’s decision unless I agree with it. If authority cannot justify itself and its efforts I refuse to obey, whether it is a boss or some collection of human beings. If I don’t like the situation in the workplace I bargain for different conditions, find preferable conditions, or better, make my own. That’s how autonomy works. Your autonomy, on the other hand, extends only as far as your vote, a mere entitlement for signing up, which is discarded the moment it conflicts with the majority. With no one to bargain with, no one to appeal to but some vote-tallying machine, you’ll pay lip-service to democracy and be content that your choice was treated like rubbish, no doubt. Meanwhile your conditions are decided by others.

It is a viable system of corporate management, but it suffers the same pitfall of political democracy: mob rule.

Personally I wouldn’t want to work at a cooperative because I would have to conform to the decisions of the majority, whether I agreed with them or not. That, to me, isn’t “by the people, for the people”, but “by the majority, for the majority”.

But I’m sure it would be a nice place to work for the conformist.

I see it as a problem of identity. You are “wired up to receive the world”, which is presumably hidden beyond your vat, the skull. In this story you identify as the brain or some locus within. If you expand your identity to include the rest of you, you’ll find that you are in direct contact with the rest of the world. From there the “essential epistemic connection to make out there come in here” falls apart.

In this case the soldiers are there to enforce the state’s orders.

The police minister said, “As I have said previously, support from the Army will add another line of defence to the NSW Government’s crackdown on COVID-19 compliance.”

You may evoke euphemisms about keeping me safe, but it’s untrue.

An unvaccinated person cannot be a threat if he doesn’t have a virus.

The assumption is that something exists between perceiver and perceived, that some kind of medium makes what appears to be direct observation of the world, indirect observation. So what is it exactly that prohibits you from directly observing the world? What is it, exactly, that exists between you and what you perceive?

I was talking about military knocking on people’s doors, enforcing compliance orders. You’re talking about…me.

I love knowing I upset you more than the jackboot.

They have military policing the streets in Sydney, Australia, stopping people from doing things like going to their beach houses. Nanny-state gonna nanny.

https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/another-500-australian-defence-force-personnel-to-hit-sydney-streets-as-part-of-nsw-covid-19-compliance-crackdown-c-3656569

If one’s identity is expanded to include the entire body, beyond the surface of the brain and nervous system to the surface of one’s skin, observation of the external world is direct. There is no longer some medium or veil between perceiver and perceived.

So perhaps the compromise is, anyone has a right to refuse to be vaccinated, but by so doing they forfeit the right to move freely in society.

What if they do not have the virus and present no risk to anyone?

The ethical implications of quarantining Typhoid Mary are one thing—her activities infected others—but removing the right for the healthy to move freely in society, where no one is at risk for interacting with them, could never be more than a policy premised on the ignorance and fear of those in power. In short, you would be discriminating against the wrong people.

Besides, it’s far better to protect oneself than expect everyone else to protect you. That way lies tyranny.

His words were a defence of freedom of speech and thought. The quote was a reason he gave for refusing to hold his tongue. By censoring yourself you are unable to discourse about virtue and approach the greatest good of man.

The gestapo checking your vaccine papers while you eat. France has fallen.

Such is the paradox. They apply racism to fight racism. Hence the term in the US “positive discrimination”. It’s good racism, the kind of racism that benefits the racialized groups we prefer, whether they are victims of racism or not.

Which inquiry?

Nope.

I’m also not shooting or doing backflips over human beings. I don’t know where we’re going with that.

Many things determine wage— job requirements, pay standards in your industry, the size of the company, geographic location, supply and demand—but this is the first time I’ve hear income tax was a determining factor. It’s an interesting argument but I’ll just have to disagree.

They apply it.

I just don’t see how that works. If the income tax is the product of a tax rate times the taxable income, it is impossible for an employer to know what I will be paying in income tax in order to factor it into my hourly wage.

If I miss a day, have less income to tax, and therefor have less tax to pay, should the hourly wage change to reflect that?

If I miss a day, and therefor have less income, should my wage go down as well?

Do you hold that an employer includes what I will inevitably owe in income taxes into the wage? I don’t see how that can work.

I don’t agree that the “agreed upon wage” includes some implicit condition that I pay a percentage of it in taxes. If I refuse to pay taxes I don’t owe the employer a percentage of my wage. The exchange of tax between me and the government has nothing to do with the employer.

The government sees what I make in income, it takes a percentage of that income. That’s the exchange.

I certainly ignore the concept of “the Other” and of race, but only because I think they collectivist crutches for people incapable of individuation, who cannot see past their skulls for the things outside of them. Your value for people does not seem to extend beyond your conceptions and categories to real being. I do not ignore, nor cannot ignore, how these ideas are used to justify the nonsense that is the consequence of this thinking.

Just to be clear, I’m not an abolish the government kind of guy. People are too dependent on it, that to abolish it would be cruel. I’m not even into civil disobedience. I much rather make fun of it and let it go it’s own direction. I just think that taxation is immoral and unjust and maybe, even piecemeal, it can become just.

Bear with my layman’s understanding, but in your scenario I would expect the full pay. Income tax and deductions come from my gross income, my full earnings according to the agreed-upon wage multiplied by the sum of hours I work. By “fruits of my labor”, at least as it pertains to this kind of employment, I mean my gross income. If the tax system was abolished I would expect my employer to pay me everything I earned, including the money the government commonly deducts from this exchange.

I say that the gross income is mine because it was traded to me, exchanged, given to me, gifted, for my work.

I’m aware of how the income tax system works. It applies to most forms of income, not just what employers pay in wages. But the question of whose income, properties, sales, estates, inheritances, benefits, money they are taxing is explicitly stated by governments themselves.

Force and confiscation aren’t legitimate forms of acquiring property for me, so reiterating that the state claims a right, therefor it has the right, to the fruits of my labor isn’t good enough for me.

Yeah, I've actually had this exact conversation with @NOS4A2 before. we reached...https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/509272...then Nos walked away unable to defend his position.

I walked away because you’re boring and difficult to read. That’s not something to be proud of.

You've still not provided any grounds on which the money is the property of the tax-payer. I'll ask again, on what grounds is the pre-tax wage your property?

I already did. It was the agreed-upon wage for the labor I provide. On what grounds is it the state’s property?