MeanMrMustard

Joined

• started 67 topics
• posted 3,909 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by MeanMrMustard

• 
  97

  Removing Mr. Trump from office.....

  by mikeflood in

  1. social
  2. current

  former fbi deputy director mccabe confirms: there were discussions within the department of justice about invoking 25 th amendment to remove trump from office.... .

  i mean the us democracy isn't a third world country, a least the people involved should be reprimanded, they acted like trying a coup d'etat..

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  MeanMrMustard

  @Della:

  Jamal Khashoggi was not a US citizen. What do you think should have occurred? A war perhaps?
  
• 
  97

  Removing Mr. Trump from office.....

  by mikeflood in

  1. social
  2. current

  former fbi deputy director mccabe confirms: there were discussions within the department of justice about invoking 25 th amendment to remove trump from office.... .

  i mean the us democracy isn't a third world country, a least the people involved should be reprimanded, they acted like trying a coup d'etat..

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  MeanMrMustard

  @Spoletta:

  Criteria for mentally unfit? The last 2 years.

  There you go. How is it you have the testicles to level these claims at the "usual suspects"? Completely unreasonable.
  
  
• 
  97

  Removing Mr. Trump from office.....

  by mikeflood in

  1. social
  2. current

  former fbi deputy director mccabe confirms: there were discussions within the department of justice about invoking 25 th amendment to remove trump from office.... .

  i mean the us democracy isn't a third world country, a least the people involved should be reprimanded, they acted like trying a coup d'etat..

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  MeanMrMustard

  Since the 25th Amendment was enacted to remove incapacitated or mentally unfit Presidents...

  This is where the fudging takes place. What do you mean by "mentally unfit"? The Amendment doesn't use this phrase. What is the criteria for "mentally unfit"?
  
  
• 
  97

  Removing Mr. Trump from office.....

  by mikeflood in

  1. social
  2. current

  former fbi deputy director mccabe confirms: there were discussions within the department of justice about invoking 25 th amendment to remove trump from office.... .

  i mean the us democracy isn't a third world country, a least the people involved should be reprimanded, they acted like trying a coup d'etat..

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  MeanMrMustard

  Bringing it back to the OP:

  The 25th Amendment, section 4, wasn't meant to address policy disagreements, or even crimes. It was written and ratified to bring some clarity around a President that is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office" and yet is unwilling or unable to transfer authority to the Vice President.

  This DOES NOT apply to Trump. It applies to Presidents that are not capable of making decisions, unable to discharge the duties of the office. A policy disagreement, a disagreement over a decision, or even crimes, does not apply here. Even if you think Trump obstructed justice when he fired Comey (he didn't, but even if you think he did), this does not apply. If you really, really think he committed a crime, then the appropriate process is impeachment.

  But it gets worse when you look at what exactly he thought constituted justification to use the 25th - namely, the firing of Comey. This was not only well within his ability to do so, without dispute, and a good decision, and was NOT obstruction (what did he obstruct?), it was actually an exercise of his authority. In other words, he was discharging the powers and duties of his office, directly refuting the applicability of the 25th Amendment here.
• 
  14

  Who Really Controls the Governing Body

  by LevelThePlayingField in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  since we neither can handle a challenge to god's power nor change the actual processes he has in place for the salvation of men, we will influence the men at our disposal.

  we will use these men to formulate a religion and establish doctrines that heap reproach and shame to the very processes god has in place for salvation.

  we'll establish our own process.. we’ll inspire men to change the bible and make it their own bible.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  MeanMrMustard

  The GB is controlled by The Kerfuffles - an elite group of deadly JWs, with ties into every government agency. They track all communication for active, inactive, and former JWs. Even this site.
• 
  121

  What Are Your Rights?

  by Simon in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  rights seem to be everywhere nowadays.

  say hello to someone in the wrong way and you've violated 101 of their human rights.

  people imagine they have the right to all sorts of things - food, healthcare, housing, internet ... so many things are labelled basic rights and then you get onto their human rights - a favourite of the do-nothing bodies such as the un to declare.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  MeanMrMustard

  @Spoletta:

  I'll start at the end. You said:
  

  You are very articulate, obviously intelligent, probably well educated, either through schooling or private study, so you should be able to answer the question without the use of other's words.
  I look forward to your reply.

  Do you think my previous responses were written by someone else? I spent a great deal of time explaining the distinctions (so that we can be very clear thinkers) around the topic of rights and obligations. I did this because you asked, and because you said that you were "sincere". Quoting a source is not answering with the "use of other's words", especially if the very topic in question was the viewpoint of the individuals quoted. These responses are my own, and I will draw on facts. Facts matter. They will be cited.
  

  You do realize, that in the United States, people have been lifted out of poverty in a large measure due to the activities of liberals?

  I disagree. I think you have it exactly backwards. Brace for impact because here comes some charts. Here is a common povery rate chart, from census.gov:
  

  
  

  This chart seems to bolster your view. Before the Great Society, there was the New Deal, and look at that drop! Now zoom out a bit (chart from the World Bank)

  
  

  See the problem? The free market was bringing down poverty rapidly long before any of the interventions you reference. From this viewpoint, it seems to level off right around the mid 1930s, right around the time New Deal came into view. The historical decline in poverty didn't happen because of "liberal" policies. It happened in spite of "liberal" policies.

  In the early 20th century, at a time when philanthropy by private individuals, family, churches and charities (the libertarian idea of the best way to help the poor) were the only options for aid, the rates of extreme poverty were magnitudes higher than today.

  Yes, they were higher than today - because it has been coming down since then. But please reference the chart above. It takes time for capital accumulation and production to improve the standard of living. You can't compare the poverty level 100 years ago to today in absolute terms and conclude your statement above. Also, the poverty level of the 20th century wasn't due to a lack of charity. Charity was alive and well before the government took it over.
  

  At the end of the 19th century, we were much closer to a libertarian society than we are today. At one time, before we had entitlements, there were large numbers of people living on the streets of New York's Bowery. Were they too lazy to better themselves, could they all, by dint of hard work and entrepreneurial savvy, become wealthy?

  There are people living in the streets today. Have you seen San Francisco lately? There are actual phone apps for San Francisco that tell you where the drugs needles and human feces are located. Do you think San Francisco is a bastion of Libertarian policy?

  In the end, the problem with your line of reasoning is you are giving the market's credit to government entitlements. This is a myth. The market works, always has, always will - as long as rights and freedom are preserved. It is not uncommon for the government to swoop in at the end, enact a government program (and usually not by public demand, usually by small statist activists that "sell" it), and then take credit for it. I mean, look at your statement above. You think the government is responsible for the market's success.
  

  I never see libertarians like Ron Paul advocate everyone starting from scratch, each with the same resources, property, and education. It's more like, "let's live under Libertarian principles starting right now!" while retaining all the property and advantages they've accrued up till this moment.

  Why do you think a Libertarian should advocate for 1) confiscating everyone's resources and then 2) reallocated them to then 3) start over? You don't think that if you confiscated the capital of even local businesses, you would .. you know... perhaps destroy the business entirely?
  

  You point out the many failures of Socialism, while never giving any examples of the successes of pure Libertarian societies. And why is that?

  "Pure" Libertarianism would require you to define what "Pure" Libertarianism means, and we already went over the fact that it is a spectrum. What I'm talking about here is having a functioning market. One of the things that underpins a market is private property rights. Private property rights are derived from natural rights.

  If you remember, from the first post that started our exchange, the paper Mises wrote was to logically demonstrate why a total Socialist society (public ownership of the means of production) would fail, even granting the crazy assertion that human nature can change. He concluded there would be no way to objectively allocate resources. It would be arbitrary, and the economy would quickly fall apart. This has been demonstrably true. Some attempts last a while because, **and only because**, the socialist regime decides to keep aspects of the market economy, or they can reference prices from neighboring countries. In other words, they can "play market".
  

  The closer you get to a market economy, the more prosperous. The farther away, the more extreme the resource mis-allocation will be. As you say, this country was much more "Libertarian" near its inception. Now, please reference the previous chart.
  

  Whereas Socialism seems appealing in many ways, most would agree that it requires a mix of some socialist ideas with capitalism, to achieve a fair balance. Despite your declarations of doom, countries with such socialist ideas as free healthcare and education, haven't fallen into ruin. You proclaiming they're on the slippery slope to total collapse doesn't make it so.

  I have outlined objective reasons why Socialism fails. Each and every country in history to try a largely socialistic economy has failed, and the failure was never pretty. It many cases it was slow decline into starvation and death, enforced by people not so different than our current "leftist" party. It doesn't matter what "most would agree" upon. This, too, is a logical fallacy. Mises also wrote about the nature of socialism to "creep" along. Once you introduce it into an industry, even in small amounts, it will inevitably cause resource mis-allocation problems (per his previous treatise). This will cause a measure of pain and suffering, suffering that the government will gladly attribute to the market and proudly answer with a new government program. But of course, this causes more problems. More unforeseen, unintended consequences. This has been the pattern throughout history. Admittedly those "balanced" societies will maintain their current standard of living as long as they don't let socialism creep any further. Of course, they would do much better if they rolled it back. The US is NOT going the right way. We have crazy socialists (actual declared socialists) pushing a "Green New Deal". All the while, the social Marxists are attempting to undermine/conflate fundamental rights with entitlements, topping it off with a creamy helping of attempted hate speech laws.
  

  Without making me wade through hours of tedious, biased videos, and hundreds of pages of charts, diagrams and theoretical opinions. can you, in your own words, explain why no one has attempted setting up a pure Libertarian society, or, if they have, what was the result?

  I am a "minarchist" Libertarian. The US was, at one time, pretty close to this. (See chart above)
  

  
  
• 
  18

  Bombshell: Walls closing in; Beginning of the end!

  by betterdaze in

  1. social
  2. humour

  sorry to let you down but it's not the watchtower.

  .

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjuvfzj-fm0.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  MeanMrMustard

  @Della: Just wondering, are you suggesting that Congress should take over the executive branch?
• 
  121

  What Are Your Rights?

  by Simon in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  rights seem to be everywhere nowadays.

  say hello to someone in the wrong way and you've violated 101 of their human rights.

  people imagine they have the right to all sorts of things - food, healthcare, housing, internet ... so many things are labelled basic rights and then you get onto their human rights - a favourite of the do-nothing bodies such as the un to declare.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  MeanMrMustard

  Why is disagreement a problem? Seriously, we have one side that can’t seem to comprehend the difference between rights and entitlements, the economic effects of blurring those lines, and the immorality of the socialist redistributive mindset. The divide between each “side” is getting wider because for the most part we’ve reached the end. You can’t compromise anymore. We are at the point where “being able to agree on certain things” means giving up the fundamental definition of rights that has been the bedrock or the entire western world, the entire economic system that has brought people out of poverty in any meaningful way. So really, why is “agreement” any sort of standard by which we would judge political success?
• 
  18

  Bombshell: Walls closing in; Beginning of the end!

  by betterdaze in

  1. social
  2. humour

  sorry to let you down but it's not the watchtower.

  .

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjuvfzj-fm0.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  MeanMrMustard

  Honestly, I would love an impeachment. It would be an utter cluster fork of monumental proportions, and extremely entertaining. Those jokers are so keen on stealing our money, the least they can do is provide us with some entertainment.
• 
  27

  Who is your favorite Star Wars character?

  by LoveUniHateExams in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  the star wars franchise has lots of memorable characters, no doubt about it.

  the sw extended universe is a big space.. there are lots of characters in the extended universe that i know little or nothing about - i may have only heard their names.. so if you could pick just one character, which one is your favourite?.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  MeanMrMustard

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXxPGUW_7OA