march for the alternative, anti-cuts protest

[Seth]

don't forget to call

they're waiting

http://www.dhs.gov/xutil/contactus.shtm

Remember to tell them how important you are.

Just send me your info, and I'll call them right away.

[Rum]

In a sane world a government would collect tax .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... of-century

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/artic ... _page_id=2

In a sane world, government wouldn't NEED to collect taxes, because it would be so small, and so obviously necessary to the function of society that people would voluntarily donate to support its necessary functions.

If you like police protection, donate to the police fund. If you like having a full-time paid fire department, donate to the fire department. If you need a building permit, you pay for it. If you need a driver's license, you pay for it. If you need to drive to the next town, you pay a toll to do so. If you want a public park in your neighborhood, you donate to a fund for that purpose.

Anything that society really needs government to do will be funded by those who need the service, and those who don't won't have to pay for stuff they neither want nor will make use of.

yeah sure..

[Seth]

I can heartily agree that it's indefensible idiocy to give bonuses, or anything but a termination notice to executives responsible for losing their customer's money, but 375 million is chicken feed and is not representative of the problems in the UK, which are entirely the result of socialist entitlement policies like the NHS.

£375 million of government money (for that is what it is) for a bunch of already wealthy people to piss up the wall as they please is not chicken feed.

Sure it is. Hell, the MegaMillions lottery here on Saturday paid out 319 million dollars. Chicken feed when compared to the 2.25 TRILLION pounds the UK is in debt as of yesterday.

That £375 million would practically wipe out all prescription charges in England, and as someone who had to fork out for prescriptions to stay alive before the charge was removed in Northern Ireland, I can assure you the cost adds up.

Yeah? So? Why is it everybody else's problem to fund your medical prescription needs? Nobody funds my prescriptions but me.

It is completely and utterly shameful that the government has pretty much rolled over and allowed 300 bastards to rob the country when hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of our fellow citizens struggle to pay for health care that could be covered by the money they took.

Oh, I agree, but it's still chicken feed.

That's just one example, and it shows how indefensible that one incident was. But there are loads more examples of billions being pilfered, written off, moved out of the country to tax havens by appalling individuals with the tacit blessing of the powers that be, both Labour and Tory.

If it's "pilfered" it's a crime, and should be prosecuted. If it's "written off" then it's a legal action and none of your business. If it's "move out of the country to tax havens," it's also perfectly legal and indeed a wise thing for anyone with substantial assets to do, given the fact that the socialist swine in the UK are doing everything in their power to simply steal what doesn't belong to them to fund entitlement programs for the idle dependent class. I'd do the same thing. Nobody's required to donate their assets for your pleasure and enjoyment. If the law does not bar them from protecting their assets, they'd be idiots not to. They owe you NOTHING beyond that which is lawfully due.

As for the NHS, you call it a "socialist entitlement policy". Damn right it fucking is, and I couldn't be prouder and happier.

Thieves are always inordinately proud of themselves when they succeed in stealing what doesn't belong to them. Doesn't make it rational, moral or ethical.

I claimed my "socialist entitlement" to an extended life by having life saving surgery in 2008.

Goody for you. Now, please explain to me why your fellow citizens were obligated to put up with you stealing their money, that they need to satisfy their own desires and needs, just so that you can extend your life?

On the same ward as me were 10 other unlucky men (health wise) of all ages, all claiming their "socialist entitlement", all caught by the magnificent safety net created by themselves and their fellow citizens.

My ass. The NHS was created by Parliament, not "the citizens," and it's a perfect example of why those who pay no taxes should never be allowed to vote in national elections. As Alexander Tytler pointed out more than 200 years ago, once the dependent class figures out it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury, it will always elect the politician who promises them the most largesse, and the nation soon fails on loose fiscal policy. That's exactly what's happening in the UK right this very minute. The OPM has run out, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. Enjoy!

The NHS had nothing to do with the global £2 trillion meltdown, but the bastards now paying themselves £375 million did, and the NHS and other excellent "socialist" services will suffer at their expense.

The NHS is one of the primary causes of the UK's unsustainable debt that's 127 percent of GDP. TANSTAFFL.

And if I had to guess, the corruption at the bank is mirrored in the corruption in the government which I'm betting authorized the bonuses.

I don't doubt that at all. In fact corruption with expenses in the UK parliament has been proven on a large scale.

In a truly free market, those executives would have been fired long ago and would not have been protected against the claims of their depositors, who ought to be able to take everthing they own, right down to their underwear, in recompense and punishment for their fraudulent activities.

To say, however, that 323 people are responsible for the UK's economic plight is simply nonsense. Every government and every economy has its fraudsters and cheats, including socialist societies. It's a function of human greed, which happens to be the root evil of socialism as well. Sane societies allow businesses that cannot produce profits to fail, and they utilize the police power of government to ensure that force and fraud are absent from the markets, or are at least controlled and punished, but otherwise they leave the markets alone and allow economic Darwinism to control the outcomes.

Let "economic Darwinism" play out for the game it is, but it should never be allowed to creep and morph in to "social Darwinism". When the bears and bulls fuck up, they should pay up first and foremost every single fucking time.

Yeah, I'm fine with that. Investment is risky, and the gravest mistake that Presidents Bush and Obama made was bailing out people who invested in toxic mortgages. All that TARP money that went to Goldman Sachs and AIG went instantly OUT of the US and into the hands of foreign investors, to cover their losses, which should NEVER have happened. They should have lost their asses, which is the risk they undertook by buying "securitized" mortgage pools.

If any TARP money was to be spent, and the amount that should have been spent ought to have been ZERO, it should have gone towards bringing the mortgages of the actual delinquent homeowners up to date, not bailing out investors in risky investment schemes. But that's not what happened, and THAT is a travesty for which both Bush and Obama ought to have been impeached.

[Seth]

Last I heard Pensioner and his friends had gone shopping in Fortuum and Masons .

For guns?

For a truncheon up the arse, I hope. Anarchists should be shot on sight.

[Seth]

It should be a target for the anarchists. Have you seen the prices they charge!? This is just a small cheese sample, but if you really want to know what bankers spend their bonuses on look at some of the other outrageously expensive stuff here.

http://www.fortnumandmason.com/British-Cheese,1207.aspx

And who MAKES the stuff, pray tell? Is it beyond your understanding that every luxury good that some banker pays through the nose for is the product of the employment of vast numbers of workers who earn wages that keep them under a roof and in food? Can you really be so stupid as to fail to understand that money doesn't just sit under rich people's mattresses and molder away, that it actually circulates in the economy and creates jobs and companies and wealth?

Sheesh. Socialists can be so blindly stupid as to be almost beyond comprehension.

Ya know what happened when Clinton implemented a ruinous luxury tax on luxury yachts and boats made in the US? The US luxury boat-building industry vanished almost overnight, leaving all those tens of thousands of skilled workers without jobs, and the wealthy just bought their boats elsewhere, like Dubai.

[Seth]

What's wrong with these people? They should instead be out dancing in the streets in anticipation of the Royal Wedding! It's too bad in these austere times there'll be no cake for the masses, but wot the hell, there's jolly good fun in trying to guess where the secret Royal Bachelor party will be held.
Party on, folks.

Who makes the cake, the wine, the scotch, the pate, who makes the linens, irons them, lays them out, serves the meal, polishes the silver, drives the limos, cuts the gowns, sews the tuxes, and is employed in all the various and vast numbers of business who supply and cater to such events, hmm? What happens to all those people when the Marxists come marching in, kill the bourgeoisie and pound everyone down into proletarian similitude?

Did you ever pause a moment to consider that?

Fucking economic idiots, socialists.

[Rum]

Last I heard Pensioner and his friends had gone shopping in Fortuum and Masons .

For guns?

For a truncheon up the arse, I hope. Anarchists should be shot on sight.

Except bizarrely, you actually have a lot in common with them. 'Anarchism' in its purest form is quite simply a social system where people organise and cooperate spontaneously without the need for government and hierarchy, where trade is based on mutual need and not the profit motive and where individuals respect each other and are not motivated by the desire to exploit each other. It is not, as the stereotypical image would have it, a chaotic system where everyone is fighting every thing all the time.

Sounds a bit like free enterprise to me.

[Seth]

Out of all the arrests made the vast majority have been charged with "aggravated trespass", an offence specifically introduced to deal with activists and protesters, as a result of their peaceful sit-in for fuck's sake. As for the people dressed as ninjas actually damaging things, it appears most of them got away based on the statement from the police:

Cdr Broadhurst had a message for those who had caused trouble on Saturday: "You haven't got away with it.
"We will be studying all the CCTV, all the stills photography, we will be interviewing people. We will be coming looking for you.
"If you have committed violence or (caused) damage we will be arresting you fairly soon."

"...unless you were wearing a ski mask to frustrate the ability of the facial recognition software to work..." D'oh.

[JimC]

In a sane world a government would collect tax .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... of-century

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/artic ... _page_id=2

In a sane world, government wouldn't NEED to collect taxes, because it would be so small, and so obviously necessary to the function of society that people would voluntarily donate to support its necessary functions.

If you like police protection, donate to the police fund. If you like having a full-time paid fire department, donate to the fire department. If you need a building permit, you pay for it. If you need a driver's license, you pay for it. If you need to drive to the next town, you pay a toll to do so. If you want a public park in your neighborhood, you donate to a fund for that purpose.

Anything that society really needs government to do will be funded by those who need the service, and those who don't won't have to pay for stuff they neither want nor will make use of.

This is as much pure, unadulterated fantasy as its opposite lunacy, doctrinaire marxism...

Luckily, most people live in the real world...

[Pensioner]

Last I heard Pensioner and his friends had gone shopping in Fortuum and Masons .

For guns?

For a truncheon up the arse, I hope. Anarchists should be shot on sight.

Don't project your sexual fantasy onto me Seth my old pal. If you like things up your arse I'm sure some of your right wing christian loony friends would oblige you.

[Seth]

Last I heard Pensioner and his friends had gone shopping in Fortuum and Masons .

For guns?

For a truncheon up the arse, I hope. Anarchists should be shot on sight.

Don't project your sexual fantasy onto me Seth my old pal. If you like things up your arse I'm sure some of your right wing christian loony friends would oblige you.

No, I'd like things to be shoved up the arse of anarchists, particularly those who violently attacked police and damaged private property in London. Violent anarchists should be shot because they are a danger to the community. They do things like commit arson and burn innocent bank workers to death. Anyone with a Molotov cocktail in their possession during a riot should be shot by snipers. Those damaging property should have truncheons shoved up their arses as a deterrent.

Peaceful protests accomplish legitimate political ends. Anarchist riots accomplish nothing positive and cause great harm, and should not be tolerated.

[devogue]

Last I heard Pensioner and his friends had gone shopping in Fortuum and Masons .

For guns?

For a truncheon up the arse, I hope. Anarchists should be shot on sight.

Don't project your sexual fantasy onto me Seth my old pal. If you like things up your arse I'm sure some of your right wing christian loony friends would oblige you.

No, I'd like things to be shoved up the arse of anarchists, particularly those who violently attacked police and damaged private property in London. Violent anarchists should be shot because they are a danger to the community. They do things like commit arson and burn innocent bank workers to death. Anyone with a Molotov cocktail in their possession during a riot should be shot by snipers. Those damaging property should have truncheons shoved up their arses as a deterrent.

Peaceful protests accomplish legitimate political ends. Anarchist riots accomplish nothing positive and cause great harm, and should not be tolerated.

Ireland. Easter 1916.

[Seth]

In a sane world a government would collect tax .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... of-century

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/artic ... _page_id=2

In a sane world, government wouldn't NEED to collect taxes, because it would be so small, and so obviously necessary to the function of society that people would voluntarily donate to support its necessary functions.

If you like police protection, donate to the police fund. If you like having a full-time paid fire department, donate to the fire department. If you need a building permit, you pay for it. If you need a driver's license, you pay for it. If you need to drive to the next town, you pay a toll to do so. If you want a public park in your neighborhood, you donate to a fund for that purpose.

Anything that society really needs government to do will be funded by those who need the service, and those who don't won't have to pay for stuff they neither want nor will make use of.

This is as much pure, unadulterated fantasy as its opposite lunacy, doctrinaire marxism...

Luckily, most people live in the real world...

The only difference between how things are done now and Libertarianism is that one is voluntary and the other is compulsory. There is no evidence that a Libertarian system cannot function effectively, it's more that the existing authoritarian systems, particularly socialist systems, refuse to acknowledge that people can do things cooperatively without government coercion. Instead, the presumption of socialism is that the proletariat must be ruled by an intellectual elite and that people are incapable of doing "the right thing" without government first determining for them what the "right thing" is and forcing them to do it, on pain of severe punishment or death.

Libertarianism values individual liberty and expects people to provide for themselves, but it does not eschew collective action, it merely makes it voluntary, not obligatory.

Most rural communities in the US are very Libertarian when it comes to, for example, fire protection. They don't levy taxes to pay for fire departments, they are all-volunteer and they collect donations, and it works quite well in most places.

Nor does Libertarianism preclude the collection of "taxes," so long as they are only collected from those who have agreed to pay them in advance. Thus, government can send a tax bill for roads or parks or whatever to those who have expressly agreed to pay regularly for those amenities. In return, they get to enjoy the use of those amenities and services without paying a user fee. Those who do not pay in advance, may be assessed a user fee, which can be substantially higher than the "tax." Thus, your ExpressToll device would note your tax-paid use of the highway while another user, who wishes to pay a la carte, gets sent a bill.

This is beneficial to regular commuters who will realize a savings by paying the road tax in advance, while the occasional traveler, or those from out of town, who only use the road once, or a few times, can pay more per trip, but less overall. It allows everyone to pick and choose how they contribute to, in this case, the transportation infrastructure. Everyone who uses it, pays for it, and those who do not use it, don't have to pay.

The same applies to everything else. Police services can be paid for "on retainer" or "a la carte," and the services of the zoning department and building inspectors are paid for by fees on those who develop.

In this way, those who like amenities like parks and libraries and Fourth of July fireworks can pay for them, and those who don't care about or use such amenities don't have to share the burden of paying for that which they do not use.

I see no impediment other than cultural bias to such a system.

[Seth]

Ireland. Easter 1916.

The Easter Rebellion was hardly an anarchist riot, now was it? Anarchists, you see, aren't rioting FOR anything. They are not trying to accomplish positive change, they are merely trying to destroy things, and as such they have no legitimacy and should not be tolerated.

[devogue]

Ireland. Easter 1916.

The Easter Rebellion was hardly an anarchist riot, now was it?

Oh, the Rising was definitely seen by a great many people as an "anarchist riot" against the powers that be. After the volunteers surrendered they were pelted with rubbish, spat upon, verbally abused and in some cases actually had to be protected from the Dublin public by their captors. Only after the British treated them so harshly did public opinion change. The volunteers of 1916 are now revered in Ireland as legends - their violence against the machine of the state was not in vain.

Anarchists, you see, aren't rioting FOR anything. They are not trying to accomplish positive change, they are merely trying to destroy things, and as such they have no legitimacy and should not be tolerated.

Their violence was aimed against very specific, high profile corporate targets, and these were featured prominently in the news. I think that people were pissed off about the G20 riots and the like in the past, but this was different. There will be a lot of underlying sympathy for the people who trashed parts of London.