Re: Weird story number 90
 

The lack thereof yup.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

That's not at all what I said. I said when a democracy allows the rich, or the poor, or the middle class, to liberally vote themselves transfers, it's on the road to bankruptcy.

The .0001% is voting itself, via bought and paid for representatives, significant wealth transfers. What would normally be taxed is not. The rich get much richer much faster than in the past. Hand in hand with that, the poor and middle class demand more in the way of transfers, wealth being relative.

Now, of course, we could tax the top 5% at 100% and probably not dent the promises our govt makes to the poor and middle classes. But we make those promises nonetheless. ...Govt debt doesn't matter, so who cares, right? (Larry Summers and Dick Cheney both agree.)

I can't give you an example of a pure democracy that fell. But I didn't offer one, either. I said any pure democracy will spend itself into the shitter. You demanded an example. I gave no example, but instead explained how the process is inevitable (and I think I have Plato, or maybe Aristotle, and a bunch of other important dead people on my side in the "democracy is not the optimal state" argument).

I am not able to provide you with the example you want. That doesn't mean my point doesn't hold, however. That probably means no pure democracy has ever existed because:

(a) It's pretty clear to those establishing states that such a system is built to fail; or,
(b) Every state that started out as one was later converted to a form of govt that could actually survive.

How are inevitable and hypothetical mutually exclusive here? (Or ever?)

Me: X

Ty: Repackaged X.

Me: That's not what I said.

Ty: I'll tell you what you said. And now here's why you're wrong in saying what I've said you said. And further -- when you say something, understand that I will select the criteria on which to judge whether what you've said holds water, not you. So when you say something like, "as a general proposition, pure democracy will cannibalize itself," I'll demand an example. If you don't give me one, I'll then frame the issue as one where we debated whether there are historical examples of pure democracies failing. (Knowing full well that one has never existed, for pretty obvious reasons.)

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

There are several aspects of his story that could be criminal, including that its doubtful he told his mortgage lender that it was for a hush money payment (not that I believe him about the source of funds, but that's his story).

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Why aren't persons of the progressive persuasion screaming about how long the IRS is taking to audit the Trump tax return?

What is the holdup? If it is a completely correct return, the IRS should be finished. If it is shot through with sketchy numbers (What are the odds?) why doesn't the IRS know that by now? Are the IRS and the taxpayer negotiating?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

He borrowed against his home to pay Stormy Daniels? This guy's been Trump's head goon for 15 years and he couldn't pull $130k out of a brokerage account somewhere? Did he perhaps think borrowing the money somehow washed the transaction? I'm confused.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

No. You weren't talking about the rich. We all understand that the rich are well represented in government. (Indeed, your essential point about Trump's election victory has been that many of us don't understand the extent to which ordinary people are alienated by the fact that the government isn't doing anything for them.) Every government, democracy or otherwise, involves what you call transfers. Usually it's the rich exploiting everyone else. Libertarianism is a version of this, a (hypothetical) regime where government focuses on protecting private-property rights instead of more overtly serving the rich and powerful. Obviously, rich people are happy with a system that serves their interests and not other peoples. However, it's hard to defend on principle, which is why you said,

"No exceptions" implied that it has actually happened. But,

Exactly. You have gone from arguing that it always happens to saying that it would happen if it were actually tried. In other words, the rich should continue to run government for their own interests, because if people were represented equally the government would collapse. The rich can be trusted to exploit everyone responsibly, but ordinary people cannot be. It's not a principled argument for libertarianism so much as a scare tactic.

Bankers got bailed out and middle-class homeowners did not. Coincidence, or a result of the clout that bankers have and middle-class homeowners do not? It's odd to see you on both sides of this one simultaneously. And again:

Coincidence, or the predictable result of the government we have? Does it not seem that a government in which all interests were more equally represented would do more to advance public education than our current system? Thanks to libertarians and their fellow travelers, teacher pay has been suppressed by years of tax cuts.

You can identify the problem, again and again, but then you come back to the fear that government might try to do something about it:

So you say, but your answer is to reserve the power to those who already have it.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckrak...l-cohen-client

ZOMG!

Tonight on Hannity:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Da7SSleW0AE0p-1.jpg

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Hmmmm. So Fox has someone reporting on this who has an undisclosed conflict of interest.....

How long before they try the "he's not a journalist he's a entertainer" line about their start journalist?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Also, somehow he has "thousands or even millions" of documents about his work for his three clients.

So what's the scope of all that legal work? Even if Trump and Hannity each had to pay off 100 women, and there were 100 documents for each payoff, we're still only to 20,000 - no where near a million yet alone many millions.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

That was just a lawyer who didn't have any idea bullshitting in court (and getting called on it by the judge).

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Who among us has not had a million bajillion documents to deal with?

MSP Trip Bleg
 

For a pleasure trip to Minneapolis / St. Paul, which city should I stay in? Thanks,

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Not reading any of the news, but question- why do we know that his representation of Hannity was for protection/bribing about an affair? This guy is a specialist?

Re: MSP Trip Bleg
 

Do you plan on renting a car? If not I'd say Minneapolis.