Is it ethical to be/head to JTree right now?

John Barritt wrote:

So.....northern Syria. How are the roads there? Anarchy doesn't work.

Pretty sure Syria had fully functional roads before numerous ​Governments, as in the opposite of Anarchy, ​bomved the shit out of them. Didn't quite make a strong case against anarchy there. Also, look up the definition from the entymology of ithe words Greek origins, then explain to me how rulers help. 

Right, but where did the roads come from in the first place?  Syria kind of has a history of governments...like older than anywhere else in the world.  You act as though there were no taxes at all before 1900.  Building things takes organization and resources, both of which come from government.

Did the thread title bother anyone else:

"Is it ethical to be JTree right now?"

How does one even BE a park? And is it ethical?

PS. Didn't some French dude figure out all this anarchy/society stuff back in the day? Like 1700? Something about a SOCIAL CONTRACT?!

PPS. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_S…

Right, but where did the roads come from in the first place?  Syria kind of has a history of governments...like older than anywhere else in the world.  You act as though there were no taxes at all before 1900.  Building things takes organization and resources, both of which come from government.

Yeah, right....next you're going to tell us that the Founders created the Constitution in order to replace the existing government with one that had more power, including the authority to levy federal taxes.

Blasphemy!
Fake News!

grog m wrote: Proof?

Easy for you to say. 

Troll.  Why bother posting? Why bother reading the thread? 

At the risk of getting more involved in this mess...here's my dummy take.

I don't care who WINS or LOSES in terms of Democrats vs. Republicans.

Democrats should give Trump his silly wall. $6 billion is not that much money (although ironically it looks like that amount would fund the entire NPS for about two years). They can still blame him in the next election cycle -- claiming he'd own the shutdown, then failing to end it himself. People are missing paychecks and getting hurt.

Yes, it is "ethical" to go to Jtree. Enjoy the park and take care of it like always!

OK if Seria had built the roads with Reardon Metal they might be in better shape. This is why I support a global 10.289 directive to level the playing field between countries.  This would allow all steel manufactures to make the Reardon "miracle" metal.  This is the only way for the world to achieve the fair share act.

I just wanted to thank Marc801 C & Sloppy Second for posting great articles.  Marc801 C has posted two articles from the New York Times & Forbes. The articles reveal how the Trump tax cuts are increasingly the deficit significantly & how the poor & middle class will suffer from them.  The middle class will actually end up paying more in taxes.  Sloppy Second's three article document that the Stock Market is at its worst in 10 years, consumer confidence is low & people are buying more thanks to credit cards, not because the earning more money.  What happens if more people lose income & jobs (as we are seeing with auto worker layoffs & the consequences of a continued government shutdown)? How will this effect the banks, if those people default on their credit card debt?  I'm afraid this could be a rough year or years ahead.  Bush & cheney were evil & cut taxes on the wealthy.  I can criticize Obama for pandering to WallStreet, following in Bush's footsteps by invading Libya & US involvement in Syria & Yemen.  Trump has beat both Bush & Obama by a long shot, enacting terrible economic policies, trashing the environment & escalating US bombing campaigns in Syria, Iraq & Afghanistan.  I should also mention the number of sanctions imposed by Trump on Russia, Iran, Syria & Venezuela has dramatically increased.  These sanctions hurt the people of those countries not their leaders.  I wish I could more optimistic about what lies ahead, but the Trump administration is very dangerous & extremely incompetent.

jt newgard wrote: Did the thread title bother anyone else:

"Is it ethical to be JTree right now?"

How does one even BE a park? And is it ethical?

PS. Didn't some French dude figure out all this anarchy/society stuff back in the day? Like 1700? Something about a SOCIAL CONTRACT?!

PPS. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_S…

Show me where I signed it. Or you, for that matter.

Trump isn't just a bull in china closet, He's a blatant liar.  On the campaign trail he seemed like he was against regime change wars.  These two videos demonstrate the escalation of war & expansion of the US empire under Trump.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAmpD5MvDw8 

 Along with his Syria Deception.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ3aatCJK0w

Brother Numsie wrote:

Show me where I signed it. Or you, for that matter.

You disappoint me, Brother.

Mark Rolofson wrote: Trump isn't just a bull in china closet, He's a blatant liar.  On the campaign trail he seemed like he was against regime change wars.  These two videos demonstrate the escalation of war & expansion of the US empire under Trump.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAmpD5MvDw8 

 Along with his Syria Deception.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ3aatCJK0w

As much as I hate to defend trump, last time I heard he kept the troops in Syria, which if he did is absolutely the correct move. The american troops there were pretty much the only thing standing between the turks and a kurrdish massacre, and the news of american troops leaving Syria prompted the kurds to reach out to the dictator who literally massacred his own citizens.

Also, the american troops stood as an obstacle for Iran to transport weaponry through Iraq and Syria into Lebanon for Hezbollah. At the moment, Hezbollah's missiles are incredibly inaccurate and are easily neutralized by the Iron Dome, but Iran has been trying to get GPS-like technology into Lebanon, which would drastically increase the missle's accuracy and pose a huge threat to Israel.

Not to mention, by the way, the orphans that are created almost every day in Syria due to an inhumane regime. 

Brother Numsie wrote:

Show me where I signed it. Or you, for that matter.

OK one more foray, then I'm done haha. I do hear where you're coming from, Brother Numsie. This is also built in to the whole social contract framework (from the Wikipedia page):

...argued that government is not a party to the original contract and citizens are not obligated to submit to the government when it is too weak to act effectively to suppress factionalism and civil unrest. According to other social contract theorists, when the government fails to secure their natural rights (Locke) or satisfy the best interests of society (called the "general will" in Rousseau), citizens can withdraw their obligation to obey, or change the leadership through elections or other means including, when necessary, violence.

Where we probably disagree is in the application of the above. I don't think the shutdown is reason enough to go anarchist. We have it really really good in the USA. So many freedoms, just look around the world where abuses by government against citizens are so much worse.

That said, I always appreciate opposite viewpoints :)

PS. So just to clarify, a social contract is between ourselves, not between us and government. Basically we get to make government our bitch. LOL

John Barritt wrote:

That's part of it. But the rest is the lawn guy who mows for cash or takes checks and just cashes them.

Same with the house keeper, or the guy who flips cars.

Day laborers are the same way, they don't have a job working for one company that has duffel bags of cash. They work the same as the lawn guy. By the job, by the day, mostly cash.

There's also tons of small companies that pay workers from cash paid in by customers who "get a better price" for paying cash. Which is more unreported, untaxed income.

The estimated 296 billion dollars in lost tax revenue over the last ten years is a government figure. Not mine.

All this makes it harder for small businesses who do play by the rules and pay their taxes to compete and survive.

Those people you use as examples are going to be spending it right back into the economy, on gas, food, clothes and housing. That is the best economic stimulus, not big tax breaks to wealthy who are going to hoard a big percent of it so it won't be circulating as quickly.

Señor Arroz wrote:

Guy, I like you so want to be clear I'm not chastising you. But you realize that you're describing a felony you were party to on the public internet, right? If you want to delete your comment I'll gladly delete this. But it also raises the issue of complicity. If your big corporate business was engaging in employment illegalities and, by extension, tax evasion, immigration fraud, structuring, etc. where was your objection then?

That is what I love, how people treat undocumented immigrants as though they are all heavy criminals invading our country of pure, crime free utopia. It is my understanding that statistically they are actually less likely to commit a violent crime and are more motivated than your average US citizen. This country is built on immigration and the mixing of cultures and ideas (and most looked a little rough from having been through hell on their way here, and spoke and acted little funny and had strange religions in the eyes of those here previously).

If it wasn't so byzantine, long and expensive to immigrate, probably a much higher percent would go the legal way. More money should go towards that and prosecuting the businesses like Guy described than a ridiculous wall. Some obviously I would prefer not to be  in the US, but frankly I could do without plenty of native-borns.

eli poss wrote:

As much as I hate to defend trump, last time I heard he kept the troops in Syria, which if he did is absolutely the correct move.

You do realize that in mid-December he said he was pulling all troops out of Syria within 30 days, yes?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/us/politics/trump-troop-withdrawal-syria-months.html

Marc801 C wrote: You do realize that in mid-December he said he was pulling all troops out of Syria within 30 days, yes?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/us/politics/trump-troop-withdrawal-syria-months.html

As of early January, the Israelis said that troops were staying in Syria. Dunno what actually ended up happening because I don't really keep up with all his bullshit, but I sure do hope that the troops are staying in Syria at least a little while longer. 

Edit: Nevermind, just looked it up and I guess my Israeli friends were missinformed about troops staying in syria. Disappointing, but I guess not surprising given Trump's impeccable record for being a huge dumbass. 

How else are we going to recruit tomorrow’s enemies?

Mark Rolofson wrote: I just wanted to thank Marc801 C & Sloppy Second for posting great articles.  Marc801 C has posted two articles from the New York Times & Forbes. The articles reveal how the Trump tax cuts are increasingly the deficit significantly & how the poor & middle class will suffer from them.  The middle class will actually end up paying more in taxes.  Sloppy Second's three article document that the Stock Market is at its worst in 10 years, consumer confidence is low & people are buying more thanks to credit cards, not because the earning more money.  

You didn't read them did you.....

Liberal spin.....headline says this....story "backs it up" for a few paragraphs then the truth comes out.

graph from the consumer confidence article clearly shows it's high as a kite all of 2018.....yeah, it's down this month so far. Spin, spin, spin.....
screen shot from the stock market article.....if it's all bad why do they say this?

And lastly from the consumer debt article same crap, they literally say it's naturally occurring and expected....but, yeah. Trump did it........