Reading the "Secret Service" thread got me thinking: how many dyed in the wool libertarians are reading and contributing to this forum?

Depends on your definition of a libertarian.

Btw, your question reminds me a lot of a question once posed by some attention whore...

One need not be a libertarian to be worried about runaway government spending. Hell, if you like all the government services, it sure would be nice to be able to continue to have a government. Fiscal collapse is always followed by social and governmental collapse.

I tend to tune all of that bullshit out and focus on food, family, porn, etc....

I'm not dyed but definitely off color.

have been leaning that way for some time now. Check out Reason. Great site. Yeah there is some shit i don't agree with. And it'd never fly up here in Canada. But it seems less government is really the way to go.

http://reason.com/

Small "l" here. Smaller government is better, but no government is...Africa, maybe. Some of the 4th and 5th World nations. It's a delicate balancing act.

I've always been a philosophical libertarian. About 10 years ago I finally left the GOP and am now a registered Libertarian.

I still don't know what a libertarian is. Does it have something to with books?

No government is Somalia (1991-....).

Yeah, it sounded like you were channeling Hayek / Friedman / Rothbard back on the secret service thread.

Completely meaningless term when both Noam chomsky and the Koch brothers consider themselves libertarians.....%99 of the time though it refers to just another hydrahead of the ultra far right anarcho capitalists who want to privatize the police (after all, the poor don't have anything worth stealing)..and multi million dollar think tanks like the cato institute that tries to then pass it's self off as the voice of the average man.....Generally people who tend to think of John Stossel and Pen & Teller as being smarter than Gore Vidal which in turn makes me generally want to see them plowed over with steam rolls and their remains scooped up and sold off to mexican rendering plants.

Who are you again Fat Bloody Fingers? Elaborator or Gunker?

Keep chompin those corporate cocks you filthy fucking animal......Look on the brightside...the south has become so economically depressed it's actually more profitable to re open factory's there than the expense of importing chinese garbage into the US....Now that we can get the amerikkkan dream job rollin across the good old Mason Dixon line we can finally REALLY kick things up a notch and get rid of those pesky minimum/child labor laws and get those gold bricking welfare mothers working again!

So I'm thinking Gunker.

I'm the man from famine.

Yeah, I thought I was in the same room man.

There must be something rational and logical about the whole philosophy if FBF hates it that much.

And there's the compassionate, peace loving Left we have all grown to know and love.

My dog is smarter than Gore Vidal. A pompous voice and affected accent does not a genius make.

Daddy, next tell us a fairy take about how wise Patty Murray is.

If a fiscally conservative/socially liberal party existed in the U.S. with some non-nutty candidates, they'd win every election in a landslide.

You're not saying Ron Paul's nutty are you?

FBF's comments are not "Left-ish", only violent. Every -ism has its violent faction (well, maybe not pacifism); they are usually made up from saboteurs and agent-provocateurs, who will, of course, be summarily dealt with when the time comes.

This reminds me of a pair of characters on Portlandia, the ones which seem to be made up to be the prototypical wholefood lezzies who are just miserable and absolutely passively aggressive. Hey, Fingers.

Nutty as a fruitcake. His only saving grace in this campaign is that he hasn't fucked things up completely for his kid, Rand Paul. Rand seems considerably less nutty.

Yeah, take away the accent and Gore Vidal doesn't have much going for him. His books suck. Has anyone who is under the age of sixty and is not a paid up subscriber to Mother Jones ever gotten through one of his doorstops?

Mother Jones. I love old hippies who can't get over the fact they were neither at Woodstock or 10050 Cielo Drive.

Ron Paul really has been amazingly lucid this time around. Maybe he's realized it just isn't going to happen and he's prepping the field for Rand.

This is the exact fucking problem. I think the left needs to start flipping the fuck out and institute some violent and vicious vanguarding. Shouting down and total marginalization of the enemy. Basically what conservatives do every day.

I actually support about %90 of Ron Paul says. He's a million times better than Obama who if you look at on paper is almost indistinguishable from George W Bush. I have a huge problem with his extension of states rights to the extreme. I'm all for states rights but not to the extent that for example if state b decides that if two consenting adults what to engage in homosexual activities the state would have it's proclivity to decide that this would be considered a crime punishable by 20 years in jail it would be the states prerogative to do so. Not to mention trying to have roe vs wade over turned.........It's pretty moot anyways because romney will win the delegation and won't be able to beat Obama anyways. If I thought Paul would have a chance of winning I'd rather vote for him than Obama who wants to but a gitmo on every corner.

There is no such thing as a true leftwing party in this country. You have two piece of shit parties one is just more upfront about their corporate whoredom and has managed to somehow convince envengelical idiots they actually give a flying fuck about them...the other party is composed of primarily spineless scum sucking cowards.

Ha I brought MJ and Utne Reader etc in a little debate after posting one of the Reason articles that wasn't about the insane war on drugs or the absurdity of bombing brown people in far away countries.
It was the typical "blah blah blah KOCH BROTHERS blah blah blah RACISTS blah blah blah DYING IN THE STREETS" rant that leftists throw out at the very whisper of any libertarian idea.
You don't think these magazines aren't pushing somebody's political agenda?

Yes, the left needs to get more violent & vicious. And more vocal. How do you propose doing that when your side is already involved in 100% of all protests and control 90%+ of the media, except maybe FOX News & Drudge.

Look, you are in the minority. You have always been in the minority. You have a false sense of reality because people who think exactly like you have been spoon feeding you B.S. through the news media for basically your entire life. You need to be welcomed into the real world.

His early book Messiah is a very good novel (not too long either), his early teleplays are great and his essays are very good stuff as well. He's a mediocre novelist but so is Joan Didion.

Most libertarians are full of shit.

They want absolute freedom as they define it, and they want to impose their will on everyone else, even if it contradicts their definition of freedom.

Yeah never mind that the US Constitution left those rights in the State's hands, purposefully, where they rightfully belong. After all, we dispensed with the Constitution to carry out the Civil War so why not set it aside for fags to get married.

I liked Live From Golgotha. That was a nice, zippy, fun little read. But his high WASP patrician manner is irritating, at least when I see him being interviewed on television. If you were to recommend a collection of his essays, where would I want to start?

Matt Welch got his big break writing for the National Post. Reason is a pretty good read, and the staff are a fun bunch. I've attended a few of their parties. Always a good time.

I love this Revolution stuff. What about the children? People dying in the streets. Old folks eating cat food...which, if you own a cat, would know is spendier than people food.

Good luck with your violent vanguarding. Keep in mind that everyone's blood is red, no matter how righteous the ideal. I'm curious tho. Could you let us know which conservatives are causing violence in the streets? Are even calling for violence in streets. That damn conservative Sharpton? He shouts down, calls for violence. Must be a conservative by your way o' thinking.

I'm sorry, but your technique of violence, at least in civilized nations, is as dead as the dodo. You can't force beliefs into people at the point of a gun or the taste of the lash. First they ignore you. Then the laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. Get a sub to the Revolution. Fantastic mag. Donate and advocate. Bring your ideas to the streets at the point of a bayonet. Then we win.

I'd argue most people are full of shit, Jason.
Nassim, had no idea about Welch starting there. I'm pretty sure most knee-jerk lefties don't even bother to read any of the Reason stuff I send them; they're to busy making remarks about how roads will never be built and restaurants will start banning blacks.
Gillespie and Welch aren't into screaming their heads off or running 'gotcha!' stories and I guess that doesn't sell anymore.

Gillespie and Welch both got their start writing for trade publications and not the op-ed section. It usually makes for better journalism.

hahah, yeah this mythical "liberal media" when %99 of the media is owned by megacorps...where did you hear that shit rush limbaugh? give me a fucking break you waterbrained pile of garbage.

you goddamned fucking stupid piece of shit....you like fucking women in the ass right? What if the state you lived in decided it was punishable by chopping off your left arm tomorrow? You are a fucking piece of human shit and I'm ashamed to be part of the same species you are from

Bullshit. Your comment doesn't merit a more expansive response.

You are all so fucking goddammned near sighted. The enemy is kicking you in the face constantly while shoving a hot poker up your ass and has COMPLETELY INGRAINED it into your brain to beg for more and anyone who says "this is wrong" is shouted down as a lunatic...You've read 1984 right and are familiar with the concepts of doublespeak/thought? You people aren't worthy to eat the corn out of my shit.

The media is well left of center. There are numerous academic studies that bear this out, as well as surveys of journalist party affiliation.

^^^ He doesn't care. If it doesn't fit with what he already believes, it just causes him to reply with angry, demented rants without actually stating any facts.

haahah yeah. I'm sure you guys have some awesome "facts" to back up your useless horseshit "everyone just KNOWS the media is left wing".....please post your graphs and pie charges

yes! and look at the libertarian utopia it has become!

You can always tell a thread has degenerated into bullshit when people start talking about 'numerous studies.'

I know what you mean about his manner, I get the same annoying vibe from Margaret Atwood, who is the Canuck equivalent, in terms of being WASPy old money, if not talent.

As for his essays, depends on whether you want to read his literary criticism or his more political writing. I've got his Collected Essays which covers everything up to the early 90s, his best stuff I think, but the Selected Essays is good. His essays 'Pornography' and 'The Pink Triangle and Yellow Star' pissed off a lot of people are are a good place to start.

What's the point of this thread? A liberals idea of limited government involves banning big macs and cigarettes instead of porn and crack cocaine. You might as well be showing your dog calculus equations hoping he'll figure it out eventually.

At least 88% of the journalists in the White House press corp have voted Democrat in every presidential election since at least 1992.

Well, originally, I wanted to hear more from NitneLiun and Rear Admiral. Over on the secret service thread, they had interesting, intelligent things to say about the deficit and money supply. Tatty Patty and others have also said things on different threads that have piqued my interest. Whether or not any of these people self-identify as libertarians is beside the point - I thought the responses generated would be interesting in and of themselves.

If I'd known FBF was going to start pissing and moaning about Fox News and Rush Limbaugh (I don't listen or watch either) and it would start to overwhelm the thread...I probably would have thought twice about starting it.

Sorry to harp on the Reason site, but I don't think you'll find anything crazy or loony there. Even the stuff I don't agree with (undocumented workers actually stimulate the economy, socialized medicine is just awful) is presented in a non-alarmist way. I like the core concept of people being left the fuck alone. I totally get why it's an ideology people can't embrace; i just wish they'd stop making stuff up about it(no, I'm not an expert, but man i heard a lot of bullshit prior to investigating myself)>
Any idea that freaks out both sides of the political spectrum so much must be doing something right.

I wasn't really looking for or expecting an answer. Just ignore me, like everyone else does, until I want your attention. Don't worry you'll know when that is.

Up on a pedestal over the Great Unwashed? Check.

Can see the things the sheeple can't? Check.

Lame 1984 reference with no quote? Check.

Unable to answer the simplest of questions. Check.

Looks like a libtard. Sounds like a libtard. Must be a libtard.

I let my subscription lapse a few months ago, but from what I remember, they weren't that alarmist about socialized medicine - in fact, Welch wrote a pretty good editorial praising France's system, which is a good blend of private and public. As a former resident of Canada, I wouldn't say I'm against socialized medicine, so much as against having the option of pursuing a private option taken away from me. I've used private systems in a couple of different countries, and it is the complete opposite of the picture that leftards in Canada like to paint. Most countries in the world, even the USA, have some form of socialized medicine like Canada, but unlike every other countries in the world, Canada (at least until a few years ago) didn't allow any private option to be exercised.

The French are bigger pinks than Canadians could every hope to be, and they don't have a problem with privately owned and operated roads or hospitals, so why the fuck is it such a threat to the Canadian way of life if private hospitals were allowed to operate alongside the public ones? IMHO, it's paternalistic bullshit, and just as cruel as allowing someone to suffer because they don't have private insurance.

Every fudges the truth a bit when it comes to "socialized medicine". I know i can cross the bridge and pay for an MRI (Quebec has its own code). I really had no problem with the two-tier system Tony Clement was pushing for a few years back.
Reason did a vid piece of a woman in Canada, complete with sad music in the background that I thought was a tad misleading.

Is it me or are you getting milder with age?

You just keep telling yourself that, Van Der Sloot.

The democratic party isn't a leftwing party. It's part of the same cleptocratic shit heap controlled by the lobbyists and iron triangles.

It's because there where no points or valid questions made. I'd get more stimulating conversation with a half rotted grape fruit........I did fine the image where you make it appear I'm sitting in a coffee house while stroking my pencil thin hipster mustache sipping a glutton free chi soy frappuccino, posting from an ipad tethered from an iphone and casting judgment at all the squares pretty funny.

http://www.amazon.com/Wake-Up-Youre-Liberal-America/dp/1932360220

I know Michael Moore is a giant fat fucking douche bag, rich bastard hypocrite asshole........that being said......

It really makes no difference because the rightwing have won, will continue to win until the husk of america is sucked completely dry. There is no hope or escape.

It uses a lot of theatrical tricks to invoke emotion from the watcher, but it makes some pretty good points none the less.

1. I watched the whole clip. Joseph Goebbels himself couldn't have done it better. Pure propaganda for 'Free Marketism'.
2. It (conveniently?) forgets to mention illegal invasions and occupations of sovereign states, which is one of the main factors wrecking the US system.

It does have some good points, I'll admit that.

No, there were only two points of propaganda.

1. There was no purposeful deceit on the change from a new ice age to global warming theories. Real science has made them change their lies over time.

It will be interesting to see how CERN's latest studies on solar cloud formation makes them further refine the lies, once it has been slowly disseminated through out the scientific community.

2. The Gibson Guitar raid wasn't about environmentalism. It was part of Obamas crackdown on conservative owned businesses.

The so called illegal invasions/occupations have nothing to do with a free market economy. Those are just talking points socialists use to distract from the fact that there has never been an economic system that has raised so many people out of poverty or that has created and maintained a such a large middle class. Look what China has done with just a few free market reforms and yet they are still a mostly totalitarian government system.

I'm not going to discuss any environmental issues with you. Done that in the past, it got nowhere and, frankly, I don't care enough about it.

I didn't claim that the illegal invasions/occupations have something to do with free marketism. Don't muddle the arguments.

I don't need to distract from the 'fact' about raising people from poverty or maintaining a middle-class society. If you consider China's reforms to be free market reforms, you obviously do not have a clue. There is not the tiniest bit of the free market as described in a/m clip in China.

Besides, at what costs (in the broadest sense) did your free market raise poverty and maintain a middle-class?

Of course you aren't going to discuss environmental issues, you realized you can't, a long time ago, and you were the one who brought up militarism and implied a causation. If you don't want to be called out for your obvious distractions, then don't seek to distract.

China removed many regulations that allowed open competition (inside it's own borders) in key economic regions. Most notably electronics manufacturing. That has lead to an increase of overall wealth for the country and an ever increasing middle class. Sure they are still controlled by large, corrupt, progressive government, but those things always go hand in hand with progressive governments.

The costs of the free market were mainly environmental, which you refuse to discuss, but were quite well addressed with the rise of the conservation movement in the mid 1960's. The other has been labor. The toll on workers was atrocious which lead to rise of labor unions which made significant grounds in improving workers conditions.

Unfortunately both the environmental and labor movement have been co-opted by leftists, in order to put a stranglehold on the free market and bring to heel all industry under government control.

hahahaha you're using CHINA as your shining example of neo freemarketism success? fucking a CHINA???? who have created a huge economy for a tiny few elite "gold class" built on the back of workers treated like absolute shit and frequently fucked over and not even paid....yeah man right on. I could totally get super fucking rich by making people work at gun point for microscopic or no wages at all, you are beyond fucking stupid.

I hate arguing politics on the net but...the labour movement has been co-opted by leftists? The labour movement has always been a movement of the left. Also strange to credit capitalism with the rise of unions, that's like crediting the Gestapo for the French resistance.

Unions have always been socialist in nature sure, but it never had the aspirations for the amount of political power that it does now. The industrial revolution was the driver of worker conditions that lead to the rise of the unions, in this country. Free market conditions contributed greatly, life was cheap, and employers could expend it with pretty much impunity.

China has raised more people out of poverty with their free market reforms over the last 20 years than the $15 trillion the US has spent on the entire great society. The US hasn't even lowered the poverty rate, in fact it has increased over the last decade.

The richest city in this country is now Washington D. C. They are the "gold elitists" FBF is banging on about. The more power they get the bigger they get the richer they get. While everyone and everywhere else are getting poorer.

The single most damaging thing the liberals have done to America is to have their fucking teachers' unions destroy our public elementary and secondary school systems. Want to know what is driving the higher-edumacation bubble? Too many goddamn people in college, most of whom have no business being there, seeking credentials to replace a good secondary education. A high-school diploma used to mean something, but once the "education professionals" took over, America's schools turned to utter shit.

That kids are having to borrow money to replace the education -- a very well-funded education, mind you -- that the teachers' unions refuse to give them is an utter travesty.

An ever increasing middle class? Yeah, from no middle class in 1980 via 1% middle class in 1990 and 3% middle class in 2000 to 5% middle class in 2010. Indeed, ever increasing.




By your standards, I'm probably living in a semi-communist country surrounded by fellow socialists and other assorted left-wingers. Strangely enough, corruption is almost non-existent in Northern Europe. So much for your perceived correlation between progressive government (whatever that is) and corruption.




You live in a comfortably small world, don't you? Improving working conditions in the US, yes, but exporting the collective butt-rape of the working class to developing countries.




If you say so, oh Grand Source of Knowledge!

Here's a great article for all of you goofs. Arguing about politics is like arguing about wrestling. Theatrics and all that.


http://whatever.scalzi.com/2002/03/22/i-hate-your-politics/

5% of China's population is greater than 67 million people. And that's just with a few free market reforms. The population of Holland is 16 million, just for some size relevance.

Do please tell me just how many people socialism has raised out of poverty. That's right, I forgot, socialism impoverishes people and doesn't even attempt to bring them out of it.

i wrote a big funny response to FBF's refusal to answer 2 simple, valid questions. As his ilk does. When I tried rto post, it kept hanging up. Too lazy to rewrite it. The fact remains he can't and won't answer two valid questions.

"Socialism" is just a word to laugh at. All the Socialists didn't just go home after the Soviet Union came down. Failure just means you change your handle and pretend that the previous handle never really existed. I seldom use the terms Communist or Socialist because all it does is give them wiggle room to deny there's any such thing as a Communist. So they can call themselves whatever they want, the ideas, and more importantly the consequences of the ideas, are still the same.

Please present one shred of empirical data to back up your ignorant horse shit. I admit %99 of what I saw is ad hominem strawman attacks designed just to rile up rightwing shitheads, and I find if hysterical when the supposed "Intelligent" responses are nothing more than more strawman non-responses, slogans and dogma.

hahahahahaha, speaking of fucking STRAWMAN horseshit. I just LOVE this line of thinking about how ruthless dictatorshits filth like stalin is always used to point to the flaws of a socialized market. (they'll never bring up the messes we caused like the shaw of iran over throw or how about fucking papa doc...we sure love to suck the cock of any old genocidal monster as long as they say they hate the commies) but without degenerating the debate into that road I'll just say this.........your argument seems to point to the same old tired analogy of how "the child like left winger likes to say the pie is finite where in THE REAL WORLD capitalism just makes a bigger pie for every one!!!!!".......All the same time ignoring the inherent REAL WORLD problems of capitalism like externalities, chronism, massive abuse and manipulation of the legal system, crushing small business using lawyers (very un american and anti free market if you ask me) and on and on, which you could find mountains of evidence researched and written by people a billion times smarter than any of us..... you say monsters like Stalin rise as a direct result of socialistic ideal...I say the capitalist system is just as apt to create the same monsters.........once again, people like you who watched some john stossell specials and think they know what the fuck is going on in the world.

And you watch what again for your world view? I'm pretty sure the last Stossell thing I watched was when Dave Schultz bitch slapping him for axing if wrestling was real.

Didn't say anything about childlike Leftist ideology. Don't have the foggiest where you came up with that. But amazingly enough, you managed not to answer the questions. Again. Or have2cit's. For the first time. So I'll call you on that so you obfuscate around it again. Maybe you could tell us more about the "Shaw of Iran". Tommy Shaw? Clay Shaw? The Shawofiranshank Redemption? What does it say about your grasp on realpolitik that you seem to think the Pahlavi Dynasty was born in Ireland?

The fact is, Socialism, Communism, Communiry Organizing, whatever you want to call it, has been a failure every single place it's been tried. Sometimes that failure is benign. Less than adequate health care. High taxes. Sometimes the consequences are a bit more intense. But 5 people dead is a tragedy. 20 million is a statistic, no? But starving to death watching your crops be sent west isn't as romantic as a Che tshirt or listening to the Nightwatchman.

The questions still stand, but the answers don't start with "America did...". I'll be happy to discuss the foibles and excesses of capitalism. But that's not the subject at hand.

The questions still stand. Do try to answer them.

All you need to know as far as capitalism vs communism goes is that Italy built the Ferrari. The U.S.S.R. built pieces of shit that were inferiorally designed even compared to Panzer's enema cannon blueprints.

PJ O'Rourke talked about Eastern Bloc buildings made from a mixture of concrete and straw.

Not even remotely the same thing. You missed the part where I called Stalin a murdering monster and want to accuse me of Obfuscation? You sound like someone who would have worked for Cointelpro in the 60's. Minimum wage is about $17 an hour in Norway because they have strong unions and even white trash piece of shit dishwashers don't have to live in trailer parks.



fast forward to around 2 minutes where he talks about how The US didn't give a fuck less about how many people stalin killed, it was only the example they where setting or the rest of the world of how fast they could develop under their system that we saw as a threat, ideologically, Stop trying to paint the picture of our government giving a flying fuck less about 20 million dead ruskies.

Economics 101 is over kid. Your grade is T (for tard) minus.

i get the feeling he's not going to be allowed to repeat the class. just a guess?.

Where did your computer that you're posting on come from? Where did your car come from? Liberia? Cuba?

Typical leftist arguing. Stalin was bad, but we did bad stuff too. That excuses it. We didn't do anything about Stalin, which somehow makes us culpable in his crimes. What could have been done, ace? Anything that could have been effective in stopping or slowing his crimes would be fodder for you today to whine about how bad we are.

History has proven you wrong.

I'm sure the government would loan him the money to retake the class infinitely, but maybe it would better if he switched majors to minority studies or french literature, to fit in better with his OWS buddies.

You sure you want to go with Italy as your example of capitalism in action? The corruption there is through the fucking roof.

I can see where he is going with that one. I'd rather have lived in Italy than East Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, Romania, the USSR, or anywhere else controlled by communists during the Cold War. Regardless of how corrupt the country is/was, it still has/had more to offer than the best that communists can offer.

Why the fuck do you keep insinuating that I'm trying to "excuse" anything stalin or any dictatorship has done? Why do you keep trying to equate absolute communism with European style socialism? You know creating a gigantic mostly capitalistic economy without letting the ultra rich power structure run completely amok? There has never and never will ever been this mythical "freemarket" that you are idolizing because the massive wealth consolidation will always close it's iron fist around everything to control the laws and circumstance of the populis.........You're trying to point out microsoft as the ideal corporation? A company which basically has acted more like a facist state or mafia to get where it is. it' sure as fuck wasn't by providing good products....You basically get socialist protection for the ultra rich and capitalism for everyone else.....you wouldn't have airlines trains or the internet without government funded programs....and to answer your previous question
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat

I don't think anyone here was saying how great Communist Russia or the Eastern Block was back-in-the-day. Italy actually had one of the biggest and most legitimate Communist parties in Europe. Most Western democracies are based on ideas of social democracy rather than pure socialism or capitalism, which doesn't really fit into the either/or arguments so popular with many Libertarians.

Most of the cars from Ferrari were total shit during the years of the USSR. Sure they were fast and handled nicely, but they were just as shitty in terms of overall build quality and reliability. So in reality, your argument is that socialism produces cheap pieces of shit, and capitalism produces expensive pieces of shit.

You make a good point. The only thing I would add is that the social democracies have/had more market freedom and that is one of the factors that make them more desirable to live in than an Eastern Block country back-in-the-day.

That's still two more selling points than what the Panzer family tree was turning out at the time. You also forget that those old Italian sports cars were the sharpest looking things going at the time while Soviet automobiles looked like cardboard boxes with wheels.

It's fucking hysterical how some of you point to recent "capitalist" expansions in China. As if that makes up for any of the atrocities that China has ever performed. And suggesting I support the Chinese government in the first place...you assholes can't have it both ways, is china good or bad or what? Fucking morons. A country who's government completely erased tank man from history literally threw it down a memory hole. Seems to show how little you understand what I'm trying to convey in the slightest. Ideals that have been expressed by people with far superior brain power than my own. But it's all been ignored and systematically suppressed by the clyptocratic super organism.

I was watching a documentary about Kindelberger and it talked about how he got all the privately owned aviation companies to come together in a form of corporate socialism during world war 2 to focus all their intellectual property and raw materials production into the war effort. Socialism beat the nazis.

And what's widely considered the most well made assault rifle ever created. Just go ahead and ignore my post.

Private schools are the answer, Free market magic at work

I know. They all do that, don't they. We love our private school, by the way. Wouldn't even begin to consider a public school.

By your logic, I could post something from Klebold and Harris' Basement Tapes and indict the entire public school system.

It's a straw man and you know it it.

Well-made assuming the operator is an idiot being used as canon fodder. The AR-15, M16, and M4 are still the weapon of choice if intelligent, professional soldiers capable of independent action are being deployed. Although I'll defer to Bornyo on this one if he pipes in and says otherwise...

Unsinn. No more reliable automatic weapon than an AK-47 has ever been created by man. It has nothing to do with intelligence or professionalism, but with availability.

hahah, yeah nothing like a good old american m-16 apologist. when grizzled guys who where in the military for 40 plus years tell me the Ak47 is the greatest rifle ever made I'm more apt to listen to them then jerk off's on message boards. (present company excluded)

Everything you've posted is equally strawan so who gives a shit 0 and 0 is still zero. Nothing is going to change the way either of us perceive things.

They really are. I've owned a Chinese one and a Yugoslavian one. No cleaning needed. I've seen them in mud or sand, shaken out and had 90 rounds run through with no jamming. The only time I ever jammed any of mine was when I used some East German plastic tipped training rounds. I assume they had low powder in them.

The professional problem with them is they're noisy. The loose tolerances, which make them jam proof, are just too clunky if surprise is important. They're great in a battlefield situation, but we're not really fighting battlefield style right now.

I accept your surrender.

M-16s are fun to play with. Comfortable, low recoil. Wouldn't trust my life with one.

What's everyone like for home defense? Ruger P89 in the nightstand. Remington 870 under the couch.

Charles Daly pump 20 gauge in the bedroom. Taurus Judge loaded with .410 pistol cartridges staggered with .45 Colt on the desk. I also have a CZ Raimi 40 stashed as well as a Ruger LCP .380 handy.

Why? B's never been to war.

The public school system isn't much better as it's primarily designed to keep people dumb enough to be obedient workers.

Yeah "you'll accept my surrender" it's more like Deciding not to continue to add to a shit pile that's already a mountain high, at some juncture there's just no point. There mere fact that people think the way you do mean there's no hope for this country.

It's all about perspective, no? I could easily say the same about you. But the difference is not very folks actually believe the "obedient workers" nonsense. And that the "system" isn't competent enough to have a plan to keep people stupid, let alone have a Master Plan.

I do find it interesting that the star you want to hitch your destiny wagon to is the very same star you think is keeping people stupid and down. I'm sure you can make sense of it, tho.

Barry the pirate-



You are absolutely fucking wrong in every way imaginable. Everything you believe in is fundamentally wrong on every level. You are competeley useless, worthless and your genetic line should be obliterated off the face of the planet. That being said let's agree to disagree.

I'm witcha, homie. Fuck you and your avatar. Winks.

Honestly, tho, it's just a difference in the fundamental way of thinking of the role of government, business and money. We can post stats, evidence, whatever, but nobody's changing anybody's mind.

The profit motive causes horrific corruption in the penal system...but I'm sure if we just completely privatized law enforcement it would be awesome


http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/05/louisiana_is_the_worlds_prison.html
Louisiana is the world's prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana's incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran's, seven times China's and 10 times Germany's.

The hidden engine behind the state's well-oiled prison machine is cold, hard cash. A majority of Louisiana inmates are housed in for-profit facilities, which must be supplied with a constant influx of human beings or a $182 million industry will go bankrupt.
Several homegrown private prison companies command a slice of the market. But in a uniquely Louisiana twist, most prison entrepreneurs are rural sheriffs, who hold tremendous sway in remote parishes like Madison, Avoyelles, East Carroll and Concordia. A good portion of Louisiana law enforcement is financed with dollars legally skimmed off the top of prison operations.
If the inmate count dips, sheriffs bleed money. Their constituents lose jobs. The prison lobby ensures this does not happen by thwarting nearly every reform that could result in fewer people behind bars.

Meanwhile, inmates subsist in bare-bones conditions with few programs to give them a better shot at becoming productive citizens. Each inmate is worth $24.39 a day in state money, and sheriffs trade them like horses, unloading a few extras on a colleague who has openings. A prison system that leased its convicts as plantation labor in the 1800s has come full circle and is again a nexus for profit.
In the past two decades, Louisiana's prison population has doubled, costing taxpayers billions while New Orleans continues to lead the nation in homicides.
One in 86 adult Louisianians is doing time, nearly double the national average. Among black men from New Orleans, one in 14 is behind bars; one in seven is either in prison, on parole or on probation. Crime rates in Louisiana are relatively high, but that does not begin to explain the state's No. 1 ranking, year after year, in the percentage of residents it locks up.
In Louisiana, a two-time car burglar can get 24 years without parole. A trio of drug convictions can be enough to land you at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for the rest of your life.
Almost every state lets judges decide when to mete out the severest punishment and when a sympathetic defendant should have a chance at freedom down the road. In Louisiana, murderers automatically receive life without parole on the guilty votes of as few as 10 of 12 jurors.
The lobbying muscle of the sheriffs, buttressed by a tough-on-crime electorate, keeps these harsh sentencing schemes firmly in place.
"Something has to be done -- it just has to be done -- about the long sentences," said Angola Warden Burl Cain. "Some people you can let out of here that won't hurt you and can be productive citizens, and we know the ones who can't."
Every dollar spent on prisons is a dollar not spent on schools, hospitals and highways. Other states are strategically reducing their prison populations -- using tactics known in policy circles as "smart on crime." Compared with the national average, Louisiana has a much lower percentage of people incarcerated for violent offenses and a much higher percentage behind bars for drug offenses -- perhaps a signal that some nonviolent criminals could be dealt with differently.

Do all of Louisiana's 40,000 inmates need to be incarcerated for the interests of punishment and public safety to be served? Gov. Bobby Jindal, a conservative Republican with presidential ambitions, says the answer is no. Despite locking up more people for longer periods than any other state, Louisiana has one of the highest rates of both violent and property crimes. Yet the state shows no signs of weaning itself off its prison dependence.
"You have people who are so invested in maintaining the present system -- not just the sheriffs, but judges, prosecutors, other people who have links to it," said Burk Foster, a former professor at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and an expert on Louisiana prisons. "They don't want to see the prison system get smaller or the number of people in custody reduced, even though the crime rate is down, because the good old boys are all linked together in the punishment network, which is good for them financially and politically."
Keeping the beds full
In the early 1990s, when the incarceration rate was half what it is now, Louisiana was at a crossroads. Under a federal court order to reduce overcrowding, the state had two choices: Lock up fewer people or build more prisons.
It achieved the latter, not with new state prisons -- there was no money for that -- but by encouraging sheriffs to foot the construction bills in return for future profits. The financial incentives were so sweet, and the corrections jobs so sought after, that new prisons sprouted up all over rural Louisiana.
The national prison population was expanding at a rapid clip. Louisiana's grew even faster. There was no need to rein in the growth by keeping sentencing laws in line with those of other states or by putting minor offenders in alternative programs. The new sheriffs' beds were ready and waiting. Overcrowding became a thing of the past, even as the inmate population multiplied rapidly.
"If the sheriffs hadn't built those extra spaces, we'd either have to go to the Legislature and say, 'Give us more money,' or we'd have to reduce the sentences, make it easier to get parole and commutation -- and get rid of people who shouldn't be here," said Richard Crane, former general counsel for the Louisiana Department of Corrections.

Today, wardens make daily rounds of calls to other sheriffs' prisons in search of convicts to fill their beds. Urban areas such as New Orleans and Baton Rouge have an excess of sentenced criminals, while prisons in remote parishes must import inmates to survive.
The more empty beds, the more an operation sinks into the red. With maximum occupancy and a thrifty touch with expenses, a sheriff can divert the profits to his law enforcement arm, outfitting his deputies with new squad cars, guns and laptops. Inmates spend months or years in 80-man dormitories with nothing to do and few educational opportunities before being released into society with $10 and a bus ticket.
Fred Schoonover, deputy warden of the 522-bed Tensas Parish Detention Center in northeast Louisiana, says he does not view inmates as a "commodity." But he acknowledges that the prison's business model is built on head counts. Like other wardens in this part of the state, he wheels and deals to maintain his tally of human beings. His boss, Tensas Parish Sheriff Rickey Jones, relies on him to keep the numbers up.
"We struggle. I stay on the phone a lot, calling all over the state, trying to hustle a few," Schoonover said.
Some sheriffs, and even a few small towns, lease their prison rights to private companies. LaSalle Corrections, based in Ruston, plays a role in housing one of seven Louisiana prisoners. LCS Corrections Services, another homegrown company, runs three Louisiana prisons and is a major donor to political campaigns, including those of urban sheriffs who supply rural prisons with inmates.
Incarceration on the cheap
Ask anyone who has done time in Louisiana whether he or she would rather be in a state-run prison or a local sheriff-run prison. The answer is invariably state prison.

Inmates in local prisons are typically serving sentences of 10 years or less on nonviolent charges such as drug possession, burglary or writing bad checks. State prisons are reserved for the worst of the worst.
Yet it is the murderers, rapists and other long-termers who learn trades like welding, auto mechanics, air-conditioning repair and plumbing. Angola's Bible college offers the only chance for Louisiana inmates to earn an undergraduate degree.
Such opportunities are not available to the 53 percent serving their time in local prisons. In a cruel irony, those who could benefit most are unable to better themselves, while men who will die in prison proudly show off fistfuls of educational certificates.
Louisiana specializes in incarceration on the cheap, allocating by far the least money per inmate of any state. The $24.39 per diem is several times lower than what Angola and other state-run prisons spend -- even before the sheriff takes his share. All local wardens can offer is GED classes and perhaps an inmate-led support group such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Their facilities are cramped and airless compared with the spacious grounds of state prisons, where inmates walk along outdoor breezeways and stay busy with jobs or classes.
With a criminal record, finding work is tough. In five years, about half of the state's ex-convicts end up behind bars again.
Gregory Barber has seen the contrast between state and local prisons firsthand. He began a four-year sentence for burglary at the state-run Phelps Correctional Center -- a stroke of luck for someone with a relatively short sentence on a nonviolent charge who might easily have ended up in a sheriff's custody.

With only six months to go, the New Orleans native was transferred to Richwood Correctional Center, a LaSalle-run prison near Monroe. He had hoped to end his time in a work-release program to up his chances of getting a good job. But the 11th-hour transfer rendered him ineligible. At Phelps, he took a welding class. Now, he whiles away the hours lying in his bunk for lack of anything better to do. The only relief from the monotony is an occasional substance-abuse rehab meeting.
"In DOC camps, you'd go to the yard every day, go to work," said Barber, 50, of state-run prisons. "Here, you just lay down, or go to meetings. It makes time pass a little slower."

Downward spiral

While Louisiana tops the prison rankings, it consistently vies with Mississippi -- the state with the second-highest incarceration rate -- for the worst schools, the most poverty, the highest infant mortality. One in three Louisiana prisoners reads below a fifth-grade level. The vast majority did not complete high school. The easy fix of selling drugs or stealing is all too tempting when the alternative is a low-wage, dead-end job.
More money spent on locking up an ever-growing number of prisoners means less money for the very institutions that could help young people stay out of trouble, giving rise to a vicious cycle. Louisiana spends about $663 million a year to feed, house, secure and provide medical care to 40,000 inmates. Nearly a third of that money -- $182 million -- goes to for-profit prisons, whether run by sheriffs or private companies.
"Clearly, the more that Louisiana invests in large-scale incarceration, the less money is available for everything from preschools to community policing that could help to reduce the prison population," said Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, a national criminal justice reform group. "You almost institutionalize the high rate of incarceration, and it's even harder to get out of that situation."
Louisiana's prison epidemic disproportionately affects neighborhoods already devastated by crime and poverty. In some parts of New Orleans, a stint behind bars is a rite of passage for young men.
About 5,000 black men from New Orleans are doing state prison time, compared with 400 white men from the city. Because police concentrate resources on high-crime areas, minor lawbreakers there are more likely to be stopped and frisked or caught up in a drug sweep than, say, an Uptown college student with a sideline marijuana business.
With so many people lost to either prison or violence, fraying neighborhoods enter a downward spiral. As the incarceration rate climbs, more children grow up with fathers, brothers, grandfathers and uncles in prison, putting them at increased risk of repeating the cycle themselves.
'Don't feel no pity'
Angola is home to scores of old men who cannot get out of bed, let alone commit a crime. Someone who made a terrible mistake in his youth and has transformed himself after decades in prison has little to no chance at freedom.

Louisiana has a higher percentage of inmates serving life without parole than any other state. Its justice system is unstintingly tough on petty offenders as well as violent criminals. In more than four years in office, Jindal has only pardoned one inmate.
"Louisiana don't feel no pity. I feel like everybody deserves a second chance," said Preston Russell, a Lower 9th Ward native who received life without parole for a string of burglaries and a crack charge. "I feel like dudes get all this education ... under their belt and been here 20, 30 years. You don't think that's enough time to let a man back out and give him another chance at life?"
An inmate at Angola costs the state an average of $23,000 a year. A young lifer will rack up more than $1 million in taxpayer-funded expenses if he reaches the Louisiana male life expectancy of 72.
Russell, 49, is in good health. But as he gets older, treating his age-related ailments will be expensive. The state spends about $24 million a year caring for between 300 and 400 infirm inmates.
Now in his 13th year at Angola, Russell breaks into tears recounting how he rebelled against the grandmother who raised him, leaving home as soon as he could. First he smoked weed, weed became crack, then he was selling drugs and burglarizing stores in between jobs in construction or shipping.
The last time he stole, Orleans Parish prosecutors tagged him as a multiple offender and sought the maximum -- the same sentence given to murderers. In the final crime that put him away for life, he broke into Fat Harry's and stole $4,000 from the Uptown bar's video poker machines.
Political will
Tough fiscal times have spurred many states to reduce their prison populations. In lock-'em-up Texas, new legislation is steering low-level criminals into drug treatment and other alternatives to prison.
In Louisiana, even baby steps are met with resistance. Jindal, who rose to the governor's office with the backing of the sheriffs' lobby, says too many people are behind bars. Yet earlier this year, he watered down a reform package hammered out by the Sentencing Commission he himself had convened. The commission includes sheriffs and district attorneys, so its proposals were modest to begin with.
Measures like those in Texas, which target a subset of nonviolent offenders, are frequently lauded but may not be enough. To make a significant dent in the prisoner numbers, sentences for violent crimes must be reduced and more money must be invested in inner-city communities, according to David Cole, a professor at Georgetown Law School. Such large-scale change -- which has not been attempted in any state, let alone Louisiana -- can only happen through political will.
In Louisiana, that will appears to be practically nonexistent. Locking up as many people as possible for as long as possible has enriched a few while making everyone else poorer. Public safety comes second to profits.
"You cannot build your way out of it. Very simply, you cannot build your way out of crime," said Secretary of Corrections Jimmy LeBlanc, who supports reducing the incarceration rate and putting more resources into inmate rehabilitation. "It just doesn't work that way. You can't afford it. Nobody can afford that."

....because we all know prisons run by the government are absolute paradises where everybody gets rehabilitated and healthcare and other treatment is top-shelf.
http://reason.com/blog/2011/06/07/prison-guards-union-locks-up-b

EDIT. I wonder how many guys stuck there right now are there because of the drug war that both political parties refuse to end.

I take Richard Pryor's view on the prison system.





Thank God we got penitentiaries!

Prison is prison. Feel free to point the direction a prison utopia. Those countries we have black prisons in? Yeah, some human rights going on there.

Yeah, it's a bitch that prisons aren't comfortable, but they're really pretty easy to stay out of.

I don't think you get it. Do you realize how easy it would be for your dumb ass to wind up in one? Didn't you just post some pictures of some weed you just bought?

My point was(and no i'm not "full on" lt): those prisons everyone cites are full of non violent drug offenders. you can scream CATO INSTITUTE and whatever bullshit you want at the top of your lungs, but the libertarian party has been consistent on its stance on the drug war. And you can try to paint RP as a horrible horrible pro-business anti-choice racist, but feel free to link to another mainstream candidate on either side of the fake fence that has had the balls to discuss it like an adult.

Advantage JasonH. It's remarkably easy !

Varg's jail cell was bigger and has more amenities than your average housing project apartment. You can call Norway permissive liberal pussies but their country isn't overrun with mass murders like the US of "get tough on crime,crack some fucking skulls!!! A is. They're actually a civilized country instead of a right wing fucking toilet

What's your fucking point? you think lib-fucktards are the first people ever to realize the "war on drugs" is a complete fucking farce? even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

And you really think a pure for profit prison system isn't even fucking worse? we'd probably end up with a prison system as fucked as japans with drug laws even more draconian. Get fucking real.

I do get it. In my real life, I'm very discreet. My dumb ass isn't going to end up there over weed, especially with my doctor's recommend in the state I live in. Short of murder, or something fairly heinous, someone like me, with not even a speeding ticket in 25+ years, isn't going to go to prison. A night in the drunk tank at the King County lockup was all the education I need.

Prison remains prison. It isn't supposed to be comfortable. Sorry.

Correct, you are. I'd totally forgotten about him. Hell, he recorded, what, 3 albums there? Altho I'm sure it was nicer than most housing projects because not keeping their areas clean meant time in the Hole...without a Posturepedic. Isn't this the same country where military service is compulsory and most homes have a machine gun in the closet? Probably made it easier for him to have a trunk full of H&Ks when he took his little walkabout. Could be wrong and I'm too lazy to google.

Overrun with mass murderers? Please. Let's try to not be so hysterical. Varg only murdered one guy, but had the serial arson thing down pretty well.

Why stick around if it's such a toilet? We all know why, of course.

Once again the point soars over your head. If you're a poor or homeless expected to be treated like a subhuman piece of dogshit. Locked up for years for spitting on the sidewalk by armed thugs who's cocks get hard when they put on their metermaid outfits. Laws are only for little people. But the revolving door Willey horton brainwashing horseshit has sunk in. Once again the distractions and true media distortions do their job and fundamentally distort human thought. Death wish isn't fucking real. You think I'm naive? I grew up in an inner city shithole surrounded by gangsta thugs. You wanna get tough on crime Let's have a public lynching for those cops that beat that schizophrenic homeless man to death while Bobby Jindal is burned at the stake.

you're reading comprehension is (not) surprisingly low, I was referencing the united states as over run with mass murders. .....why are you bending over backwards to defending this libertarian horseshit so hard?.......do you really give that big of a fuck?............the only reason you live in a state with medical marijuana legality is because some left wing pussies whined and complained so loud that something actually got changed. Just fucking die already, you'd serve a greater purpose with your carcass donated to medical research. If only you had died early enough to have your stem cells harvested but you'll probably start talking about the sanctity of the fetus next.

I wouldn't know how prisons would wind up. The fact the state runs it doesn't magically make it better. Australians are trying now actually.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national...x-1226059946691

What drug laws and privatizing a prison have to do with one another is beyond me. Nice try though.

No one has said prison should be comfortable. But it should not be a place where low level offenders are turned into hardened criminals. It shouldn't be a place where someone who's there for a trumped up, nonviolent drug charge contracts HIV because they're raped repeatedly.

For profit law enforcement is as corrupt as it gets. You know why? Because when your profits go up as criminals increase, guess what happens? They do their best to make everyone a criminal. You've got police departments that are investors in "private" prisons that make profit from having warm bodies in their cells. The prisons give financial backing to elected officials who are "tough on crime." And of course the police round up as many people as possible for trivial stuff. It's throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. And in those back woods Louisiana shit holes, they make a lot of shit stick.

Barry you cite the tired libertarian rhetoric. "It won't happen to me." In the end, that's all you fuckers say to support the nonsensical bullshit you come up with. Fact is, you don't know what will happen to you, anymore than Panzer will know which tranny creampie gave him the HIV. You don't know what the fuck tomorrow brings. You don't know if the feds will decide to come knocking because you forgot to dot an i, or cross a t while using the US Postal Service to procure illegal drugs from outside your state.

How many middle class mother fuckers have gone from earning a decent living, to scraping by in poverty, all due to circumstances that are out of their control? How many assholes who applied for food stamps today, were spouting your same bullshit a year ago?

The libertarian position on non-violent drug offenders and the War on drugs specifically is crystal clear, Jason. I don't follow why all the evils mentioned are automatically linked to the lib philosophy. All the shit happening right now is happening in prisons run by the state and paid for with your tax dollars.
I don't know if prison contracts farmed out to private companies is the answer; but there is no denying non-violent offenders are suffering all the things you mentioned in the prison system today. Maybe we're having two separate arguments.

Maybe we are having different arguments, but 1 thing is certain. Barry is a state sanctioned junkie, and everything he says is junkie bullshit.

You fucking goofs are still going on about this shit? Get a blowjob, make some eats, read a book for fucks sake.

Spitting on the sidewalk? Not crossing "t"s? The US overrun by mass murderers? Using the mail to buy weed? Hanging Bobby Jindall? I should just die? Do you people even listen to yourselves?

And what happened to agreeing to disagree? Or does that only happen when the folks who disagree with you have their thoughts...cleansed?

Look, I get that murderers should get aromatherapy while a tax cheat should be under the prison. I get it. Sadly, most of the rest of civilized folks think another way. Best get started on the nooses, CliChe. You'll need a bunch.

^^^Dude you can't help them. They're gone. Wasted. Beyond the salvation of common sense. Save your breath and ammunition we are going to need both before the end of this.

It's because you are NOT a civilized human being. You are a retched filthy dog. You remind me of the idiot neonazi 500 pound exterminator from american history x. You reap the benefits of people smarter and braver than you and me then turn around and shit all over it and not even realize you're doing it while shitting on it some more. You're exactly the kind of pudding brain the Hitlers and Stalins of the world mold to their will.

hahahahha, Black is white, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. You do realize the south sucks from the federal tax dollar tit so much that it would become a third world country in a matter of months if you where allowed to become the brave free self made nation that you have delusions of?

The tax money sent down South is a sugar tit to prevent just such a thing from happening.

Concise and funny, something we need more of on here.

bwahaha, is that what you really believe? I'm not from the east coast but I'm sure the majority of them consider your states their toilets and would love it if you would disappear off the face of the earth. If you where cut off enjoy turning into Somalia overnight. (I don't actually hate the south, a lot of my favorite things are from there. I just despise all the complete ignorance and distortion of reality that people like you shit out from it's collective asshole. you're not "the real americans" as much as you want to believe you are)

Says you, and your opinion on music, the South, or me and my fellow Southerners is worthless.

Why are you mentioning Slumdog Jindal? He's a dirty fucking wog. You're still not getting it.

You engage in an activity that sends scores of people to jail, and eventually prison on a daily basis. You don't think your actions make you a criminal any more then the rest of the stoners who don't think that they're criminals. Most people don't think what you do is criminal, but the vast majority of laws, courts, politicians, cops, judges, etc, think you are. They see your permission slip from the doctor as a quaint exploitation of a loophole or two in the law. It will only exist as long as those people get a chuckle or two out of it. And when the long arm of the law comes to deal with you, it will be comprised of both liberals and conservatives.

No one here is saying that murderers should get aromatherapy treatments. All I'm saying is that people like yourself who get railroaded for drugs shouldn't come out of prison as even worse criminals. And yet it happens every day. The state run prisons are bad enough, and the private ones are even worse due to the corruption that is inherent when law enforcement operates for profit.

People like you, who always piss and moan about taxes, and what your taxes are spent on, should be outraged at a system that increases your tax burden. But it's like you're locked in this inner conflict of wanting to strut around like tough guys, while at the same time you cry. Figure out your priorities and maybe then some you people won't be so angry all of the time.

Yes, telling me to die and fixing nooses for those you disagree with are all about not being angry.

I am outraged about people going to the pen for small drug crimes, but that's a law issue as opposed to an incarceration issue. The fact is, this isn't 1971 where you end up in the pen over having a number in your car. And I very much get that what I do is against Federal law, which is another discussion. The other shoe to drop is that I don't deal, I don't traffic, I don't light up at McDonalds, I don't drive high (or impaired at all), I don't try to carry to or from Canada. In other words, I'm discreet. If you're a doof and think you're within your rights to fire up in front of a cop or at a primary school, well, natural consequences are that you'll come into contact with John Law. Whether that's what SHOULD happen or not is up for debate, because I believe responsibilities come with smoking weed, drinking, driving a car, whatever.

I'm not sure where the tough guy thing comes from, because I certainly don't think I am. FBF is the one wanting to kill folk, not me. I am a crier, tho. You got me there.

But we've gotten way off the point of prison conditions, no? Incarcerating people is grim business. Privately run prisons suck. Government prisons suck. Three albums notwithstanding, Varg must've thought the prison he was in sucked because he tried to escape at least once. Are there abuses in privately run prisons. There sure are. Well documented ones. Same with state run. Pelican Bay, the Federal Supermax ones, Angola, Alcatraz, the cook County lockup. Neither is better or worse than the other. And frankly I don't have a dog in the state vs. private jail business. But here is the truest thing you're going to hear today. No matter who runs a prison, no matter how it's run, none of us will be happy with it. Denying freedom to individuals is, again, grim business. With minute day to day problems unique to it that none of us can even begin to imagine. I don't know what fix, if there even is one, would remedy those problems. Obviously you folks don't either, because all you've done is point out problems and not offer solutions. Sadly, we end up at my original point: prison is prison. There is no easy way to take away an individual's liberty. Prove me wrong. Instead of bitching, offer some fixes. Personally, I think that would be a much more interesting discussion than listing the folks who should face the noose.

A lot of folks need to go to make you happy, huh? Maybe you should look into your soulmates over at stormfront.

Somalia overnight? Nope. No hysteria to be seen here, folks. This is well thought out, reasonable debate.

Please, please tell us who else has to "disappear" to create your utopia.