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- 88 Years Ago, FDR Banned Gold. Will a Bitcoin Ban Be Next?
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- Major League Baseball Punishes Georgians for the Acts of a Handful of Politicians
- The Tyranny of the "Enlightened" Experts
Where would the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition fit in here?
They would be bad. I’m surprised you have to ask.
I just had an image of Mr. Mackey:
“Now, now, going to the Holy Land as an army to kill infidels … that’s bad, m’kay?”
…we shall never rest
Until our bad is better
And our better, best.
I would say #2 is best, but I’m no pacifist.
Why do you say #2 is best? I’m not challenging you, I’m curious.
Here’s my take on #2: it shows The Murph and Krugman debating, where the bully is Krugman and the bullied kid is The Murph. Using this interpertation, it prophesies that the Krugman debate will occur, and Krugman, after trying bully tactics, will be crushed.
Using this interpretation, I have to agree with David; #2 is the best.
It’s better than me giving Krugman a copy of Human Action and turning him into an Austrian? (Maybe you guys are unfamiliar with Les Mis.)
Les Mis? (That would be a yes)
Is that French for “The Mises”?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki?search=Les+Mis
Anyway, Jean Valjean (Liam Neeson in the movie) goes on to be a hero. So the bishop’s mercy worked; it turned him from a bitter criminal into a new man.
Thus, if we’re going to analogize the above clips to the Krugman debate: The first one would be me making fun of his wife because he keeps advocating higher deficits, the second would be me trouncing him in a debate and making a bunch of Austrians think I’m awesome, and the third would be me ignoring his insults and convincing him that Keynesianism is wrong. Then he goes on to be a great writer in free-market ideas.
… and the mushroom cloud is his wife meeting you after Krugman tells her about your insults?
In #2 the victim ends up better off than before. He is LESS likely to be bullied now.
In #3 the victim is worse off in two ways: he has less property than before, and his policy of not pressing charges could make it MORE likely for him to be robbed in the future (once the word gets out).
So if I ranked people in terms of collaboration with the government, with George Soros as bad, Glenn Greenwald as better, and Bradley Manning as best, you would disagree, right? I mean Bradley Manning is in deep doo doo right now. What the heck was he thinking, and why would anyone praise him?
I’ll admit I’m confused by your Soros-Greenwald-Manning comparison. I thought your original post was comparing aggression, self-defense, and pacifism, but I’m not sure what your new cast of characters are supposed to represent.
This must be some kind of jedi mind-trick, because you haven’t specifically addressed the points I made above (which I thought were directly responsive to your original post). Do you agree that #2 is better off than he was to begin with while #3 is worse off?
Is Bradley Manning worse off than he was before he put that stuff on the Lady Gaga CD? That’s what I’m saying.
By the same token, if the people dropping the atomic bomb are less likely to be attacked by the Japanese, then why isn’t #1 the best of all?
The impression I got from your LRC articles was that pacifism was optimal from a utility perspective (or at least a practical alternative to self-defense). My point was simply that your video examples above don’t support that claim. Do you still maintain that they do?
“Is Bradley Manning worse off than he was before he put that stuff on the Lady Gaga CD?”
Yes.
“By the same token, if the people dropping the atomic bomb are less likely to be attacked by the Japanese, then why isn’t #1 the best of all?
1. The murder of innocents is abhorrent on a gut level.
2. Roosevelt and his cronies bear a lot of responsibility for the Japanese attacking in the first place.
3. Anyone who condones – in principle – the murder of the innocent and peaceful is potentially condoning their own murder.