Troll Attacks Sarah Silverman On Twitter, And Her Unexpected Response Turns Man’s Life Upside Down1/28/2018
I'm no fan of Sarah Silverman (politically) and tend to think her humor as a standup comedian relies too heavily on being blunt and crass. But when people do great things, you encourage it and spread that message.
Someone on Twitter responded to her in a way that was crude and, unfortunately, too expected these days on social media.
Instead of blocking the guy or retorting with some online snark along the lines of "Nice Twitter Account you have there, must be nice to have 14 followers" or "Typical White cis-male response, yo!", Silverman looked into the guys timeline and responded with empathy. The back and forth looks like this:
Side note: I'm from San Antonio and San Antonio is AWESOME.
I know it's hard on social media. If you've ever read the book Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator then you understand how dangerously rampant humanity is to default to a snarky, dismissive comment. This is how we should treat each other, just like this. Almost makes me forget the time Sarah Silverman called for amilitary coup to overthrow Trump. She apologized though. Follow libertyLOL on your favorite social media sites:FacebookYoutube Tumblr Pintrest Countable: Government Made Simple Steemit blog on a blockchain Patreon Gab.ai libertyLOL's Liberty Blog RSS Feed We also run a couple twitterbots which provide great quotes and book suggestions: Murray Rothbard Suggests Tom Woods Suggests Jason Stapleton Suggests Progressive Contradictions MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL:
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Unpopular Opinion: I hate people who have the 'poor' mindset.
I not only oppose government welfare, I oppose private welfare. You'd be better off burning your money than giving it to a person who lacks the drive to provide themselves opportunities. At least burning it would provide you some heat. For the last 9 years, I've been living with poor people. Why? I rent out the spare room in my home, because I'm extroverted and like having some extra spending cash. Every single one of them has been lazy and stupid. I recall one had tickets to Lollapalooza. She paid $50 each for them. They were selling for $300 each on StubHub. Her boss wouldn't give her the day off. What'd she do? Well, not the smart thing, which is go to work and sell the tickets. Nope, she calls in sick! Yeah, I'm sure that won't be remembered come raise or layoff time. Another had to borrow money from me every year for his girlfriend's birthday. Same girlfriend. Three years in a row. Sure, he always paid it back promptly, but seriously.... It happens on the same day every year! My current tenant is two months behind on rent. I offered to knock off $150 if he raked the leaves and cleaned the gutters (a $60 value). Guess what hasn't happened a month later? Guess who won't be making any more generous offers of work in lieu of rent? (Seriously, if you're looking to hire anyone in the Lake Worth area, check with me first to make sure you don't hire the guy.) He's a tow truck driver, who gets paid on commission (using his bosses equipment). He was complaining about not getting paid to be on call. I suggested he should go to his boss and ask how he could be of greater use to his boss. Explain to his boss he wants to make more money, but he understands he needs to provide value to his boss, so he is respectfully asking his boss for help in becoming a more useful employee. He looked at me like I had grown two heads. Then he went into a screed about how it isn't fair he doesn't get paid by the hour (even though his boss only gets paid a flat rate per tow). No matter how much you help these people, they will always be poor. They squander every opportunity you give them, ignore any advice you give them, and only ever think of their own short term pleasure. We should do away with all forms of charity, with the possible exception of work internships. Work opportunities will separate the wheat from the chafe. Let the rest die face down in the gutter. At least then we'd get soap and glue when we rendered down their bodies. (There's a touch of sarcasm in this paragraph... you know, for effect) Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go stand on my porch and yell at children to get off my lawn. "Get the equivalent of a Ph.D. in libertarian thought and free-market economics online for just 24 cents a day." Follow libertyLOL on your favorite social media sites:FacebookYoutube Tumblr Pintrest Countable: Government Made Simple Steemit blog on a blockchain Patreon Gab.ai libertyLOL's Liberty Blog RSS Feed We also run a couple twitterbots which provide great quotes and book suggestions: Murray Rothbard Suggests Tom Woods Suggests Jason Stapleton Suggests Progressive Contradictions MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL:
What is the purpose of Government?
Imagine a time before kings, presidents, or prime ministers, before the formation of society and civilization. This is what philosophers call a "state of nature". In this thought experiment, people lived freely, without rules or formal laws. But what exactly does this state look like? For 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes the state of nature is a war of all against all. Mankind’s basic nature is fear, insecurity, death, and turmoil. And from this constant terror, People decided to surrender some basic rights to a sovereign entity, or what he called The Leviathan. If one was, say, fed up with the theft of his potions, the state could pass laws to protect his goods or help him receive some sort of reparation. This protection is important for a number of reasons, but the most significant is that laws, and their enforcement, keep constant anxiety at bay. For 18th century Swiss-born french philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the state of nature is rather different than that conceived by Hobbes. Rousseau sees natural man as independent, solitary, and peaceful. Rousseau thought people were much better off without government. With the creation of agriculture, private property, and the division of labor, however, came inequalities. Unequal access to resources created tension, enmity, and envy. People started to become aware of their limited material situation and lack of upward mobility. They became aware of their 'unfreedom'. This led Rousseau to claim that “Man is born free and is everywhere in chains.” While both philosophers describe the state of nature as a sort of beastly existence absent any morality, they disagree on some fundamentals. Rousseau sees the Hobbesian model as leading to despotism, in which people have no choice but to turn to a third party to secure basic needs. Consequently, they do not freely choose their leaders. Rousseau argues that rather than choosing leaders out of fear, people choose to give up some power and rights, at least so that citizens can be equal. Rousseau dictated that decisions ought to be made for the sake of everyone, instead of a few. This would require that people follow a rule of law that they would follow on their own anyway. For Rousseau, people are better without government because society means unfreedom and oppression. Whether out of fear or for the sake of equality, the consent to be ruled is called the social contract. So listeners I ask, “Who has it right?” Do people need to be kept in line or should they remain free to do as they wish? Follow libertyLOL on your favorite social media sites:FacebookYoutube Tumblr Pintrest Countable: Government Made Simple Steemit blog on a blockchain Patreon Gab.ai libertyLOL's Liberty Blog RSS Feed We also run a couple twitterbots which provide great quotes and book suggestions: Murray Rothbard Suggests Tom Woods Suggests Jason Stapleton Suggests Progressive Contradictions MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL:
I’ve always said Jeffrey Tucker is my favorite living communicator of libertarian thought. I've read Bourbon for Breakfast and Bit by Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World, but not yet read his new book Right-WingCollectivism: The Other Threat to Liberty. Recently (ever since the blood and soil speech, oddly), Jeff Deist has also been hitting me in the exact same way Tucker does. Dr. Jordan Peterson, author of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, also strikes me as someone who needs to be listened to and read frequently. I’ve been trying to figure out why these three have that effect on me, and I think I finally understand with all the discussion and drama of Hans-Hermann Hoppe this past week. These gentlemen provide context and they humanize what are otherwise merely concepts and theory to my overly-rational brain. They catch me right in the feels. For instance, when someone sidewalk chalked pro-Trump slogans overnight all over campus at Emory University during the election season, I had the same reaction that any hyper-rational person would have. (SPOILER ALERT: I did not feel 'threatened' and less safe) It took an article from Jeffrey Tucker, who happened to be at that campus on that day and experienced the culture there first-hand, to soften my stance, and he’s helped me see social justice sympathizers through his lens and understand them better. Neither he nor I is a social justice warrior by any stretch of the imagination, but it sure helps to know how they think. Likewise, Jeff Deist helps humanize the right. Nationalism has always repulsed me. The idea that there’s some moral mandate to be loyal to blood or soil is completely foreign. I'm an active duty military member and bleed Red, White and Blue. But I also hate getting 'Thanked' for my service and find our foreign policy abroad to be quite despicable. I think most people don't fit into the basic Left and Right categories, there's much more nuance in the world. I think back to my sixth grade teacher, who told us on the first day of school that he would lead us in the pledge of allegiance to the US flag but that he’d pick a student to lead the pledge to the Texas flag because he refused to say it. I just can’t fathom how someone can come to that sort of conclusion. I mean I’m no cuck for Texas either, but at least that hunk of soil is close to home! But Deist helps me understand it. Like Tucker with the SJWs, Jeff Deist explains the mode of thought and feeling that collectivists on the right experience in a way I’ve never heard before and in a way that really resonates with me. (Incidentally during the recent Hoppe/Rachels drama that only libertarians are following, Jeff Deist mentioned in correspondence to Chase Rachels, author of A Spontaneous Order, that Hoppe's wife is Muslim, which started this train of thought and also happened to soften my view of Hoppe. Also, the drama is dumb, don't waste your time looking it up.) I think liberty lovers should drop the divisive internet drama, that's the "Team Mentality" that Democrats and Republicans compartmentalize people into. Keep reading and growing. Read Tucker, Read Deist, and listen to Dr Jordan Peterson lectures. Get educated and keep pushing others to do the same. Follow libertyLOL on your favorite social media sites:FacebookYoutube Tumblr Pintrest Countable: Government Made Simple Steemit blog on a blockchain Patreon Gab.ai libertyLOL's Liberty Blog RSS Feed We also run a couple twitterbots which provide great quotes and book suggestions: Murray Rothbard Suggests Tom Woods Suggests Jason Stapleton Suggests Progressive Contradictions MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL:
MLK Jr. Would Not Accuse Trump's "shi*thole" Comment as Racist, but "Racial Ignorance" (DMR)1/13/2018
I know that I'm going to start a firestorm with this post, but I think that this is a conversation worth having. It seems that not a day passes that headlines don't carry news of accusations of racism. To be sure, racism certainly is alive and well; I do not want to give the impression that I'm downplaying that reality. It is alive, and it cuts more than one way.
That said, I think that the frequency of knee-jerk, reactionary accusations of racism against people for equivocal remarks causes society to be far too sensitive and even unable to recognize true racism when it manifests. (In other words, if everything is racist, then nothing is racist.) It diminishes attempts to address indisputable and/or egregious displays of racism, thus undermining the very goal it means to achieve. Yes, I have in mind Donald Trump's calling Haiti and African nations "sh*tholes." To be sure, I am NOT excusing that remark. Should he have said it? Absolutely not. Was it Presidential? No. Was it a racist remark though? I'm not so sure--certainly not sure enough that I think it should dominate headlines as such. Trump is a tactless man with a small vocabulary, and the preponderance of the evidence indicates that he communicates this way on a broad range of topics, including on many that are not even tangentially related to race. Furthermore, he did not proactively bring up Haiti or African nations, and he probably wasn't talking only about them (Central America also apparently was an intended target). His remarks were in response to their being mentioned both in the immigration bill and orally in the meeting.
Additionally, Trump's remarks were not directed at individual people, nor were they directed at specific demographics. They were quite clearly directed at countries--at geographic political entities. As far as I can tell, this is how Trump conveys that he believes that these are countries with significant problems.
In order for that to be a racist idea, it would need to be discriminatory and wrong. It isn't though. There is a reason that Americans aren't beating down the doors of Africa in an attempt to move there. It is invariably true that Haiti and a large number of African nations have problems that would lead many good, accepting, open-minded people to think--perhaps in different words--what Trump said. Race and tribal warfare. Religious violence. Rape as a weapon. Infanticide. Economic and kinetic warfare against populations by their own governments. Apartheid (until appallingly recently). Extremely high unemployment rates. The use of women and children as instruments of terrorism. Abject poverty. AIDS. Do these describe all of Africa? No. Do they apply to all African countries? No. One or a combination of them do, however, apply to a too-large number of African countries--disproportionately so. There is much to love about Africa. The picture there is far from universally negative, but it remains true that problems like these are relatively more prevalent there. This is not to say that there is anything lesser or inadequate about Africans themselves. There isn't. They are victims of extremely poor governance and of circumstances that frequently are beyond their control. They need our help. Alleged Trump racism isn't what's causing these problems though. Extractive, kleptocratic leadership in many African countries is the primary cause of these problems. (For example, can one really look at the Congo and at its horrendous leadership and objectively believe that only racism could possibly cause someone to develop a negative opinion of it?)Additionally, Trump's remarks were not directed at individual people, nor were they directed at specific demographics. They were quite clearly directed at countries--at geographic political entities. As far as I can tell, this is how Trump conveys that he believes that these are countries with significant problems. Trump should not have said what he did for many reasons, including the reality that it will probably harm our relations with some African countries. The remark was cold and unwarranted. Was it racist though? I don't think that we can say for sure that it was. I agree with Martin Luther King, Jr: Trump's remark probably wasn't a sign of racism. Rather, it was probably just a sign of "racial ignorance." Follow libertyLOL on your favorite social media sites:FacebookYoutube Tumblr Pintrest Countable: Government Made Simple Steemit blog on a blockchain Patreon Gab.ai libertyLOL's Liberty Blog RSS Feed We also run a couple twitterbots which provide great quotes and book suggestions: Murray Rothbard Suggests Tom Woods Suggests Jason Stapleton Suggests Progressive Contradictions MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL:
Here's something to consider regarding the U.S. economy.
The pace of job creation slowed dramatically in Obama's last year, and it slowed even more during Trump's first year. (I point this out to show that job creation generally has very little to do with a President's policies even though all Presidents will take credit for gains and blame someone else for losses.) These days, we are constantly bombarded with one politician or another claiming that his or her new policies, regulations, or tax plans will "create new jobs." Why should we renegotiate trade deals? "Create new jobs." Why should we cut taxes? "Create new jobs." And on and on.
While creating new jobs isn't a bad thing, of course, a lack of jobs also isn't a problem facing our economy right now. There are more than 5 million unfilled jobs in our economy--employers literally cannot fill them all. The problem, therefore, isn't too few jobs; rather, the problem is too few workers. There simply are not enough participants in our labor force to fill even those jobs that are currently available.
Cutting tax rates and reducing regulatory burdens are important (though spending should be cut as well in order to keep these things from piling up more debt for us), but these will not solve the labor force problem. What can we do then? One avenue is to enact policies that increase the labor force participation rate. This is frequently cited as one justification for the need to reform our welfare system. Indeed, our welfare system does need to be reformed: it is too expensive and does not do enough to encourage its recipients to reenter the workforce. That said, increasing the labor force participation rate is a short-term solution--a Band-Aid. Why? Because that means increasing the number of workers out of the population that currently exists. Therein lies the real problem: regardless of our labor force participation rate, the absolute size of our potential labor force is now shrinking. In order for the labor market to continue growing organically, each American woman must have MORE than 2.1 children. That hasn't been the case in this country in a long time, and as of today, each American woman has an average of only 1.5 children. That means that our organic labor force is shrinking--more and more older people and fewer and fewer younger people.
For a while now, the overall size of our labor force has been growing because of immigration. Americans no longer have enough babies to keep it growing, so we've used immigration to grow. Now immigration is quickly falling off as well, so not only will our labor force resume its overall shrinking, but our population as a whole will begin to shrink. This will mean slower economic growth (perhaps even stagnation eventually), lower government revenue, more debt (all else equal), and standards of living that either don't rise or that rise only very slowly.
If we want to lower our debt, increase our standard of living, increase the rate of economic growth, and increase government revenue without increasing tax rates, then we must ensure that our labor force continues to grow. (This is especially true when one considers how much larger China and India's labor forces are than our own, something that could give them a considerable advantage over us over the long term.) Thus, there really are only two types of policies that we should be pursuing to this end: those that encourage families to have more babies and those that encourage more immigration.* *Caveat: "More immigration" doesn't mean no-holds-barred, beat-down-the-borders immigration. It means tailoring immigration quotas annually to the needs of our economy and issuing visas based on these needs. Follow libertyLOL on your favorite social media sites:FacebookYoutube Tumblr Pintrest Countable: Government Made Simple Steemit blog on a blockchain Patreon Gab.ai libertyLOL's Liberty Blog RSS Feed We also run a couple twitterbots which provide great quotes and book suggestions: Murray Rothbard Suggests Tom Woods Suggests Jason Stapleton Suggests Progressive Contradictions MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL:
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