Why is ATS so Right Wing?

originally posted by: theultimatebelgianjoke
a reply to: ketsuko

How is lobbying, public funding ?

Lobbying is not public funding.

Someone suggested we end all public funding of campaigns which is what I was addressing. Any money that does not come from tax dollars is private funding. So if you end all private funding of campaigns, you lock out even the small single person donors and only allow government tax dollar sources. This mean that only government monies can go into campaigns which could become very skewed against anyone trying to break in from outside the incumbent structure, especially as it would also disallow personal funds as those are also private.

Lobbying is whole different ball of wax.

originally posted by: theultimatebelgianjoke
a reply to: ketsuko

So Dick Cheney is doing business when invading Irak ?

No he is giving Freebumd and Duhmocary as charitable donations.

originally posted by: crazyewok

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: crazyewok

Blackwater is a business. It is not the military arm of another business. There is a difference.

BULL #!

Its a business that owns a army s and whores itself out to fight in what ever ME war the USA has got itself into.

As hell has have a history of atrocity's and crimes against it.


The fact is its a group of trained solders with guns, that makes it a army and army under private control.


You just talking in semantics.

No I am not.

The conversation was around businesses also having their own armies. Blackwater's business is to be an army. It sells itself to others as that security force.

The conversation is about a company also having its own army. This would be like SONY having its own private security force as well-trained and armed as Blackwater so that it wouldn't need to hire Blackwater to carry out specialized security operations or it could exact military style retribution at a whim.

As it stands, SONY does not have that without hiring Blackwater, and Blackwater has no reason to exist unless it gets contracts from others in order to stay in business.

a reply to: ketsuko

Hence the benefits of considering, from time to time, the virtues of a form of regulation without automatically considering that it is tyranny : If taxes have to be accounted for all the funding or avoided, given the spectacular rise in campaign budgets over the recent years, it would be worth imposing a limit.
You don't want all your taxes to aired in political ad campaigns and you have better charity options to consider rather than political funding. The third way is more personal involvement into politics.

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: theultimatebelgianjoke
a reply to: ketsuko

How is lobbying, public funding ?

Lobbying is not public funding.

Someone suggested we end all public funding of campaigns which is what I was addressing. Any money that does not come from tax dollars is private funding. So if you end all private funding of campaigns, you lock out even the small single person donors and only allow government tax dollar sources. This mean that only government monies can go into campaigns which could become very skewed against anyone trying to break in from outside the incumbent structure, especially as it would also disallow personal funds as those are also private.

Lobbying is whole different ball of wax.

And if you look at there CEO's and chairmans they are linked to a small circle of other business and worse ex politicians.
Ex politician that should be strung up for war profiteering.

a reply to: Spider879

They can and sometimes do it's called Oligarchy in some forms and fascist in other. The Dutch East India company had it's own military,laws and police force, and so did a lot of other mercantile companies, heck some would even argue the Military Industrial Complex is such.

Soooo, what's the common denominator?

a reply to: thesearchfortruth

First off we need to stop measuring political standings on just an x axis. The whole you're either left or right. Conservative or Liberal. I noticed you said many here are Republicans when in fact a more accurate label would be "Libertarian" which embraces freedom economically and socially. Which is why Rand Paul came out as No. 1 In the ATS straw poll. The "Libertarian" standing among others doesn't fit on the traditional X axis.

People on ATS naturally have a distrust of Government which may appear "Conservative" but really is just the biggest target for conspiracies. People on ATS tend to value freedom and truth. The biggest opposition to these values is Government. I don't think most people here truly buy into the traditional parties. I for one don't and will cringe next election when Hillary or Jeb is elected.

I've always wondered what limits a PMC like the infamous "Blackwater" would have imposed upon it. Could it buy Abrams tanks and Striker vehicles? Could it buy the same military grade hardware that our military industrial complex companies produce and export? Apache helicopters?

I mean, if we can sell Jordan F-16's, could Blackwater buy some?

And, what kind of paperwork does an outfit like Blackwater have to have in order to buy military-grade gear? Can anyone just start up their own private army and buy whatever they want? How does this work?

originally posted by: theultimatebelgianjoke
a reply to: ketsuko

Hence the benefits of considering, from time to time, the virtues of a form of regulation without automatically considering that it is tyranny : If taxes have to be accounted for all the funding or avoided, given the spectacular rise in campaign budgets over the recent years, it would be worth imposing a limit.
You don't want all your taxes to aired in political ad campaigns and you have better charity options to consider rather than political funding. The third way is more personal involvement into politics.

I have never said we should eliminate ALL regulation, but I have constantly said that there are too many regulations.

The more regulations you add, the more chances there are to create loopholes and exploits. Ways for the players in the game to work the system in ways advantageous to themselves to the detriment of others. If you have ever played a game with a TON of rules, then you know what I am talking about. Laws are no different and regulations are simply little laws.

The fewer they are and the clearer they are, the harder it is for them to be worked to any one person's advantage and to the detriment of the rest. But we live in a system now where we have far too many of them. We need to clean house and strip it to bare bones. Adding in more rules on the system we have won't help.

a reply to: ketsuko

The various deregulations planned by the GOP are likely to benefit those who don't really need it. Meanwhile for those who have expectations ... at their level ...

What is your point-of-view on the recent US end to the war on drug around Marijuana ?
I think it's a very good thing IMO.

a reply to: ketsuko

That's not how it works.

I see no problem if the average joe can't financially support a candidate.

Here is how it works in countries without private funding.

Anyone with enough signatures can start a party. Then he gets the same funding as any party for his campaign, as determined by the law. The system works, just you are not familiar with it.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: thesearchfortruth

Scientific answer which you may or may not be willing to accept: When dealing with a fairly even mix of left, right, and center members such as ATS has, perception of site bias may be little more than a solid measuring stick of where you, yourself stand.

I accepted years ago that I am far enough to the 'Conservative Anarchist' side that most of ATS appears pretty damn liberal to me. I have no reason to believe that the reverse of that is true for those who are far to the left. By definition of "fringe" those who reside there are going to find a lot more points of disagreement with the majority than those who reside nearer to middle ground find.

I am a left-of-center liberal...I believe in the second amendment, I was PO'ed at bill Clinton for signing onto the GATT and the NAFTA agreements, also, for the signing into law that eliminated the Glass-Steagall act of 1933,...(banks can't use checking deposits for their own personal investments)...www.nerdwallet.com...
I support the constitution, although I'm am more worried about the 1st, 4th, 5th, 7th amendments than the 2nd, which seems to get most of the attention on ATS....
[snip]

having said all that...there are socially compassionate conservatives that want to control taxes and regulations, but, do not want millions of poor people living in shanty towns, with a crap job, with no hope of having a decent life. there are also greedy I-got-mine-the-hell-with-you liberals that are 2-faced to the "regular joe" while sympathizing with them at the same time......the problem as I see it, is the absolute control of the federal government by the wealthy and corporate, regardless of their political affiliation.

It's political mindsets. The American left is a top down. If someone in power says something, they believe it. With little or no verification. The American right is down up. If someone in power says it, they want to verify it.

It's the same when you look at donations from Americans. The right donates more to charity because they believe that people, not government should help people. People on the American left, personally donate less, but they want the government to donate more.

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: JUhrman

originally posted by: LewsTherinThelamon
Which would be a good thing. With no government those corporations can't stop me from starting competing businesses.

But you already can?

Good luck fighting megacorps in an unregulated distopian hell.

Without governments nothing prevents them from burning your business, buying your associates, killing you and selling your wife as slave.

Also the US will never be a true democracy as long as corruption is legal.

No, without RULE of LAW all of that happens.

Government and rule of law are not the same thing.

Plenty of places have government but do not have rule of law.

But you have no laws without government and the guy I replied to said he wanted a society without government. Probably a true anarchist. The kind of things angry psychpathic teenagers believe in before they get older.

a reply to: JUhrman

What I really said : end the private funding of campaigns (corruption) and regulate lobbyism to make it transparent.

This is obviously done through the government.

Yes, I know, that's why I said that this is your logic:

"Governments are bought by corporations so we need government to protect us from government being bought from corporations"

^your logic.

Just you will have to face intense lobbying from corporate criminals to prevent it from happening.

Or, government will just take bribes from behind closed doors.

a reply to: theultimatebelgianjoke

Lobbying ... A subtle form of decriminalized corruption.

Yep. But, that's what happens when you create a monopoly of power.

If you abolish the monopoly, you don't have that problem anymore.

Which side of the US politics is the most likely to support - and get their financing - from the big lobby ?

Both.

a reply to: LewsTherinThelamon

Which is criminal. Yeah, if I can choose I prefer when corruption remains criminal instead of institutionalized.

And I never said I want rid of lobbying. Only to make it more transparent than today. If corporations don't want their lobbying public, they will have to choose the criminal way indeed.

a reply to: crazyewok

Yes black water or whatever name it goes by now.

Blackwater is a private security firm, not a military.

If I don't like the US military, I can't fight them, I'll be hung for treason.

I could start my own private security firm and fight Blackwater, though. Or, hire security from a competing firm to fight Blackwater.

The difference between government and corporations is competition. A government is an absolute monopoly on power with no competition.

Blackwater is a single company that has to compete with other securities firms.

If you abolish government, you disband the monoply which allows the military to be broken-up into numerous, competing security firms--instead of one military supported with by idiots with empty ideas like patriotism.

a reply to: LewsTherinThelamon

When the monopoly of power is granted through money, you can hardly consider abolishing money.
Hence the need in this case of more transparency first and also probably consider the establishment of a limit.

Washington and Brussels have one thing in common : they are probably the two cities in the world that are the most haunted by lobbyists.

Why are you surprised? ATS attracts original thinkers, those who value independence, and those who distrust "groupthink". How would you expect the legions of politically correct parrots, who fancy themselves to be liberals, to be attracted to such a site?