NOS4A2

Think also of the strategy of "political triangulation", taking an opponent's policies as one's own, not for any principled reason but strictly for sy...

That is fair and a far more reasonable approach. I even agree that Trump probably, if not obviously, used the opportunity for the photo op.

It's a common fallacy and you have every right to operate in that manner. But I suspect rather than respect that opinion.

The evidence provided by the report proves quite a bit. Those who planned the operation explicitly stated their intentions and reasons for clearing th...

Guilt by association. Classic.

The intentions of those who cleared the park were made explicit by everyone involved in doing so. It was backed up by testimony, video, emails.

Have you read the report?

I'm not sure any of these inferences are reasonable if they are continuously proven false.

All of that is irrelevant to the fantasy that Trump cleared the square for his photo op. The square was cleared to provide the contractor a safe envir...

You're right. Bipartisanship is problem, like any coalition style of governing, because it absolves the politicians and their party of responsibility ...

The report says quite a bit about other agencies. https://www.doioig.gov/sites/doioig.gov/files/SpecialReview_USPPActionsAtLafayettePark_Public_0.pdf ...

There was no evidence he cleared the park for a photo-op. This fantasy was the going rate for quite a time. It’s in the title of the article I posted ...

Let me guess: you believed it, even when there was no evidence. You believe it still, even with evidence to the contrary.

Another myth dispelled. Who believed this lie? Report: Park Police Didn’t Clear Lafayette Square Protesters for Photo Op

Yes it does but only because they are about to violate the general right of bodily autonomy and freedom of someone else. Rather, one defends these rig...

Wouldn’t forcing someone to do something against their will contradict their general right of free self-expression of actualization?

I like your opinion, James, and I can find some affinity with it. I can’t get out of my mind, though, that we the people are already in possession of ...

Well, I think you imagined their intent and implementation, or at least you haven’t shown it. I blame the state for my woes simply because they are th...

Nothing I’ve said precludes "a general right of free self-expression of actualization”, as far as I'm aware. I just don’t think anyone should have the...

Yes, and so you should respect the autonomy and individuality of their body. It’s theirs, not yours. I fully support the use of force to defend that r...

Mussolini’s statism was a frightening, quasi-religious affair. He was statism and collectivism manifest. I have never seen any corporation rise to his...

I don't believe people control the legislature at all. I believe the state is an anti-social institution. It operates only for its own benefit. It for...

Well, I would have to blame the state in these instances. They could have refused and done otherwise, but didn’t. It’s just another reason why people ...

I partially agree, especially wherever the state weds itself to corporations. But I just don’t see corporations bombing countries, taxing and jailing ...

Perhaps a more precise term is “duress”. It should be avoided because you do not own the person. He is neither your child nor your slave. He has not g...

I don’t see how a voluntary society is implausible, or at least you haven’t shown it. Appeals to incredulity do not suffice to dismiss the notion in a...

To me the idea of “unbridled capitalism” is largely a myth. The history seems to me to be one of state interventionism. It’s even written into the Ame...

I’m thinking of statism, though I’m interested to hear your argument.

Myself, for one, but also many individualist, anarchist, liberal, and libertarian thinkers. Anti-statism has quite a rich literature if you ever care ...

The problem I have is I see state "communal action" as compulsory, maintained through coercion and funded by exploitation. This is why I cannot see it...

Again, it still doesn’t follow. The idea that “humans are only capable of forming such relationships with a couple dozen to maybe a few hundred people...

You accuse me, falsely, of criticizing people “protesting their oppression and lives lost in the hands of a violently oppressive state”. In fact, I wa...

I was speaking about riots, violence and theft. So why bring up black people and peaceful protest? Logic? I mean between those who possess the monopol...

What I said was I see no use with the social contract theory of state. I simply don’t believe that is how man transitioned from earlier times to what ...

I don’t recall conversing with you at all so it might not have been that interesting. But yes I tend to criticize violence, rioting theft, and the des...

I don’t see the use of any social contract theory of the state. I prefer the idea that states form and rule by conquest and exploitation, and never by...

In his Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, La Boétie wondered why people will suffer under a tyrant who has no other power than what they give him. He c...

I defined statism as “the belief that a select coterie of fallible human beings should operate an all-powerful institution to meddle in the lives of e...

We have the cadaver farms that document each stage of decomposition, and archeological evidence showing a wide variety of methods of disposal of human...

Under many black codes freed men weren't allowed to bear arms, and the KKK were their enforcers. So the state authority and their thugs first denies t...

I often wonder how the country would have been had the state listened to the brilliant individualism of Frederick Douglass. On the question of what sh...

I mentioned earlier that the state moves begrudgingly and only under great pressure towards any benefit to the citizenry, but with alacrity towards an...

Perhaps it was.

According the the writers at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in 2012, it was quite likely. https://thebulletin.org/2012/08/the-unacceptable-risks-of...

No, it isn’t. The suffix ism and the way in which I used the term indicate otherwise.

I’ve already stated the extent of my own statism in the OP, which directly aligns with that of Paine. But in your febrile responses you need to preten...

Good insights. We should remember that state institutions tend to outlive its creators, those it was designed to favor, and finally, its original purp...

That is a decent point about technology. Perhaps the state, too, is a technology. Over time it has made obedience, subjugation, oppression and exploit...

The misinformation and censorship regarding the lab theory is quite the scandal. Facebook went so far as to ban any discussion of the theory on its pl...

I cannot think of anyone, dead or alive, with enough moral sense to pick and choose what people can or cannot say, and by extension, what we can or ca...