Madison320
Member

I tend to focus on economic issues and property rights more than most people. I really think we're on the edge of a major economic collapse and adding more regulations to our businesses is going to make things much worse.

Yeah, well we're 36 trillion in debt, we've printed 7 trillion since 2008 and we're running trade deficits of a trillion a year. That says we're on the path to Venezuela. And a large part of the problem is businesses can't make a profit from all the taxes and regulations.

That was a quote from Ron Paul, which happens to be my position as well. Corporations get sued all the time and it drives down the stock price and the dividend shares of the shareholders.

I said that zuckerberg may have censored voluntarily and was not forced by government. I don't see the difference but I'll use your exact words. If there is a cooperative effort between the administration and the corporation in their efforts to censor or diminish opposing viewpoints, do you think that corporation should be nationalized?

It constantly annoys me that only maybe 2 or 3 people on this forum agree with us on this. It's not theoretical either. I can't think of a quicker way to wreck a country than to start nationalizing corporations. Look at Venezuela for example. At least Ron Paul agrees with us.

They don't. Where did I say that? That's your argument. The owners are responsible for the actions of a corporation.

It's very possible that zuckerberg censored stuff voluntarily, but I don't see the what difference it makes. Is your position that we should only nationalize corporations that voluntarily censor?

I'm not arguing that "corporations are people". I'm arguing that corporations are merely a group of individual owners and that individual owners should have the same rights as anyone else. Ron Paul agrees with me: "Paul rejects the notion that corporations are people, with collective rights. He says that only individuals have rights; people are individuals, not groups or companies. "Corporations don't have rights per se, but the individual who happens to own a corporation or belong to a union does have rights, and these rights are not lost by merely acting through another organization."

The individual shareholders ARE the owners. How am I the collectivist? You're the one arguing against individual rights. By the way Ron Paul agrees with me: "Paul rejects the notion that corporations are people, with collective rights. He says that only individuals have rights; people are individuals, not groups or companies. "Corporations don't have rights per se, but the individual who happens to own a corporation or belong to a union does have rights, and these rights are not lost by merely acting through another organization."

Do you think we should nationalize all corporations or the just the bad ones?

So you lose your rights if you're forced to do something by the government? Back then I was the only one besides occam arguing that the solution is not to nationalize facebook but to stop the government from forcing them to censor. Everyone else wanted to nationalize them or they thought that facebook was just censoring on their own.

I try to look at it from an individual rights perspective (as does Ron Paul by the way), not whether it's "for the greater good".

The owners are persons. If you feel that owners of businesses don't have the same rights you should nationalize the business.

You think the state should ban them?

So you think Big pharma TV ads should be banned by the state?

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/23/health/rfk-jr-tv-drug-ads-ban.html I think I read it on zerohedge a couple times also found it: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2025-01-19/report-rfk-pressures-trump-ban-direct-consumer-pharma-advertising

Yeah, most people here are against the tiktok ban. I'm curious to see how many are also against banning pharma ads given how much people hate big pharma. I agree that something is out of whack with all these ads. They're annoying as hell. Health care is probably tied with banking as the most regulate industry in the US. I'm sure there's some government interference that is causing things to get out of balance and that's why there's so many ads. The answer is to get the government out, not ban speech.

Do you think the US should be sending money to Israel? I'm agnostic on the question of "who's the bad guy between Israel and Palestine" but I'm 100% opposed to the US using taxpayer money to support Israel in any way.

I agree. This may actually be a good thing, biden is almost taking pardons to its logical conclusion which exposes the flaw in it. The logical conclusion of course would be to literally pardon everyone.

I predict the trump presidency ends very badly. We're in the biggest bubble in history and there's a good chance it pops in the next 4 years. Trump supporters will blame it on the deep state. Trump haters will blame it on trump and capitalism. Of course they're both wrong, it was a caused by decades of spending like drunken sailors and both sides took part in it.

That was great!

The whole thing is creepy. I didn't pay much attention to it because I never thought it would get this far. It's such a blatant, no-brainer violation of the 1st amendment. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

I would assume trump wants to end the debt ceiling so he can borrow more money. You're not insinuating that trump is better than any other president when it comes to spending are you?

They already have something to balance the budget. it's called the debt ceiling. An Trump want's to get rid of it.

It's hard to trust by anyone who used to be a democrat. Their core principles are too different than libertarian ones. By the way that includes Greenwald. He's great on war and free speech but terrible on property rights.

Are you also against free trade? I can't remember.

I think a better question might be which will come first 50 trillion in debt or hyperinflation?

Yeah, that's the part I don't like about most "minorities" in the US. They tend to be socialists. I just think there's got to be a better way than to go full nazi. I'm not aware of any country where that's ever worked. I used to think the best way was some sort of system where you only allow net taxpayers to vote but I haven't thought of one that was simple, non-invasive and that socialists couldn't easily get around. So now the best idea I think is to ban any sort of government currency. The problem with the federal reserve is it hides the pain of government spending.

I agree, I was just checking. Sometimes you guys sound like business is just a big jobs program in which case we might as well nationalize them.