lookin' for common ground
a little exercise in commonality
questions: I ask, you answer
no war: just a sequence of statements & inquiry to find a little commonality
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An individual has a right to his life, his liberty, his property.
Don't nitpick & dissect now (we can do that later), just -- as you like -- gimme a 'yes' or 'no'.
Does an individual have a right to his life, his liberty, his property?
Define 'property' - without that definition no sensible answer can be made.
Property: that which a person owns acquired through trade (your chair for my flute?), transaction (your chair for $50?) or manufacture (go pound sand, I made my own chair).
Life: the existence (the day-to-day comings and goings, the activities and pursuits) of an individual human being, the singular, on-going event that is the individual, the person.
Liberty: the quality or state of being free (to come and go, to be active, to pursue goals as one sees fit in accordance with one's conscience), unregulated by the other.
Property acquired through inheritance is not acquired through trade, transaction, or manufacture. Property can also be acquired illegally. Property can also be acquired illegally and subsequently acquired through inheritance.
If you're implying that these rights would be "under all circumstances, without exception," then I have to say no.
Of course, everyone agrees that there are exceptions, but we don't agree what the exceptions are. That's why it isn't simple and that's why simplistic models fail to describe reality, and therefore fail to provide an adequate roadmap for navigating reality. Consideration of nuance is always going to be necessary.
Property: that which a person owns, acquired through trade (your chair for my flute?), transaction (your chair for $50?), gift (here, have my chair.) or manufacture (go pound sand, I made my own chair), but not through theft (gimme your chair!).
Life: the existence (the day-to-day comings and goings, the activities and pursuits) of an individual human being, the singular, on-going event that is the individual, the person.
Liberty: the quality or state of being free (to come and go, to be active, to pursue goals as one sees fit in accordance with one's conscience), unregulated by the other except where one physically interferes with another (unjust regulation or deprivation of another's life, liberty, property).
c'mon, you legalistic bastids...nitpick some more...I can take it...I'll outlast all you sons of bitches
Property: that which a person owns acquired through trade (your chair for my flute?), transaction (your chair for $50?) or manufacture (go pound sand, I made my own chair).
Your slave for my coin.
[eta] Saw your post after I posted mine :P
Ok. Define theft - rather, define the statute of limitation on theft?
In most respects I agree there are fundamental human rights - of which the right to life, the right to pursue 'happiness' - I use that in the original sense of the word - and the right not to have either your property unfairly taken, or your liberty unfairly constrained are fundamental
But - as has been pointed out, people draw the lines very differently when it comes to delineating what is or is not fair, what is or is not reasonable.
We are social animals and profoundly complex ones at that. We exist in a social compact - multiple overlapping and competing compacts, some chosen some inherited and often contested.
We can boil these things down to a sentence or two, or a list enshrined, but each one will have a library of books of interpretation - and they should.
An individual has a right to his life, his liberty, his property.[\b]
That some choose to violate the right of a man to his life, his liberty, his property (through theft, through murder, through slavery) doesn't invalidate the (moral) principle, the statement.
It simply means some folks are low down motherfuckers and a person really needs to keep his eyes open and watch his back.
In other words: your little observation ("Your slave for my coin.") is already addressed in [b]An individual has a right to his life, his liberty, his property.
So: no gold star for you, lil Miss Nitpick.
Oops! 13 posts later, and our perfect society has devolved into a free-for-all hellscape where the strong openly prey on the weak. Sorry, weaklings, life/liberty/property is reserved for the mightiest of the mighty--try again next life.
I defined theft (broadly and simply)...go take a gander.
And we haven't even got out of the startin' gate cuz of all the *nitpickin', so I won't be forced to jump ahead into limits on theft.
Work with what you got, or take a flyin' leap.
#
"Sorry, weaklings, life/liberty/property is reserved for the mighty--try again next life."
Doesn't have to be that way, and you don't need 10,000 laws/regs to get sumthin' better, but if you think you need to straightjacket yourself to straightjacket the bad actors then that's what you'll do (as I say: you trade off autonomy to preserve autonomy).
Can't reason with crazy.
#
"We can boil these things down to a sentence or two, or a list enshrined, but each one will have a library of books of interpretation - and they should."
Yeah, sure, but you can't even get out of the starting gate (or, rather, you can but just don't wanna). And: I asked a question...not seein' that I enshrined anything. I asked a question that you all have a ready answer for ('cept you won't offer that answer cuz -- as I say below -- you're fuckin' with me).
*which I don't believe is real...none of you are stupid...you all know exactly what i'm askin' about...all this legalistic crap is you just fuckin' with me...fine by me, dipshits..we'll play it out to this thread's sad little conclusion (consultin' my crystal ball: there ain't no common ground [cuz you don't want there to be any])
My first post was fucking with you. My second was a genuine attempt to discuss the question.
Liberty: the quality or state of being free (to come and go, to be active, to pursue goals as one sees fit in accordance with one's conscience), unregulated by the other except where one physically interferes with another (unjust regulation or deprivation of another's life, liberty, property).
c'mon, you legalistic bastids...nitpick some more...I can take it...I'll outlast all you sons of bitches
I should have the ability to get a restraining order on my emotional abuser. So, still no.
Henry, you think the world is black and white and every person who points out a shade of gray is a nitpicker.
... you don't need 10,000 laws/regs to get sumthin' better, ...
Maybe not, but you do need
some. Deciding on the range between "zero" and "ten thousand" is the conversation we must have, in order to maintain a civilization. There's no way to avoid that.
Dana: My first post was fucking with you. My second was a genuine attempt to discuss the question.
Thanks for admittin' that. I'll address your 'genuine attempt' down-post.
#
clod: I should have the ability to get a restraining order on my emotional abuser.
No. You have the ability to end abuse (emotional, physical) right now. You just won't take the bull by the balls and 'do' it. As you like.
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glatt: Henry, you think the world is black and white and every person who points out a shade of gray is a nitpicker.
Nope.
#
Flint: you do need some (laws/regs).
Yeah, I know.
I've said the same, more than once ('sensible, minimal': ring a bell?)
##
Genuine attempts: I was pretty hot when I signed off. 'Hot' cuz I was certain I was bein' fucked with. I chilled and realized I wasn't bein' fucked with. Dana's comment about her genuine attempt concreted that realization. You folks are't nit pickin'.
No, things are much worse.
See, when someone asks me a question, I just answer. I don't ask for defintions or clarifications cuz I figure if the questioner has narrow definitions he'll incorporate them into the question.
What I expected when I asked Does an individual have a right to his life, his liberty, his property? were for folks to just tell me what they thought. I expected some to say 'yes', some to say 'no', and some to drone on. Instead I got folks clarifying to me, assuming what I meant, and bein' clever tryin' to trip me up.
Not one actual answer, not one actual 'this is what I think'.
You're all intelligent, well-read, educated folks. Unfortunately you're all also 'consequentialists'. When it comes to 'life, liberty, property' you have no moral principle. Rights, except as legal matters, don't exist for you. It's all 'utilitarianism' to you.
So: no, we have no common ground, no commonality.
Maybe not in politics.
I like pizza. Do you like pizza?
If it had been life, liberty, and pursuit of punani, I would've been all in.
Property; however, is something you can lose half of if you get divorced. Then there's that gov't right to eminent domain confliction (kinda like the gov't divorcing you). Other than that, possession is 9/10ths of the law.
glatt: Maybe not in politics. I like pizza. Do you like pizza?
See, this thread ain't about politics. That you think it is, that you think 'life, liberty, property' is political...well, that's what utilitarianism, communitarianism does to a mind.
As for pizza: yep.
#
sexobon: If it had been life, liberty, and pursuit of punani, I would've been all in. Property; however, is something you can lose half of if you get divorced. Then there's that gov't right to eminent domain confliction (kinda like the gov't divorcing you).
Ain't no right to pussy.
Divorce: pick better, be nicer, or cover your ass in advance.
Eminent domain: theft (or, coercion), pure and simple.
Ain't no right to pussy.
But there's a right to pursue it, as I said.
Divorce: pick better, be nicer, or cover your ass in advance.
Most people aren't clairvoyant. Shit happens even in the best of scenarios.
Eminent domain: theft (or, coercion), pure and simple.
Your property rights are limited to the market value of your property. Try filing an insurance claim, on something that's lost/stolen/damaged, and demanding to be compensated for sentimental value.
It's not a yes or no question, so the only yes or no (no) answer you got had the caveat "under all circumstances, without exception".
You stipulate that laws are needed, however minimal. Laws may protect life, liberty, and property, but they necessarily also restrict liberty and usually do so by threatening life, liberty, and/or property.
So, I'll agree with the previous yes or no answer- are they absolute rights? No. And add the converse: Are they rights of people subject to due process of law? Yes. The disagreement is in what the laws are.
But that's what everyone's been saying in this thread.
"But there's a right to pursue it, as I said."
Yep, my mistake.
#
"Most people aren't clairvoyant. Shit happens even in the best of scenarios."
Yep, that's why I said 'cover your ass in advance' (pre-nup, anyone?)
#
"Your property rights are limited to the market value of your property."
Indeed, but irrelevant. Eminent domain isn't gov askin' to buy your land. E.D. is gov takin' your land. You get 'market value': big deal. If you didn't wanna sell, you were coerced, you were robbed (of choice, of dignity, of volition).
"It's not a yes or no question"
Not for the consequentialist, no.
#
"The disagreement is in what the laws are."
The disagreement (between us) is far deeper and wider than that.
1. Property doesn't make the priority cut to be in the same category as Life and Liberty. It didn't make the top three in the Declaration and it doesn't today.
2. If you're that dependent on property, you're not as independent as you think you are. You're not as independent as I am.
3. Adapt; or, fall by the wayside.
/------------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------------/
"It's not a yes or no question"
Not for the consequentialist, no.
Or for anyone who recognizes the need for laws.
"The disagreement is in what the laws are."
The disagreement (between us) is far deeper and wider than that.
Your language is more grandiose, I suppose.
"/------------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------------/"
bye
#
"Your language is more grandiose, I suppose."
bye-bye
Life as opposed to death, yes. But what you do with your liberty determines that, because what you do day to day in good conscience may piss off the wrong person. He has no right to take your life but that won't do you much good. And if he kills you in good conscience, should the government carry out a vendetta on your behalf?
Property, yes to anything in your possession which doesn't truthfully belong to someone else.
Dana: My first post was fucking with you. My second was a genuine attempt to discuss the question.
Thanks for admittin' that. I'll address your 'genuine attempt' down-post.
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clod: I should have the ability to get a restraining order on my emotional abuser.
No. You have the ability to end abuse (emotional, physical) right now. You just won't take the bull by the balls and 'do' it. As you like.
#
glatt: Henry, you think the world is black and white and every person who points out a shade of gray is a nitpicker.
Nope.
#
Flint: you do need some (laws/regs).
Yeah, I know.
I've said the same, more than once ('sensible, minimal': ring a bell?)
##
Genuine attempts: I was pretty hot when I signed off. 'Hot' cuz I was certain I was bein' fucked with. I chilled and realized I wasn't bein' fucked with. Dana's comment about her genuine attempt concreted that realization. You folks are't nit pickin'.
No, things are much worse.
See, when someone asks me a question, I just answer. I don't ask for defintions or clarifications cuz I figure if the questioner has narrow definitions he'll incorporate them into the question.
What I expected when I asked Does an individual have a right to his life, his liberty, his property? were for folks to just tell me what they thought. I expected some to say 'yes', some to say 'no', and some to drone on. Instead I got folks clarifying to me, assuming what I meant, and bein' clever tryin' to trip me up.
Not one actual answer, not one actual 'this is what I think'.
You're all intelligent, well-read, educated folks. Unfortunately you're all also 'consequentialists'. When it comes to 'life, liberty, property' you have no moral principle. Rights, except as legal matters, don't exist for you. It's all 'utilitarianism' to you.
So: no, we have no common ground, no commonality.
There's a dedicated quote button, y'know...Just sayin'.
There's a dedicated quote button, y'know...Just sayin'.
HEY! If you're going to say stuff like that, take it to the Horses thread.
That's what it's there for, getting on your high horse.
But, I ain't high.
Yet.
Oh the humanity
There's a dedicated quote button, y'know...Just sayin'.
It means learning before writing.
There's a dedicated quote button, y'know...Just sayin'.
I know.
I don't care.
##
tw,
凸(-_-)凸
##
Does an individual have a right to his life, his liberty, his property?
Yes.
What's his right based in?
Self-ownership.
Are there any limits to this right?
Yes: the other guy's right to his own life, liberty, and property.
I laugh every time I see this thread active, because of its title. Here's how it went, to me:
"I'm here to look for common ground. My belief is A. Do you agree, yes or no?"
"Yes, with reservations"
"(Angrily) We can have no common ground."
How can a moral objectivist have common ground with moral subjectivists?
:lol::rotflol::lol::rotflol::lol:
I laugh every time I see this thread active, because of its title. Here's how it went, to me:
"I'm here to look for common ground. My belief is A. Do you agree, yes or no?"
"Yes, with reservations"
"(Angrily) We can have no common ground."
EtA: "We can have no common ground, because MY conditions forbid it!"
Fair assessment.
:thumbsup:
So, the earnest search for common ground might go something like...
"Look, even though I believe A, and you believe A-prime, I bet we do have some things that we share. What do you think of this pipeline project that they are doing? Or, how do you apply your A-prime to your family? Maybe I do the same thing." etc.
The thread was supposed to be about first principles (yours, mine, his, hers), not cookie recipes (or pipelines or family or...).
Don't worry about it: the thread served its purpose (still is).
Then you should have called it search for complete agreement... it's not a common ground sort of thing
Wasn't lookin' for complete agreement...was lookin' for a comparison of principles...after a fashion: I got that (still am).
As I say: don't worry about it.
I know.
I don't care.
That is contempt for all others. A characteristic of an extremist. You only want to 'wreck shit'. That is your common ground. Screw everyone else.
"That is contempt for all others."
Nope. I just like my way of quoting better.
#
"A characteristic of an extremist."
Takes one to know one.
#
"You only want to 'wreck shit'."
Some shit: yep.
#
"That is your common ground."
Nope.
#
"Screw everyone else."
Nah, not everyone, no.
You? Absolutely.
凸(-_-)凸
You can use the quote button.
He knows. He just prefers not to.
^WSS^
_______________________________________________
"He knows. He just prefers not to."
_______________________________________________
He knows. He just prefers not to.
_______________________________________________
:D
You can use the quote button.
He knows. He just prefers not to.
Maybe he doesn't want anyone to read what he's written.
Maybe he doesn't want anyone to read what he's written.
True words.
vWHSv
______________________________________________________
"Maybe he doesn't want anyone to read what he's written."
_______________________________________________________
Maybe he doesn't want anyone to read what he's written.
_______________________________________________________
:D
I see what you did there.
####vWHSv
####I see what you did there.
####^WSS^
>[post=1034562]WIS[/post]<
>[post=1034562]WIS[/post]<
WHS
Funny how these things turn out.
The American cause is at an ebb. We begin the two hundred forty-fourth year of our independence tomorrow with substantive numbers of our citizenry believing of the country what a Calvinist believes of man: conceived in sin, and deserving only damnation.
The propositions that America is a cause for apology, that it was from the start a fatally flawed project, and that it is primarily a source of wrong and regret, are all commonplace now. The history of the great republic is suddenly a source of shame. Its purpose is abruptly an occasion for repentance. American corporations that eagerly supplicate themselves before the Communist Party of China refuse, putatively on moral grounds, to promote American symbology — or to cooperate with American law enforcement. Small towns tear down statues of great monsters of American history like William McKinley. Ordinary people born with the privilege of being African-American assert that America is not really for them. Adoptive parents blessed with the opportunity to bring Asian children to a welcoming United States spit venom at the proposition of American goodness. Americans of Mexican descent fortunate enough to have been born citizens of the United States — instead of violent, dysfunctional Mexico — nurture resentment at the American inheritance. The Congress of the United States holds hearings on whether Americans owe recompense for an inherited guilt. Several major Presidential candidates agree that we do. A major Presidential candidate declares that America owes reparation for failure to recognize an apery of marriage that became popular approximately fifteen minutes ago. Think-pieces in major American publications muse on whether American liberties — speech, religion, association, arms — are not fit to be ended. Well-paid athletes seize the opportunity to refuse respect to American symbols, flag and anthem alike. And on and on and on and on.
Behind it all, a cohort of ideologues for whom enmity to the United States is an end in itself. They pervade the major cultural and formative institutions — entertainment, education, media, government — and this is why they succeed. If patriotism is civic friendship, then these are our enemies. They ascend.
A nation requires a narrative, and in America’s case, the requisite narrative for two centuries just happened to be both positive and true. The republic was in fact — not in myth — “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” In the seventy-sixth year of American independence, a man born a slave and therefore subjected to the most grotesque injustice in American history had this to say of the republic that had sustained his own bondage: “Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. ‘The arm of the Lord is not shortened,’ and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope … [D]rawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions.”
For Frederick Douglass, the remedy for America was America. This had the virtue of being entirely true. What was true is now passé. What great fortune we are now blessed with much wiser men than him. In the place of a Douglass, or a Lincoln, with their misguided faith in America and Americans, we have moral titans like Kaepernick, Rapinoe, Buttigieg, Castro, and all the rest.
They will do their best to break our country. Here though is their weakness: they require your consent. Refuse it.
The truth about America is not what they peddle. The truth about America is in a Vietnamese refugee on the high seas, in a crowded and rickety boat, sometime around 1980, who has the good fortune to come across the USS Midway. The great ship sends out a party to take the refugees aboard, and the first American sailor is greeted by this refugee. He has been through tyranny and hell, but now he is smiling.
“Hello, American sailor!” he says. “Hello, freedom man!”
One of America’s most important gifts to the world was the political philosophy of individualism. The central tenet of this idea is that every human being is important, especially from the point of view of law and politics, as a sovereign individual, not living by the permission of the government or some master or lord. That is the basic idea underpinning not only the democratic process, the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and the various prohibitions addressed to the government concerning how to treat the citizenry, but the free market economic system as well.
Individualism and Capitalism
The free market system or capitalism is founded on the doctrine that each person has a basic right to private property in his or her labor and what he or she creates and earns freely and honestly. The economic idea of freedom of trade—in labor, skill, goods, services, etc.—rests squarely on individualism. No one is anyone else’s master or servant. No involuntary servitude except as punishment for crime is permitted. Thus everyone has the basic right to engage in free trade—as in any other kind of peaceful action, even when his or her particular decision may not be the wisest or even morally exemplary.
In an individualist society the law upholds the idea that everyone is free to choose to associate with others on his or her own terms—whether for economic, artistic, religious, or romantic purposes. Not that all the choices people make will be good. Not that individuals are infallible. Not that they cannot abuse their freedoms. All of that is granted. But none of that justifies making others their masters, however smart those others may be. To quote Abraham Lincoln, “No man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent.”
But today the political philosophy under the most severe attack in many intellectual circles is individualism. From leftover Marxists to newly emergent communitarians, and all the way to democratic pragmatists in the fields of political economy, sociology, and philosophy—everyone is badmouthing individualism. It picked up several years ago with the publication of Robert N. Bellah’s book Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, and continues with innumerable related efforts, including the launching of the journal The Responsive Community and the publication of a new book by Bellah, The Good Society, as well as Amitai Etzioni’s just-published The Spirit of Community.
These and many other efforts constitute a concerted attack against the individual and his rights. Perhaps predictably, the efforts involve gross distortions of what individualism actually is. It is supposed to foster disloyalty to family, friends, and country. It is supposedly hedonistic and instills antisocial sentiments in people. It is allegedly purely materialistic, lacking any spiritual and cultural values.
But such distortion is accomplished by focusing selectively on a very limited area of individualist philosophy, one employed mostly in technical economic analysis and serving merely as a model by which to understand strictly commercial events in free market economies. An exclusively economic conception of the human individual is admittedly barren—it treats everyone as nothing other than a bundle of desires. But this is not very different from the way every science employs models, taking a very simple idea to make sense of a limited area of the world.
Individualism, True versus False
The anti-individualists do not look at individualism as it is developed by social thinkers such as Frank Chodorov, F. A. Hayek, or Ayn Rand, let alone by some of their contemporary students who are developing these ideas and showing how vibrant a political system and culture can be when human beings are understood as individuals. The sheer creative power of human beings should make clear that their individuality is undeniable, crucial to every facet of human living, good or bad. Yet, this essential individuality of every person by no means takes away the vital role various social affiliations play for them; human individuals are social beings.
The kind of community worthy of human life is intimately tied to individualism; such a community, even if the most suitable setting for human living, must be chosen by the individuals who occupy it. If this is subverted by forcing individuals into communities, those involuntary communities will not be genuine communities at all. Individual choice and responsibility are essential to human flourishing.
Indeed, in America, where individualism has flourished more than elsewhere, there are millions of different communities to which individuals belong, often simultaneously, and this is possible because individuals have their right to choose reasonably well protected. Not only do all individuals join a wide array of communities-family, church, profession, clubs, civic associations, and political parties—but there are vastly different approaches to living that also draw around them large segments of the population who join freely, without any coercion and regimentation. But instead of appreciating the robust nature of individualism, including its support for the healthiest form of communitarianism, its opponents are trying to discredit it in any way they can. Why?
Well, some of their motives may be decent enough—some may indeed fear the impact of narrow economic individualism and thus carp against all individualism. But sometimes their motivations cannot be understood as anything else but a hunger for power over other people’s lives. Otherwise, why would the critics ignore perfectly sensible versions of individualism and insist on the caricatures? Over and over again they invoke the caricature even when other, well developed versions are available.
Something like this seems to be the best explanation for wishing to destroy the most significant American discovery, namely, the vital contribution of individuality to human culture. Why would such attacks be launched but to reintroduce subjugation, involuntary servitude, and the demeaning of individuals as individuals in favor of some elite?
No doubt those clamoring for power rationalize their actions with the thought of certain worthy goals: They want a cooperative, harmonious, mutually enhancing community. They often believe that individuals as individuals are dangerous but as members of a community they are wonderful. As the Russian author Tatyana Tolstaya observes in a recent issue of The New Republic:
Taken individually, in short, everyone is not good. Perhaps this is true, but then how did all these scoundrels manage to constitute a good people? The answer is that “the people” is not “constituted of.” According to [collectivists] “the people” is a living organism, not a “mere mechanical conglomeration of disparate individuals.” This, of course, is the old, inevitable trick of totalitarian thinking: “the people” is posited as unified and whole in its multiplicity. It is a sphere, a swarm, an anthill, a beehive, a body. And a body should strive for perfection; everything in it should be smooth, sleek, and harmonious. Every organ should have its place and its function: the heart and brain are more important than the nails and the hair, and so on. If your eye tempts you, then tear it out and throw it away; cut off sickly members, curb those limbs that will not obey, and fortify your spirit with abstinence and prayer.
That is why they should be in power: They are the head of the organism, of the community; they know what is good; and they ought to be making the decisions as to who remains part of it and who must be cut off.
Members of society do have different roles; the economists speak convincingly of the benefits of the division of labor. The errors of the collectivists are (1) their presumption that they know better than the individuals involved which members of society are less important, and (2) they have the right to eliminate those members. But individuals are ends in themselves, not animals to be sacrificed on the altar of the collectivist state.
One of America’s most important gifts to the world was the political philosophy of individualism.
Forget that old Magna Carta thing. And
Christianity. Just mere trinkets. We did individualism, that was us.
You're welcome, World.
He didn't - he just ignored the shoulders America was standing on when it gifted the world something the world already had in a less developed form
He wasn't writin' out a lineage of indvidualist thinkin'. He wrote a short piece, probably for some publication, with a specific word count in mind. I don't think he ignored them shoulders: he just didn't have room to fit 'em in. And them shoulders weren't the point of the piece anyway.
I hear constantly what the CA car guys a subjected to, but apparently they are not alone, the whole state is out of control... or over controlled.:eyebrow:
The sponsors of SB 50 seem to recognize that the state’s housing problems are at least partially man-made. Indeed, California is a leader in regulating just about everything — including insurance carriers, public utilities and housing construction. If California’s regulatory code underwent some serious spring cleaning, it could help the state at least make a dent in its housing affordability crisis.
The California Code of Regulations — the compilation of the state’s administrative rules — contains more than 21 million words. If reading it was a 40-hour-a-week job, it would take more than six months to get through it, and understanding all that legalese is another matter entirely.
Included in the code are more than 395,000 restrictive terms such as “shall,” “must” and “required,” a good gauge of how many actual requirements exist. This is by far the most regulation of any state in the country, according to a new database maintained by the Mercatus Center, a research institute at George Mason University. The average state has about 137,000 restrictive terms in its code, or roughly one-third as many as California. Alaska and Montana are among the states with as few as 60,000.
linkCali: just secede already.
We have found common ground.
I agree with henry quirk.
Henry does not point out there is an active rebellion against all that now -- it is personified in electing, and one hopes reelecting, Trump. As well as numerous lesser cards in the trump suit, the better to break the bad habits of certain purported Americans who are souring the American Dream -- personally.
If you are not down with individualism and freemarket capitalism, you are refusing to be down with life itself. That leaves you only an un-life as an alternative. How would that work for you? Abundant life really seems the better.
… the better to break the bad habits of certain purported Americans who are souring the American Dream...
Trump can wreck that shit (i.e. break the bad habits) for us.
UG: :thumbsup:
Sex:Trump can't do it alone any more than a bulldozer can, by itself, knock down tw's hovel. We got to 'drive' Trump, keep him tuned up, fueled up, paint some flames on his ass.
I was reserving those things for Ivanka. I was just going to put a shock collar on The Donald.
:question: :robot: :question:
I don't live in Cali: that benighted state ain't my problem (not directly, anyway)
OK, my bad, I thought you said you were having trouble with your car in San Diego, I figured you lived there.