POLITICS SCHMALITICS

[pfife]

I remember the great tater transformation from libertarianism and the australian school.  Good move man.

Edited December 14, 2021 by pfife

[chasfh]

A "neighborhood association" in Chicago is hiring "armed private security officers" to provide extralegal "nightly patrols", where it is left up to the “off-duty police officer” and “their years of training” as to what to do if they happen across a crime being committed, while the board members of the association are being intentionally cagey and providing few details about how the patrol would work.

What could possibly go wrong?

 

 

[Tigerbomb13]

3 hours ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

I passed through that phase of my life. When I was in college and after graduation I went through my Ron Paul/libertarian phase. For me it was about 07-2013ish. I was a big Ron Paul fan back in 2008 and 2012 and voted for him in both primaries. I still respect the guy for his honesty, opposition to the Iraq War, opposition to the Patriot Act/domestic spying, and a few other issues I agree with him on. I've read all the libertarian authors and political commentators too from Ayn Rand to Fredrich Hayek to Ludwig Von Miss to Milton Friedman to Murray Rothbard. I used to read all the think tank publications too like Cato, Mises Institute, Reason Magazine, and Heartland.

What got me off the libertarian wagon though was related to what happened to my dad. When he lost his house to foreclosure during the recession and when he came clean to be about being joke broke, I couldn't sit there and continue railing against the very social programs and safety nets that were keeping him subsisting (Social Security, Medicare, and VA Assistance). Government money was the only thing keeping food on my dad's table, clothes on his back, and giving him the medical care/prescriptions he needed to live. How could I be so strident against the very social welfare that was keeping him alive and was keeping him from not having to live with my sister or I?

The other thing that really worked for me is that I left the vortex of libertarian media and the libertarian echo chambers online and in research. Instead of sitting there sifting through Reason Magazine articles and Cato research all day I forced myself to listen to other points of view, hear out other people (most notably my own mother whose always been a progressive), watch other sources for my daily news, research opposing view points, and just take a cruise around Metro Detroit to see how others outside of the middle class enclaves of Canton Michigan actually live.

The thing about libertarianism is, when you leave no checks and balances in place, when you strip away all regulations and you rely solely on the nature of others to do good in a situation, you create chaos and destruction. What libertarianism doesn't or refuses to account for in the bad nature of others. That bad and unethical behaviors like callousness, greed, manipulation, selfishness do exists and without proper controls placed on those behaviors, they will run roughshod over people all in the name of self interest. Whether that self interest is that of a company trying to maximize its profits or someone refusing to look out and take care of their fellow human being. Libertarianism in some cases makes false assumptions that people will naturally do good because it is in their own self interest to do so. In other instances, like Ayn Rand and her sociopathic theory of objectivism, doing good for others or caring for those around you matters not. In Rand's case, only looking out for yourself and treating yourself as the king above all else, breeds a degree of selfishness and greed that is downright destructive to people and the planet.

Besides, who wants to live in a world where you're stepping over bodies and walking around a burning planet all so you can maximize your own gratification and self interests for a short amount of time. Life is about far more than that and there is a certain nobility and positive impact you get to make in life by being a caring, compassionate, kind, selfless human being.

This is extremely well put, and is exactly why I’ve always been adverse to this ideology. Humans are in general are not selfless enough for Libertarianism to ever work. 

[romad1]

1 hour ago, pfife said:

I remember the great tater transformation from libertarianism and the australian school.  Good move man.

Australian School!

[gehringer_2]

10 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Australian School!

Sure. In Australian school economics inflation makes your money swirl down the drain counterclockwise.

[romad1]

19 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Sure. In Australian school economics inflation makes your money swirl down the drain counterclockwise.

In Austria they do a lot of “no kangaroos in Austria” humor

[chasfh]

16 hours ago, chasfh said:

A "neighborhood association" in Chicago is hiring "armed private security officers" to provide extralegal "nightly patrols", where it is left up to the “off-duty police officer” and “their years of training” as to what to do if they happen across a crime being committed, while the board members of the association are being intentionally cagey and providing few details about how the patrol would work.

What could possibly go wrong?

 

 

BTW just looked this up on neighborhoodscout.com, and the neighborhood in question here is literally in the top ten percent of safest neighborhoods in Chicago. So not sure what this "neighborhood association" is trying to put across with this effort ...

[oblong]

Well you see the black guy was walking down the street and off duty officer Max asked him some questions, the black guy didn't know his place and refused to answer to a private citizen, as is his right, and things got messy, and the black guy is dead.  What are you gonna do?  These things happen.

 

 

[Mr.TaterSalad]

[Mr.TaterSalad]

22 hours ago, pfife said:

I remember the great tater transformation from libertarianism and the australian school.  Good move man.

Life throws things at you and it gives you choices. How could I sit there and watch my dad lose his home and literally live off of government-sponsored programs and still go on about the very programs keeping him subsisting. The other thing that was really important for me was getting outside the echo chamber of libertarian/right wing media and the group think that comes along with any ideology or form of indoctrination.

The echo chamber effect hurts people on both sides of the aisle and cuts through all political ideologies to be sure. That said, the amount of misinformation, disinformation, straight up lies, and meaningless anecdotes that seem to get spread in the right wing/far right echo chambers seems to be far worse and far more damaging to the individuals exposed to it than those on on the left/far left. Getting out of the echo chamber and allowing myself to gather news and information from a new host of sources, allowing myself to go out there in the real world and see how others live, those were important for my own personal growth and ability to make different choices.

When you watch Fox News/OAN every single night, read Breitbart articles, and listen to right wing talk radio all day you aren't doing your own research and information gathering, you are merely regurgitating what you heard or saw that day without any critical thinking involved. The same can be said if you sit around and watch MSNBC, Vice News, read the New York Times, and listen to Pod Save America. The key difference that even though these news sources (MSNBC, NYT, Vice, Pod) may get details incorrect from time to time or offer a slanted opinion on something, they aren't outright lying or manufacturing a story to drum up fear or fake outrage.

I'm somewhat of a unique case in that I did escape the right wing/libertarian echo chamber. Thanks to years of Republican misinformation, Trump, Fox News, right wing talk radio, social media, attacks on academia and school teachers, cuts to public education, and a lack of critical think skills being taught in schools many will be unable to escape. It's a phenomenon that is dragging this entire country down. On a global scale you've seen entire countries like Belarus, Hungry, Russia, and Poland across Eastern Europe get drug into the same far right vortex.

Edited December 15, 2021 by Mr.TaterSalad

[shabba4detroit]

18 minutes ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

The key difference that even though these news sources (MSNBC, NYT, Vice, Pod) may get details incorrect from time to time or offer a slanted opinion on something, they aren't outright lying or manufacturing a story to drum up fear or fake outrage.

This is where you lost me.   Stories on the leftward slant get fabricated all the time.  But mostly it's content from commentators that are mistaken as news.  (Both Tucker C. and Rachel M. aren't reporting news -- this fact is lost on too many people, both detractors and supporters alike.)

 

[buddha]

10 hours ago, chasfh said:

BTW just looked this up on neighborhoodscout.com, and the neighborhood in question here is literally in the top ten percent of safest neighborhoods in Chicago. So not sure what this "neighborhood association" is trying to put across with this effort ...

when is the last time you were in bucktown?

my friend owns a bar on milwaukee near the six corners of milwaukee/damen/north.  people come and shut down the street on weekends.  just park their cars in the middle of the street and shut the whole intersection down for hours.  local business leaders met with the cops who told them they could identify some of the biggest gang members in chicago there at the time.  a couple weeks later there was a big driveby shooting right outside the bar.  my buddy was also shot coming home from the bar a couple years ago.

bucktown can get sketch at night.  especially on the weekends.

and have you seen what's going on in lincoln park and lakeview?  robberies are up tremendously over last year.  i dont know why youre so blase about it.

[buddha]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/chicago.suntimes.com/platform/amp/crime/2021/10/10/22719077/wicker-park-shooting

https://www.google.com/amp/s/chicago.suntimes.com/platform/amp/crime/2021/6/20/22542423/karina-paredes-killed-bucktown-shooting

https://www.google.com/amp/s/chicago.cbslocal.com/2021/09/29/ariola-family-bucktown-carjacking-shooting/%3famp

i guess if you look at the whole city and realize crime is up everywhere you can convince yourself that bucktown is "safe" and laugh at people concerned with crime and call them racists, but i'm not sure that would be an accurate portrayal of what is happening at the moment.

i mean, you sort of scoffed at me when i told oblong that downtown was a little rougher than it used to be, and then in the next week police arrested a bunch of people with a car load of guns across the street from the hotel he's staying at and then a group of teens ransacked downtown, pulled a bus driver from a cta bus and beat the shit out of him right in front of the bean with traffic everywhere.  cta bus drivers protested downtown last weekend because there have been so many incidents of them being assaulted lately.

i guess if you think that's ok, or a one off, or what happens in big cities, but i dont.  chicago is undergoing a big crime surge for whatever reason, and it is not restricted to the south or west sides.

[buddha]

https://cwbchicago.com/2021/12/armed-men-rob-at-least-13-people-across-north-side-including-a-group-of-8-victims-who-were-walking-in-lakeview.html

13 people mugged in lakeview in one night.

https://cwbchicago.com/2021/12/amazon-truck-hijacked-in-lakeview-one-day-after-armed-men-confronted-an-amazon-driver-in-boystown.html

right in front of my friend's million dollar house.  the same friend who had someone try to carjack him in his garage a couple months before.

https://cwbchicago.com/2021/12/thieves-confront-diners-at-roscoe-village-restaurant-getting-away-with-wallets-and-purse-cpd-report-says.html

at le sud in roscoe village.  they walked into the restaurant and just mugged people and then left.

is that ok?  is that safe?  i would argue things are getting a bit out of hand, even in the safer neighborhoods in town.

[Motown Bombers]

I could have sworn they tore down some statues in Chicago. That didn't work? Next time a bus driver is getting beat up, be sure to call in the social workers. 

[mtutiger]

Interesting stuff

[smr-nj]

Wow!

[CMRivdogs]

The guy still gets shit from telling us to stop whining and wear a sweater if your cold....

[buddha]

1 hour ago, Motown Bombers said:

I could have sworn they tore down some statues in Chicago. That didn't work? Next time a bus driver is getting beat up, be sure to call in the social workers. 

the mayor of san francisco of all places just came out and gave a big anti crime speech and is requesting more money for police officers.  saying they've been too easy on criminals and its time for tough love. 

the former mayor of philly just came out and said woke white people's racism is abetting crime in black neighborhoods with their soft on crime stances.  so the tide may be turning as democrat mayors realize people are pissed about crime in their expensive city neighborhoods.

chicago has 821 murders this year.  more than new york.  more than los angeles.  that should be unacceptable for politicians in charge of the city.  

[pfife]

8 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

The guy still gets shit from telling us to stop whining and wear a sweater if your cold....

GOP creating manufactroversies way back in the 70s even

[CMRivdogs]

Since the Dixiecrats bought into the "Southern Strategy" and became Republicans.  

[chasfh]

On 12/15/2021 at 9:00 AM, oblong said:

Well you see the black guy was walking down the street and off duty officer Max asked him some questions, the black guy didn't know his place and refused to answer to a private citizen, as is his right, and things got messy, and the black guy is dead.  What are you gonna do?  These things happen.

 

 

This is exactly right. What do these vigilantes expect to be doing? When these armed paid rent a cops don’t come across all the muggings in the street and the rapes in the street and the murders in the street they hope to see so they can fulfill their dreams of becoming Dirty Harrys, what are they going to spend their time doing? You’ve given us a pretty good idea of that.

I don’t care how many anecdotes of three-in-the-morning shootings and my buddy’s bars and stories from CWB Chicago (lol) people post, I will never think it’s a good idea to hire an armed crypto-fascist vigilante force accountable to no one but themselves and the few people who pay them, driving around looking for situations—or non-situations—to involve themselves in. And that goes double in a neighborhood that is as safe as many suburbs and who are hired by people who intentionally dodge questions about exactly what are these guys’ qualifications and who the people hiring them are in the forest place. Talk about sketchy!

[buddha]

an armed security force of off duty cops?  nothing wrong with that when youre facing drive by shootings and shutting down north/milwaukee/damen on saturday nights after hours.  its like a neighborhood watch group.

of course, if youre uninformed about what's happening in those areas, you probably think nothing is amiss about 57 carjackings in december this year as opposed to 37 last year and 7 in 2019.  nothing to see here.

 

[buddha]

13 minutes ago, chasfh said:

This is exactly right. What do these vigilantes expect to be doing? When these armed paid rent a cops don’t come across all the muggings in the street and the rapes in the street and the murders in the street they hope to see so they can fulfill their dreams of becoming Dirty Harrys, what are they going to spend their time doing? You’ve given us a pretty good idea of that.

I don’t care how many anecdotes of three-in-the-morning shootings and my buddy’s bars and stories from CWB Chicago (lol) people post, I will never think it’s a good idea to hire an armed crypto-fascist vigilante force accountable to no one but themselves and the few people who pay them, driving around looking for situations—or non-situations—to involve themselves in. And that goes double in a neighborhood that is as safe as many suburbs and who are hired by people who intentionally dodge questions about exactly what are these guys’ qualifications and who the people hiring them are in the forest place. Talk about sketchy!

"people post."  you can say my name, i'm a big boy.

what's wrong with cwb?

[chasfh]

35 minutes ago, buddha said:

an armed security force of off duty cops?  nothing wrong with that when youre facing drive by shootings and shutting down north/milwaukee/damen on saturday nights after hours.  its like a neighborhood watch group.

of course, if youre uninformed about what's happening in those areas, you probably think nothing is amiss about 57 carjackings in december this year as opposed to 37 last year and 7 in 2019.  nothing to see here.

 

Uninformed, am !?

You want information? OK, here's information.

There are about 7,000 people who live in the area these vigilantes want to patrol. For the year ending December 8, there were a grand total of 61 reported crimes that could be considered violent, including robbery, aggravated assault and battery, simple assault and battery, and two sexual assaults. There were no homicides. For the entire year.

Of those 61 incidents, 27 of them took place inside residences, schools, bars/tavern, inside stores, and restaurants--in other words, off the streets and out of view of patrols.

That leaves 34 violent crimes out of doors for a heavily populated area for an entire year, fewer than three per month. All this information is public, free of charge, downloadable, and available here: https://data.cityofchicago.org/Public-Safety/Crimes-Map/dfnk-7re6

And for that, a shadowy group of individual going to hire a bunch of unvetted people, unaccountable to the city or taxpayers, allow them to take their guns onto the streets, and tell them to do ... what? Stop people walking around? Based on what?

You can like that idea if you want. I don't.