[worry]

Ando, you weren't imagining things. AG Jeff Sessions rolled back Obama-era rules that restricted the Dept. of Justice from conducting civil asset forfeitures last year...but was fortunately countered in turn by bipartisan legislation. It's still a resonant issue in that non-federal law enforcement agencies do it to the tune of tens of millions of dollars annually. Authoritarians and kleptocrats love it for obvious reasons, but civil libertarians (on the left and right) aren't too keen on it.

If there's one good thing about this pending gunpocalypse, it's that there won't be anymore assets to forfeit.

[Andorion]

Nicodimas, on 10 March 2018 - 04:53 AM, said:

@ Ando: A singular place of well-being is not important .. as a world we are judged by ..our worst places. A world as a whole is not judged by its best... but by the areas lagging......

The scary thought is that suddenly the world should jump forward to its most advanced areas. However, this actually leaves most of the community ....


Behind.


That's evil. Plain as day.

Uh huh. And this is relevant to Europe how? There have always been underdeveloped and developing areas, I should know, I live in one of them! If you want to talk about global underdevelopment, lets talk about colonialism, post-colonial imperialist agendas, financial control via the IMF, ruthless exploitation of third world resources and labour by MNCs...

My point was made in the context of your assertion that Europe is being led astray. I pointed out that large parts of Europe are doing quite well. Eastern Europe is an entirely different kettle of fish and has been so since the 17th century - see the Ottoman Empire, the Collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the 2nd age of European feudalism and the ascendancy of Russia - its kind of a big topic.

In the context of America vs Europe, I am wholeheartedly in favour of the European trajectory of more social welfare, more inclusive and tolerant societies and more checks on capital. I am not saying that Europe has achieved this, is close to it or is some sort of socialist Utopia. I am saying that they are by and large on a better path than the USA which seems determined to become some kind of chaotic, hypercapitalist, fascist dystopia.

[Silencer]

Andorion, on 10 March 2018 - 01:06 PM, said:

Nicodimas, on 10 March 2018 - 04:53 AM, said:

@ Ando: A singular place of well-being is not important .. as a world we are judged by ..our worst places. A world as a whole is not judged by its best... but by the areas lagging......

The scary thought is that suddenly the world should jump forward to its most advanced areas. However, this actually leaves most of the community ....


Behind.


That's evil. Plain as day.

Uh huh. And this is relevant to Europe how? There have always been underdeveloped and developing areas, I should know, I live in one of them! If you want to talk about global underdevelopment, lets talk about colonialism, post-colonial imperialist agendas, financial control via the IMF, ruthless exploitation of third world resources and labour by MNCs...

My point was made in the context of your assertion that Europe is being led astray. I pointed out that large parts of Europe are doing quite well. Eastern Europe is an entirely different kettle of fish and has been so since the 17th century - see the Ottoman Empire, the Collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the 2nd age of European feudalism and the ascendancy of Russia - its kind of a big topic.

In the context of America vs Europe, I am wholeheartedly in favour of the European trajectory of more social welfare, more inclusive and tolerant societies and more checks on capital. I am not saying that Europe has achieved this, is close to it or is some sort of socialist Utopia. I am saying that they are by and large on a better path than the USA which seems determined to become some kind of chaotic, hypercapitalist, fascist dystopia.

"Yeah, but at least we'll be free!" - people like Nico, as they slowly but surely cede their democracy/republic into a full-blown oligarchy-dictatorship due to their paranoia about tyrannical governments and obsession with fake personal liberty at the expense of the sort of social freedoms European and other social democracies enjoy (i.e. the kind that comes from not having to worry about affording healthcare, or being faced with constant mass shootings). Ironically, the very thing that is most likely to cause America to become a dictatorship is their intense fear of "big" government.

[Macros]

I, for one, would much rather live in a society where I am scared to send my kids to school because someone might run in and gun them down.

My parents grew up in the troubles, they voted in favour of the good Friday agreement so I wouldn't have to.

Parents shouldn't want their kids to grow up in a violent society, where death by shooting or bombing is a constant real threat.

[Andorion]

worry, on 10 March 2018 - 07:51 AM, said:

Ando, you weren't imagining things. AG Jeff Sessions rolled back Obama-era rules that restricted the Dept. of Justice from conducting civil asset forfeitures last year...but was fortunately countered in turn by bipartisan legislation. It's still a resonant issue in that non-federal law enforcement agencies do it to the tune of tens of millions of dollars annually. Authoritarians and kleptocrats love it for obvious reasons, but civil libertarians (on the left and right) aren't too keen on it.

If there's one good thing about this pending gunpocalypse, it's that there won't be anymore assets to forfeit.

Civil asset forfeiture! I knew there was a term I was forgetting. Yeah I read about this last year, how its a huge issue in some areas, and how the police basically receive a portion of their funding through it.

You know, one thing that strikes me quite often about the US is how quite important things are underfunded or funded in weird ways - schools give disproportionate importance to sports like American football (despite the bullying, sexual harassment and concussion issues) because it brings in money. Police pull shit like this so departments can get money. These institutions are supposed to be publicly funded through responsible budgets! I don't understand why more people are not upset about the government intentionally underfunding such basic things.

[worry]

Because the targets are, by and large, the most vulnerable people in the country. The Ferguson protests a few years back were partly about this (not asset forfeiture per se, but funding via criminalization: https://www.npr.org/...fees-fuel-anger).

And because there's a an entire multi-billion dollar shadow industry focused on convincing people that taxation is theft.

[Macros]

And the privatisation of prisons is a great idea

[Primateus]

Macros, on 11 March 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

And the privatisation of prisons is a great idea

But of course it's a good idea! What could possibly go wrong? No! No, free market good, government control bad! Everyone knows that.

And if some private corporate prison company were to treat the people in prison with something less than human dignity, well, who cares? They're criminal scum, not fit to walk among the rest of us, nuh uh!

[Macros]

i mean, they have the best interest of the community at heart.

best make sure to over crowd those prisons, and hammer down on inmates for every infraction to ensure a longer stay. not for greater profits, for the protection of the people! just like the gun manufacturing companies they only have your best interests at heart

[Nicodimas]

Primateus, on 11 March 2018 - 10:01 AM, said:

Macros, on 11 March 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

And the privatisation of prisons is a great idea

But of course it's a good idea! What could possibly go wrong? No! No, free market good, government control bad! Everyone knows that.

And if some private corporate prison company were to treat the people in prison with something less than human dignity, well, who cares? They're criminal scum, not fit to walk among the rest of us, nuh uh!

The anti-freedom crowd biggest goals is to imprison the law abiding and freedom protecting crowd ...

This has clearly been their goal.. look certain people’s responses they want to jail( or steal property and then jail) of lawful citizens. That’s what the whole gun debate has always been about.. pick something that political class cares about.

Make it illegal.

Throw them in jail.

That’s how their mind works!

They choose it cause the freedom crowd will stick up for liberty ! Justice ! Truth ! freedom! We are here to protect you......

( the Europeans here might not understand this, but your free cause of America.... Cause Russians)

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 12 March 2018 - 12:28 AM

[worry]

It's kinda funny that the people worried most about the New World Order believe without any skepticism the scare tactics of bloated pasty Russian oligarchs and crime bosses who got rich off the Cold War and want to reignite it. Like Vladimir Putin is an omnipotent dark lord and not just the top dog among 'ex'-Soviet kleptocrats who had the KGB-insider foresight to fund hackers and trolls. He's Jeff Bezos with a penchant for murdering political rivals and a slightly more sinister Mechanical Turk operation. And the world should quake.

[worry]

I mean he's a monster of a man, but he isn't Sauron.

[Andorion]

Nicodimas, on 12 March 2018 - 12:21 AM, said:

Primateus, on 11 March 2018 - 10:01 AM, said:

Macros, on 11 March 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

And the privatisation of prisons is a great idea

But of course it's a good idea! What could possibly go wrong? No! No, free market good, government control bad! Everyone knows that.

And if some private corporate prison company were to treat the people in prison with something less than human dignity, well, who cares? They're criminal scum, not fit to walk among the rest of us, nuh uh!

The anti-freedom crowd biggest goals is to imprison the law abiding and freedom protecting crowd ...

This has clearly been their goal.. look certain people's responses they want to jail( or steal property and then jail) of lawful citizens. That's what the whole gun debate has always been about.. pick something that political class cares about.

Make it illegal.

Throw them in jail.

That's how their mind works!

They choose it cause the freedom crowd will stick up for liberty ! Justice ! Truth ! freedom! We are here to protect you......

( the Europeans here might not understand this, but your free cause of America.... Cause Russians)

I am not European, and I hardly understood any of that.

I mean, most of the jail population comes from the draconian drug laws, especially those surrounding Marijuana. A federal legalization and regulation bill would help millions of people. It would dent the painkiller addiction problem, it would vastly increase state revenue and fund social welfare programs, it might even reduce the far more harmful alcohol habit. Republicans oppose this.

You know who should get thrown in jail? The financial parasites who profited off the market crash and the recession.

[Tiste Simeon]

European here. Screw you Nico. You're talking utter crap. Stop with the freedom nonsense you sound like a broken record.

[worry]

What Nico is talking about is Europe at the mercy of an expansionist global empire, and the only thing holding it back is American might. But since America is increasingly in the hands of 'globalists' who are bankrupting the country and removing our freedoms, we're bound to fail -- and once we do, it's Armageddon for Europe. We're (supposed to be) the Stormwall for the world.

Gun control is just one of the more insidious ways these globalists are prepping to secure absolute power over a (willingly, can you believe it?) defenseless populace. Nico's not arguing for GOP-style extremist might-makes-right conservatism that serves corporate lobbyists, he's arguing for extreme civil-libertarian, quasi-Jeffersonian populist nationalism.

[HoosierDaddy]

That is "my right makes right" nonsense, Worry. It isn't very hidden.

You want your arsenal? You are banned to your bunker until someone lets you out.

[Nicodimas]

Tiste Simeon, on 12 March 2018 - 02:51 AM, said:

European here. Screw you Nico. You're talking utter crap. Stop with the freedom nonsense you sound like a broken record.

Why exactly I hear condemnation.. but

https://www.hawaii.e...kills/NOTE1.HTM

https://www.amazon.c...olice+battalion


Europe isn’t free. They think they are.. in just very very small view.

Everything changes soon. Might makes the world. We are small beings to the people that rule us.. and they have a plan. I wish you the very very best.

# prepare #long collapse #changes

(It’s close)

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 12 March 2018 - 05:42 AM

[worry]

H. D., on 12 March 2018 - 04:07 AM, said:

That is "my right makes right" nonsense, Worry. It isn't very hidden.

You want your arsenal? You are banned to your bunker until someone lets you out.

It's nonsense for sure, but libertarianism (particularly the survivalist branch) tends to be the paranoid nonsense of true believers, not the cynical nonsense of conservative parasites. The former have actual principles, albeit based on misguided understandings of civil liberties and how public and private spheres shape them. The latter have no principles whatsoever and just want the money and power. Both are fundamentally wrong and corrosive to civilization, so maybe it's a moot point, but I'm pretty sure Nico isn't on the side of private prisons with inmate quotas or things like that. He just thinks they're the outcome of a cabal of elites bent on world domination, and not like, just the logical endpoint of unchecked capitalism in practice.

It's sad that so many of these starve-the-government 'freedom' fighters play right into the hands of the worst, most ruthless, most power hungry fiends on the planet. It's like, you're walking right into their maw. The fight isn't between 'big' government and 'small' government, it's between diffused power and concentrated power. Guess what you get when you select a dude who installs Mike Pence, Betsy DeVos (and Erik Prince), Eric Pruitt, Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, and their ilk in positions of power.

Then again, Nico isn't really a Trump supporter, he's a 'get on with it' supporter. If Trump accelerates us that much faster towards the global financial meltdown and subsequent end of civilization he believes is coming, so much the better. Nico believes it is inevitable rather than preventable, and so the only option is to prepare yourself to survive it. So when you talk to him about like gun violence statistics or the NRA or what have you, they're kind of beside the point to him. It's not the same conversation the rest of us are having.

[Macros]

So he thinks it's steering into the skid so to speak.

Rather than what is actually doing, which is willfully hurling the car off a cliff

[Primateus]

Nicodimas, on 12 March 2018 - 12:21 AM, said:

Primateus, on 11 March 2018 - 10:01 AM, said:

Macros, on 11 March 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

And the privatisation of prisons is a great idea

But of course it's a good idea! What could possibly go wrong? No! No, free market good, government control bad! Everyone knows that.

And if some private corporate prison company were to treat the people in prison with something less than human dignity, well, who cares? They're criminal scum, not fit to walk among the rest of us, nuh uh!

The anti-freedom crowd biggest goals is to imprison the law abiding and freedom protecting crowd ...

This has clearly been their goal.. look certain people's responses they want to jail( or steal property and then jail) of lawful citizens. That's what the whole gun debate has always been about.. pick something that political class cares about.

Make it illegal.

Throw them in jail.

That's how their mind works!

They choose it cause the freedom crowd will stick up for liberty ! Justice ! Truth ! freedom! We are here to protect you......

( the Europeans here might not understand this, but your free cause of America.... Cause Russians)

So you agree with me that private prisons are one of the more horrible ideas in the fuckbarrel of fucking horrible ideas?

Edit: I'm sorry for the fucks, but it's for emphasis.

This post has been edited by Primateus: 12 March 2018 - 11:48 AM