17
Apr
2014
Most Alarming Footage of Bundy Standoff I’ve Seen to Date
There was really almost a shoot-out a few days ago. I’m not saying that to whoop up emotions, I’m just making sure everybody realizes how much this escalated.
I heard that Lynch’s third cousin’s son’s father-in-law’s nephew works for Kochs.
This wasn’t Americans vs. Americans. It was Americans vs. Socialists, similar to what happened in Germany:
They Thought They Were Free
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
“What no one seemed to notice,” said a colleague of mine, a philologist, “was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. …
…
“But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.”
It’s true that Lynch is anti-immigration, as were many of the Bundy crowd, but that does not make him or them socialist.
But congratulations on takings step A against your political adversaries. Style points for the ironic Nazi allusion too.
First of all, Godwin’s Law doesn’t say that “Whoever mentions Hitler first, loses”. It says that the longer an argument goes on, the more likely a reference to Hitler will occur.
Second, the BLM would be the socialists to which I am referring.
why do you think the Bundy affair is “similar” to what happened in nazi germany?
Because just about the first thing the intolerant ideologues did is say “They are not Germans, they are socialists.”
Yes, the Germans favored socialism – but not a consistent socialism, apparently:
Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism is Totalitarian | George Reisman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHpXjm78Pjs
Nazism was a form of fascism, which is an authoritarian nationalistic racist anti-egalitarian ideology.
“Nazism, or National Socialism in full (German: Nationalsozialismus), is the ideology and practice associated with the 20th-century German Nazi Party and state as well as other related far-right groups. Usually characterised as a form of fascism that incorporates scientific racism and antisemitism, Nazism originally developed from the influences of pan-Germanism, the Völkisch German nationalist movement and the anti-communist Freikorps paramilitary culture in post-First World War Germany, which many Germans felt had been left humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles.
German Nazism subscribed to theories of racial hierarchy and social Darwinism, asserted the superiority of an Aryan master race, and criticised both capitalism and communism for being associated with Jewish materialism. It aimed to overcome social divisions, with all parts of a racially homogenous society cooperating for national unity and regeneration and to secure territorial enlargement at the expense of supposedly inferior neighbouring nations. The use of the name “National Socialism” arose out of earlier attempts by German right-wing figures to create a nationalist redefinition of “socialism”, as a reactionary alternative to both internationalist Marxist socialism and free market capitalism. This involved the idea of uniting rich and poor Germans for a common national project without eliminating class differences (a concept known as “Volksgemeinschaft”, or “people’s community”), and promoted the subordination of individuals and groups to the needs of the nation, state and leader. National Socialism rejected the Marxist concept of class struggle, opposed ideas of equality and international solidarity, and sought to defend private property.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism
Socialism is collective, i.e. government, ownership and/or control of the means of production.
What went on in Germany was most certainly socialism.
“In 1930, Hitler said: “Our adopted term ‘Socialist’ has nothing to do with Marxist Socialism. Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not. [164]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism#Anti-communism
“The Nazis claimed that communism was dangerous to the well-being of nations because of its intention to dissolve private property, its support of class conflict, its aggression against the middle class, its hostility towards small businessmen, and its atheism.[160] Nazism rejected class conflict-based socialism and economic egalitarianism, favouring instead a stratified economy with social classes based on merit and talent, retaining private property, and the creation of national solidarity that transcends class distinction.[161]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism#Anti-communism
The most accurate term for the weird nazi ideology is simply ‘nazism’.
“In 1930, Hitler said: “Our adopted term ‘Socialist’ has nothing to do with Marxist Socialism. Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not. [164]
“The Nazis claimed that communism was dangerous to the well-being of nations because of its intention to dissolve private property, its support of class conflict, its aggression against the middle class, its hostility towards small businessmen, and its atheism.[160] Nazism rejected class conflict-based socialism and economic egalitarianism, favouring instead a stratified economy with social classes based on merit and talent, retaining private property, and the creation of national solidarity that transcends class distinction.[161]”
The most accurate term for the weird nazi ideology is simply ‘nazism’.
“social classes based on merit and talent”
Nazis believed in social classes based on race, not merit nor talent.
“retaining private property”
He repeatedly violated property rights. This is demonstrably false.
What Hitler said and what he did are two different things.
Retaining nominally private ownership on paper, but using threats of death and concentration camps to coerce the “private” business owners what to produce, where, in what quantity, using what means, and then who to sell it to, and for what price, this is not private ownership.
Private ownership also means private control, or else the word “private” is vacuous and empty.
“Sure, you can be the private owner of your home, but you better do what I say when it comes to how the house is to be utilized, or else.”
To those who are braindead and cannot distinguish the different between intervention and non-intervention would conclude that your home is “private property.”
Bah
Philippe:
When the Nazis had effective control over private means of production, which they most certainly did, then this is socialism. It is just slightly different from the Communist version of socialism where not only did the state have control, but they also had legal ownership on paper.
There are huge ideological and practical differences between nazism, or so-called “national socialism” (i.e. fascism), and what people usually refer to as ‘socialism’, i.e. left-wing or Marxist socialism. As such it’s a mistake to conflate the two.
Hank,
The nazis believed that race determined your merit and talent. So to say that they rejected merit and talent as a means to divide the classes if false. They just defined merit differently.
Philippe,
The ends may be different, but the means are the same. Economics is about analyzing means and not ends. State ownership of the means of production is socialism regardless of whether that goal is egalitarian or not.
Philippe:
The differences are not significant. Maybe the ideological effects are significant, but in terms of the economy, in terms of how things are produced, they are almost identical.
The practical differences are almost non-existent. The Nazis controlled, but did not own, production. The Communists owned and controlled production.
This is what constitutes “huge ideological and practical differences” between the two?
Please explain how the differences are as huge as you claim. Tell me what the Nazis did that the Soviets did radically differently.
“Economics is about analyzing means and not ends”
That isn’t actually factually true, nor is there any reason why should be.
Fascism/ nazism is closer to aristocracy/ monarchy than it is to socialism. Under an aristocratic system the aristocracy comprises the state and controls the means of production. The system is strictly hierarchical, authoritarian, undemocratic and inegalitarian. The workers have no power, and most of the wealth is held by the aristocracy and the other upper classes. Aristocratic systems are also usually militaristic and nationalistic. They are based on the belief that the upper classes are inherently superior to the lower classes. This is very similar to fascism and very different to the ideology of socialism.
The reason why fascism and socialism have different names is because they are different ideologies.
See this for more:
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-hitler.htm
Philippe,
From an economics perspective they are both socialist in that they involve State ownership of the means of production. If you want to give them different names based on their intentions, then so be it; but file these names under political philosophy, and not economics.
The intentions of a particular action do not necessarily change the result of that action. Does it matter if I run into a burning building with the intention of saving lives or with the intention of being claimed a hero?
“From an economics perspective they are both socialist in that they involve State ownership of the means of production”
Firstly, under fascism the state didn’t usually own the means of production. Ownership remained in private hands and owners made private profits. Economically, fascism is more like an extreme form of crony capitalism than socialism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism
Secondly, describing something like a feudal aristocratic society as ‘socialist’ is nuts.
Thirdly, socialism doesn’t necessarily mean state ownership of the means of production either, it means social ownership of the means of production:
“Socialism is a social and economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy, as well as a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system. “Social ownership” may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, state ownership, citizen ownership of equity, or any combination of these.”
A state which is strictly inegalitarian, in which government and capitalists collude to control the economy and society, and to exploit the working class, does not fit the definition of socialism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
“file these names under political philosophy, and not economics”
political philosophy and economics are often intertwined.
Philippe:
“Fascism/ nazism is closer to aristocracy/ monarchy than it is to socialism. Under an aristocratic system the aristocracy comprises the state and controls the means of production. The system is strictly hierarchical, authoritarian, undemocratic and inegalitarian.”
Socialism cannot exist unless it is authoritarian, undemocratic, and inegalitarian. It is why every attempt at socialism has these facets.
What if the party in control acted for the betterment of the working class, which of course would mean in accordance with their own judgement of what would be to the betterment for the working class?
—————————-
Collective ownership of the means of production IS a hierarchy. Socialism is collective ownership of the means of production. The only way that a single plan can be implemented, is through a social hierarchy of values, where some people, i.e. the minority, are not able to implement their plans for any means of production, while other people, i.e. the majority, are able to implement their plans for the means of production.
Democracy is hierarchical. There is no example today, and no example in history, of a democratic society being non-hierarchical. Unless you want to argue that true democracies have never existed. But then your claims would be based on pure reason, and thus subject to rational, not empirical, criticism.
“The workers have no power, and most of the wealth is held by the aristocracy and the other upper classes. Aristocratic systems are also usually militaristic and nationalistic. They are based on the belief that the upper classes are inherently superior to the lower classes. This is very similar to fascism and very different to the ideology of socialism.”
In order to force economic equality, there is required an inequality under the law, and a centralized force with elitist rights of forced redistribution powers.
Is that what you call “egalitarian”? A society with a small group of people who are allowed to point their guns at everyone else to force equal wealth?
Wouldn’t this group need resources that are, on average, much greater per capita than the rest of society in order to have enough power to overpower everyone else?
Socialism isn’t anti-hierarchical. It is pure hierarchy based on naked aggression.
“The reason why fascism and socialism have different names is because they are different ideologies.”
No, they have different names for the same reason Post Neo Flippity Keynesians have a different name than New Orthodox Flappity Keynesians.
They are the same, economics-wise, in terms of who controls the means of production. They just differ on the rules of how society would look statistically.
I see that you haven’t thought this through enough. You did not explain what you identify as socialism in any detail. Just general references to worker power. Yet the Nazi regime was “the nationalist socialist worker’s party”.
Name only you say?
OK, then explain exactly what socialism is.
Then explain why it isn’t private property with exclusion rights.
Then explain why socialism isn’t government ownership and/or control of the means of production.
Then explain how capitalism, and hence capitalists, and hence wage labor, can come to an end without a centralized state who uses force.
Philippe:
“Firstly, under fascism the state didn’t usually own the means of production. Ownership remained in private hands and owners made private profits.”
The Nazi regime controlled the means of production.
That is the key here.
Imagine you having nominal ownership of your house, or place of business, but the government controlled your production via threats and coercion to get you to produce what they want, using what means, and who to sell it to, and for what price.
To quibble that this is different from government ownership, is to miss the forest for the trees. “Legal” ownership of a thing without control over the thing is just a verbal statement, nothing more
“Economically, fascism is more like an extreme form of crony capitalism than socialism.”
No, fascism is closer to socialism because it is a form of socialism.
Crony capitalism is a mixed form of socialism and capitalism.
“Secondly, describing something like a feudal aristocratic society as ‘socialist’ is nuts.”
No it isn’t. In order to collective the means of production, brute force from a vanguard central power is required. Call it “worker representatives” if you want, it’s still hierarchical and coercive.
“Thirdly, socialism doesn’t necessarily mean state ownership of the means of production either, it means social ownership of the means of production:”
Social ownership is another name for state ownership.
“Social ownership” may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, state ownership, citizen ownership of equity, or any combination of these.”
So it includes capitalism then. In capitalism, “citizens” own equity.
“A state which is strictly inegalitarian, in which government and capitalists collude to control the economy and society, and to exploit the working class, does not fit the definition of socialism.”
Sure it does. It fits it because it is an example of collective ownership and/or control of the means of production.
“No it isn’t.”
So according to you it is reasonable to describe a feudal aristocratic society as “socialism”.
This marks the point at which the discussion descends into farce, and further discussion becomes completely pointless and meaningless. You simply redefine words to mean whatever you want, whenever you want.
Philippe
“debating” MF once I said he was interpreting DK’s words to mean whatever he wanted them to mean, and he said something like of course.
Because they were “just following orders”.
so… the “similarity” is that the BLM people were following orders in rounding up Bundy’s cattle. Hmm.
This article gives a bit more info on the underlying legal issues:
http://econospeak.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/who-owns-unowned-land.html
I’m not sure what Dennis Lynch was really trying to achieve by walking towards the soldiers (?) shouting that he wasn’t armed. Self appointed peace maker?
Looked like a publicity stunt for Dennis Lynch more than anything else.
The police’s purpose was a publicity stunt as well. The “Look what will happen to you if you dare challenge our authority” publicity.
They weren’t even real police, were they? BLM =/ law enforcement. All of these various bureaucratic agencies may buy a lot of guns and bully a lot of people, but that alone doesn’t make you a cop.
The police were enforcing several court orders from the United States District Court of Nevada. It’s the authority of the court that the Bundys and others were challenging.
The Bundys were enforcing several natural laws from reason. It’s the authority of reason that the police and others were challenging.
The police were challenging it for a publicity stunt, telling everyone to fear their irrational authority and don’t even think of using reason to spread the knowledge of who’s right and who’s wrong.
The Bundy’s are actually claiming that the land belongs to the state of Nevada, not to them personally due to ‘natural law’. The Bundy’s argument has been repeatedly rejected by the courts however.
No one is actually arguing about your particular ideology. Bundy says that he doesn’t accept the authority of the federal government, but that he does accept the authority of the Nevada state government and courts.
Which allowed him to have his cows graze. No different from natural law, practically speaking.
my understanding is that the courts ordered his cattle to be seized as Bundy stopped paying grazing fees 20 years ago, and his cattle ‘trespass’ on land which isn’t for allowed for grazing.
Philippe
MF is playing a game. “law” means “what MF thinks is right”.
He literally denies the 14th amendment is law.
it seems to me that a workable solution could be:
1. Bundy uses less land for grazing.
2. some areas for the turtles are kept off limits to cattle.
3. if the grazing fees are genuinely too high, they should be reduced.
4. Bundy pays the fees he hasn’t paid over time.
this could settle the situation in a realistic way perhaps.
It might but no one wants that. The turtle besotted environmentalists are as intransigent as rothbardians. The militia kooks are fired up and self righteous. They want to crow about victory. The BLM has face to save. And Bundy is running a scam, stealing grazing fees.
“Stealing” grazing fees?
From who?
Who is being victimized by Bundy?
And someone who refuses to allow individuals to disassociate from a single provider of protection services is not being intransigent?
Are you trusting MF on that? You are to my mind perfectly free to dissociate from the law. Don’t call the cops if you are robbed. Emigrate. All I object to is your claim not to be subject to the law. If you rape or burgle I want you hunted down and punished.
The State is an arbiter of the law; it is not the law itself.
My disassociation is with the arbiter and not the law.
No, you don’t want burglars hunted down; you want non-State sanctioned burglars hunted down.
Tell me then Ben B, do you agree with many here that an unjust law is no law?
They aren’t grazing fees just because the government called them that.
If no one can afford them they are go out of business incentives.
They worked as Bundy is the only one remaining.
Ken B:
That is a lie. I do not equate what I believe is right with natural law. I could be wrong about some of the deductions in natiral law reasoning. If I am, then I welcome corrections.
I am not playing the “game” you accuse me of playing.
What do you mean by “Is an unjust law no law”?
I doubt you mean to ask, “Is an unjust law an unjust law”.
Maybe you mean to ask, “Do unjust laws exist”?
Or, are you asking if it’s “ok” to ignore unjust laws?
Ben, MF and others say that if a law is unjust it is not a law. So it is ok to ignore, flout, break it, and wrong to rely on it in say a trial or lawsuit or argument. In short, they assert they are exempt from unjust laws. You agree?
I doubt that MF and others would deny that positive law exists.
But why shouldn’t people be exempt from unjust laws? Should southern slaves have not been exempt from involuntary servitude?
1. Courts are wrong all the time.
2. So…no problemo. Go ahead and enforce the ruling.
3. Maybe difficulty of enforcement indicates a problem with administrative law and enforcement.
All the Time courts will decide a judgment so as not to rock the boat.
This is likely a factor in a case like this.
It is often why superior courts don’t want to hear a hot potato issue.
The court ruling is just for a ruling. It doesn’t determine right and wrong.
Not all the time. This is an interesting read…
http://archive.hrnicholls.com.au/archives/vol5/vol5-5.php
“natural laws from reason”
You forgot the citation. FTFY.
“Pure reason establishes as synthetic a priori truth that Bundy’s cows may graze Federal land in Arizona.” Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Vol 2, p 576
600,000 acres of federal land.
It is not Federal owned land.
Legitimate ownership does not arise from naked aggression.
Well I have the second edition. The acreage is in the third edition. Kant’s view were ever evolving.
It’s not Federal land. It was unowned land.
“History, i.e. evidence, proves that the Nazis were the legitimate owners of all German land, because the actual is rational and the rational is the actual, and stuff, because evidence and laws written on paper, and stuff.”
nah because they stuck a fence around it and threatened to violently attack anyone who came inside the fence.
Philippe:
Don’t see how what you said deserves it being prefaced with a “Nah”
The Bundy Standoff has its own informative wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff
Who owns the property?
Can government own property or is government owned property the same as saying nobody owns the property?
“If Columbus lands on a new continent, is it legitimate for him to proclaim all the new continent his own, or even that sector ‘as far as his eye can see’? Clearly, this would not be the case in the free society that we are postulating. Columbus or Crusoe would have to use the land, to ‘cultivate’ it in some way, before he could be asserted to own it…. If there is more land than can be used by a limited labor supply, then the unused land must simply remain unowned until a first user arrives on the scene. Any attempt to claim a new resource that someone does not use would have to be considered invasive of the property right of whoever the first user will turn out to be.”
Guys, who said it?
I give. Who?
Rothbard.
I like how you probably knew who it was, but just didn’t care.
😀
My box turtle said that! We were arguing in the bar waiting for the hare who was running late. Now I’m gonna bust his ass for plagiarism.
For some bizarre reason, at 2:12 Dennis Lynch shouts “I’m not from New York!” at the BLM guards.
Interesting point. Maybe he was caught up in the moment and started the sentence intending to say “I’m not armed” but then switched gears before he said armed to say that he’s from NY. All speculation of course, but if he’s trying to convince people that he’s not from NY he needs to switch up that accent…
Maybe he meant, “I’m not armed because I am from New York.”
That is obvious.
I wonder why people have trouble with things they see on video.
Not to mention, though I doubt he was in as much danger as he wants us to think, he would certainly have been hopped up on adrenaline.
(It’s obvious because of where his voice cracks mid-sentence)
As an aside, it is hilarious how New Yorkers think they can say “I’m from New York” and then everyone can read their minds.
Sheeit, New York, Thayat’s allllllll you had to say!
“As an aside, it is hilarious how New Yorkers think they can say “I’m from New York” and then everyone can read their minds.”
Yeah, so they must have been really baffled when he shouted “I’m not from New York!”
I’m from new York, I must have taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque!
Ha ha, Bloomberg disarmed me, and did I tell you I drink really small sodas?
Nice.
When I say “nice”, I mean “lol”, but in a much cooler way…with a nod and a fist bump.
Cheers.
When I say “cheers” I mean that my Tahitian lime tree had an excellent summer and I’ve purchased a slightly better than average Tequila and some crystal salt to help me eat those slices of fresh lime.
Bloomberg can [censored: not fit for a family website].
I just listened. I think he’s actually saying “I’M FROM NEW YORK” but stutters a bit. My guess is he was trying to establish credibility as some sort of neutral party/arbitrator rather than a member of the crazy gun-toting Nevada militia.
This is why when PK jokes about wars and stuff he needs to shut his trap. He might not get a chance to claim he was just joking next time.
FWIW, it is obvious to me that he was going to reiterate that he was not armed, then switches to say “I’m from New York” meaning, I’m a third party here, I’m not a Bundy cousin.
+1
Though I did promise 30 glowing red font.
Has your nose returned to its original length?
Let’s say he didn’t misspeak. Would anyone outside his own brain think being from NYC meant anything relevant other than not to ask him to borrow his tobasco sauce?
Bob, it is interesting that enviroentalists simply want to keep people off land. What are they saving it for?
Does the fact they are occupying it with turtles increase the likelihood that earth is being taken over by reptile aliens?
Yes. Yes it does.