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IMPORTANT // Please look after your loved ones, yourself and be kind to others. If you are feeling that the world is too hard to handle there is always help - I implore you not to hesitate in contacting one of these wonderful organisations Lifeline and Beyond Blue ... and I'm sure reaching out to our PRE community we will find a way to help. T.
Talking Politics
- Thread starter Legends of 2017
- Start date
Of course you do, because you want to rob them and take the proceeds for your own uses.
Norway as a region has done well with higher livings standards due to the wealth derived from oil production. Relative to somewhere like Venezuela that is also oil rich, they permit a much higher level of economic freedom hence why they are relatively more wealthy. However, the government's actions to expropriate oil profits to themselves has not enhanced the wealth generated from the oil resource, rather it has reduced it. However it has made a select group of people (i.e. Norwegian pensioners) better off at the expense of everyone else at least in the short term. By general impoverishment I mean reduced wealth overall, I don't mean destitution.
I'm quite happy for governments to rob international companies (through taxation or royalties or part-ownership of companies) in return for them extracting the natural resources of that country. I'd be happier if they did it more in Australia - currently we dig big holes in the ground and sell the stuff to China, but we only get the "trickle down" effect of that wealth - the rest goes overseas to Chinese billionaires or into the savings of Twiggy Forrest and Gina R.
Look at Norway - they have universal healthcare, high standard public education, and a robust welfare state. I'd trade it for what we have now.
I see social cooperation all the time.
How do you prove your appropriation anyway? Ooh, I found it, it is mine. But if I don't recognise that then I can just claim to be the first and appropriate away. What are you going to do, I hired a bigger and better legal system so I win.
You really do want to encourage the best in everyone don;t you (sarcasm in case you missed it).
DS
Somehow finding something and claiming it is yours is not robbery?
Seriously?
Farcical.
DS
You should stop saying “we” as in “we dig big holes” etc. You aren’t doing that and you have nothing to do with any of it as far as I can tell. I doubt you’ve even set foot in mining regions. Perhaps you are an owner of BHP shares? What you want to do is try and steal as much as you can from the people that actually do that stuff to fill your own pocket or at least have it directed to uses of your preference. You lament that the profits go to the actual people that have put their money on the line and taken huge risk and not yourself. Seriously wtf?
You want the wealth generated from oil yet you want oil production stopped. Again wtf?
What’s your alternative method to resolve disputes over scarce resources? Oh what’s that? You don’t have one? Then STFU.
Yeah, you want to take things from the rightful owners. You want the government to act on your behalf to take their wealth from them so you can have it instead. You aren’t alone in that, most people share your proclivity to steal.
Yeah that would mean turning your worldview upside down. Too painful to do that.
can you clarify, do you mean all Australian land should be given back to Aboriginal people who owned it before it was forcefully appropriated from them, or do you think they should be paid the current marker rate for that land?
We have very different philosophical positions. I could as you say just abandon mine and switch to yours, whether it would be painful or not is not really important.
You'd have to make a compelling case though, and after all this time I'm still unconvinced.
Remove the problem be getting rid of the farce that is private property.
You know, there is a fundamental difference in our world views.
Both of us can be criticised for having world views which are unrealistic, I accept that, it is a matter of opinion.
You want everything to be property, including air, water, presumably sentient beings which are not human. You say this because you want people to act selfishly. Your world view relies upon appealing to the worst in humans: greed, selfishness to the detriment of others, inequality, no community only individuals etc. It is a dystopia.
I want a world where people share, co-operate, help each other etc. You could call it a utopia.
I sure as hell feel a lot more comfortable arguing for a utopia than a dystopia.
But, that is your choice.
DS
Land should be given back where someone can demonstrate ownership of land before an act of seizure or lineage to those original owners. If no such evidence exists, then ownership should fall to the next best option, the current owners. Everyone on the planet would have ancestors that suffered land theft, for most of them the ownership claim has fallen to antiquity and a firm ownership claim can't be established.
The basic principles are the same rules should apply to all, violence is only justified to defend your property and social relations should be voluntary. Theft doesn't come legitimate because it is performed by a government and they call it tax. Counterfeiting doesn't become legitimate because it is performed by a government agency and they call it monetary policy. Murder doesn't become legitimate because it is performed by a government and they call it foreign policy/war. Kidnapping doesn't become legitimate because it is performed by a government and they call it conscription.
All you have done here is misrepresent my position and failed to provide your alternative method to resolve disputes over resource control. What is your alternative? If people don't share, co-operate, help each other, etc., how are you going to deal with that?
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So if someone wants to bop you on the head, you don't think you're justified in defending yourself? If someone wants to live in your house and prefers that you leave, you don't think you're justified in defending yourself?
