Is Distributism utopian?

[meme1961]

OK, what precisely is free market limited government and how do you propose to implement it?

Seriously?!

Live by the Wikipedia, Die by the Wikipedia!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Market

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_Government

As for implementing it: We had something reasonably close to it before our government got to big and usurped to much of the rights and powers that were supposed to be reserved to the people.

I would start by rolling back regulation and legislation that directly contravenes the very limited and simple grant of power given to the FedGov in the commerce clause, and then proceed with a zero based budgeting process for all of the FedGov with the assumption of total tax revenues limited to 17% (that number negotiable, but not to exceed 18%) but priority given to those institutions/departments that exist by a direct and explicit grant of power in the Constitution.

Those unconstitutional activities and powers that the government has engaged in would be targeted for a slow but steady rollback until eliminated, keeping in mind that some of those programs currently have dependents, and that just immediately terminating said programs would be unjust.

This slow roll back might take as long as 35 to 40 years, but we are morally obligated to try to avoid just shoving people off of an economic cliff, if it is possible to do so.

 

[meme1961]

I do not want to get into any discussion that ends up compromising the intellectual integrity of our discussion, so I am very hesitant to even say this, but you are raising a straw man.

As I said to another poster, I disagree. I’m making logical conclusions from the very limited and quite vague information I’ve been given so far, then reading it back to you for correction.

The intent is to motivate supporters of Distributism to both define it, and state their desired policies.

You must remember that I had stated that there would be no land-oversight bureaucracy. There would be no “capital and land” (not property) hand-outs or confiscations. implicit in a system that is not revolutionary is that you start from a point where the land is not yet owned or is transferring hands but is not being confiscated (see my ideas for implementation).

Which posting or document, please?

From the inception, labor in regard to capital and land would accompany ownership. Economic rents would be made disadvantageous or disallowed.

You started out, however, with a requirement that can’t be fulfilled (implicit in a system that is not revolutionary is that you start from a point where the land is not yet owned), yet that land is already owned.

If by the rest of this statement you are talking about imposing requirements on property transfer, then you’ve contradicted yourself, as to impose such requirements would require a “land-oversight bureaucracy” that engages in a kind of confiscation. This kind of argument is almost directly analogous to the “takings” arguments around the imposition of constraints on the development, use and transfer on privately held “wet lands”.

On the issue of socialism-lite. These are terms that hold an immense amount of emotion and less meaning than they should. Socialism in practice is a belief in the empowerment and the increased propertied reach of the state.

No, not quite. Socialism does not require ownership of the property, only control over it. Control such as deciding who can sell what land to who, when they can do so, and how much they may sell to a given other person.

I describe this as a socialism-lite, because it is very similar to socialism, but I describe it as “lite” because as described, it is a limited form of socialism.

I will repeat that distributists do not believe in the creation and/or investment of ownership in government bureaucracy.

And “ownership” is your particular straw man in this discussion. The question is not one of ownership, it is in control over said property. If you own a property, but the government controls it, then yes, you are talking about socialism. If you only assert control during the transfer of property from one party to another, then you are still talking about a kind of socialism, but a more limited form (and thus: socialism-lite).

It is in your qualification that I see cause for concern. As of yet, I have not been assured by any Distributist that their policies would require no authority, no imposition of control, and no direct intervention in the market to enforce their beliefs.

I think it is good for everyone involved to get away from the muddy definitions of capitalism and socialism and make their definitions succinct.

I would, with all due respect, flatly disagree that the definitions of capitalism and socialism are muddy. As for succinct, that would be nice, but not the extent of creating more ambiguity or uncertainty. “Just enough succinctness, neither more nor less!”

I accept your correction to my definition of capitalism, and that was what I was getting at anyway. Socialism is about the investment of land and capital in the state.

If by investment, you mean “control over, in part or whole”, then we are converging on agreement as to the term. To reiterate, “ownership” is not dispositive in this definition, unless by ownership you also include the concept of “control” as an inseparable component of ownership. That, however, is in direct contradiction to reality, as we already live in a political climate that asserts control over private property absent actual ownership.

Diffusion of property in the free market is a different thing. Distributists call this distributism.

Which already exists, and is an emergent property of Capitalism.

What you have yet to do is define what you mean by “owned by the free market”.

Thanks for the intellectual and thorough discussion thus far.

Likewise. I apologize for using “reading back” in such a way as to make respondents believe I was asserting control over the definition. In retrospect, it works better in oral conversation, where a “questioning or puzzled expression on one’s face” gives the necessary clue(s) as to what is intended.

 

[meme1961]

I would argue, and you may or may not agree, I think you will since your more recent comments are sounding more and more like a neo-classical, but I think centralized crony capitalism in megacorporations is moving closer and closer to what you might call “socialist-lite”. This is what many distributists are trying to address.

“Neo-classical” is another term I would need to hear your definition of before either agreeing or disagreeing with, but I suspect you may at least be in the ball park.

I would opine that

centralized crony capitalism in megacorporations is moving closer and closer to what you might call “socialist-lite”

is inverted (mega-corporations exist in small part as a reaction against too much government). And socialism isn’t quite the correct term, either. Fascism is much closer.

Consider this: the only reason that a corporation needs to or wants to cozy up to government is in order to get a favorable grant of “license”. If the government does not have the power to grant or withhold said license, the government becomes a lot less interesting to a corporation, and they would spend a lot less money on lobbying or trying to influence government.

After all, Johnson and Johnson spends almost no money trying to convince me to vote one way or another.

That said:

If by mega-Corporation you mean a corporation that is a trans-national and a very big corporation, then I would define that as form anarcho-capitalism lite, as one of the reasons for becoming a trans-national is in order to exploit the gap in scope between the political economy (limited to the scope of a national boundary) and the economic entity (the mega-corporation).

This exploitation includes such activities as “off shoring” to get cheaper labor that is in part cheaper because the political entity provides less protection for labor than another of your trans-national’s locales, or in order to exploit the lack of sufficient environmental regulation (ship breaking on the African cost, for example).

I am flatly opposed to totally unregulated capitalism, as the resulting emergent property will be one of a kind of “share based franchise democracy” (where the corporations become, in effect, the government).

It is a good government that remains a disinterested party, one that passes and enforces universally applicable laws, not one that picks and chooses citizens or groups of citizens to either succeed or fail.

 

[frankpearson]

That, however, is socialism. The “free market” is a collective, and thus your concepts are directly in line with socialism.

If by “free market”, you meant “private ownership”, then say so. By the way, in capitalism, businesses will already migrate towards concentrations of cheap labor.

If you meant something else, then please define your term(s). What do you mean by “owned by the free market”?

I am sorry. I thought that statement was clear. By the free market I meant “individuals” in the free market.

 

[frankpearson]

“Neo-classical” is another term I would need to hear your definition of before either agreeing or disagreeing with, but I suspect you may at least be in the ball park.

I would opine that is inverted (mega-corporations exist in small part as a reaction against too much government). And socialism isn’t quite the correct term, either. Fascism is much closer.

Consider this: the only reason that a corporation needs to or wants to cozy up to government is in order to get a favorable grant of “license”. If the government does not have the power to grant or withhold said license, the government becomes a lot less interesting to a corporation, and they would spend a lot less money on lobbying or trying to influence government.

After all, Johnson and Johnson spends almost no money trying to convince me to vote one way or another.

That said:

If by mega-Corporation you mean a corporation that is a trans-national and a very big corporation, then I would define that as form anarcho-capitalism lite, as one of the reasons for becoming a trans-national is in order to exploit the gap in scope between the political economy (limited to the scope of a national boundary) and the economic entity (the mega-corporation).

This exploitation includes such activities as “off shoring” to get cheaper labor that is in part cheaper because the political entity provides less protection for labor than another of your trans-national’s locales, or in order to exploit the lack of sufficient environmental regulation (ship breaking on the African cost, for example).

I am flatly opposed to totally unregulated capitalism, as the resulting emergent property will be one of a kind of “share based franchise democracy” (where the corporations become, in effect, the government).

It is a good government that remains a disinterested party, one that passes and enforces universally applicable laws, not one that picks and chooses citizens or groups of citizens to either succeed or fail.

I agree with just about everything you said here. I don’t think you are neo-classical anymore.

I think you’re a capitalist-distributist hybrid, as I have defined it here. I think every honest Catholic recognizes that they have to at least be a hybrid distributist (again if they knew what it meant). Where we differ is that I just believe more decentralization and less concentration of capital ownership would be better.

 

[David_Castlen]

No, not really. I’m a limited government, free market capitalist.

When ever somebody tries to nail the Distributists on the meaning of the term, and how it will be implemented, they go all vague, or retreat.

Until such time as someone can actually define it, Distributism is a null (meaningless) term.

The definition of Distributism as I have read it is self contradicting: how can a land and capitol be owned freely but distributed according to the concentration of workers. Who does the distribution who decides what goes where? This is a worse case of socialsim than I have ever looked at; it steals from you in the name of something it is not. It not only steals it lies.

 

[David_Castlen]

I agree with just about everything you said here. I don’t think you are neo-classical anymore.

I think you’re a capitalist-distributist hybrid, as I have defined it here. I think every honest Catholic recognizes that they have to at least be a hybrid distributist (again if they knew what it meant). Where we differ is that I just believe more decentralization and less concentration of capital ownership would be better.

How are you going to decentralize?
How are you going to make less concentration of capital ownership (better)?
What is better?
What are the percentages?
Who are these people that will be decentralizing? I know some people well qualified. you do not want to get to know them personally.

 

[frankpearson]

The definition of Distributism as I have read it is self contradicting: how can a land and capitol be owned freely but distributed according to the concentration of workers. Who does the distribution who decides what goes where? This is a worse case of socialsim than I have ever looked at; it steals from you in the name of something it is not. It not only steals it lies.

Here we go again…

The free members of the market decide. Distributists just believe that you should try to affect lack of concentration of land and capital, perhaps through encouraging smaller levels of ownership, cooperative ownership and discouraging concentration of the ownership of land and capital.

youtube.com/watch?v=a7xNmEAqPrk

I think a big problem is the meaning of the word “distributism”. It is not talking about an action, the act of giving land and capital to people. It is talking about the level of concentration, how the land and capital are distributed.

 

[meme1961]

I am sorry. I thought that statement was clear. By the free market I meant “individuals” in the free market.

Then if by Distributism you mean: “A grass roots movement, expecting and requiring no government intervention of any kind, to preach, teach and reach people about the perceived benefits of a capitalist system where in the individual, as a free choice, prefers to trade with smaller companies or a company that is a front for a collection of smaller companies” then I frankly don’t care one way or the other.

It is in the implication that the expected outcomes are so to be desired that they should be imposed by force (in any amount, at any level) that I would strenuously oppose.

I’m not personally sold on the benefits of Distributism, but if other people, as a free choice are and then act on that choice, I’m 100% supportive of their right to choose to act in such a way as to be, personally, Distributist. The moment they perceive themselves to be a majority, and try to get laws passed in order to “encourage”, “regulate” or “require” this outcome, I’m back to strenuously opposing Distributism.

In truth, this opposition is more about a government and a polity that no longer believes in limited government, than in their support for or against Distributism. The trend of the US government towards admitting less and less limitation on its power and authority is what I fear, and thus by extension, any belief system that is so strongly held and also includes the desire to use the power of government to enforce it, regardless of the moral rectitude of thus encouraging the government to violate its bounds.

If you agree with my definition above, then no, I don’t believe Distributism is utopian. But to be honest, I don’t see any hope for it having much impact, either. What would make Distributism successful in my stated context is greater economic efficiency, but if Distributism were more efficient, we’d already have it.

But in having this conversation, I do appreciate the way in which it has caused me to consider a specific form of “false equivalence”, essentially the assumption of economic efficiency as it applies to the construction of material goods vs. intellectual property.

Gonna have to work on that one a bit.

 

[St_Francis]

The size of the community grows, because now Walmart is part of it, and Walmart is a very big community.

If Walmart hires the people who used to work at the other stores, then how will the community grow? Just having a big building does not cause the community to grow; there have to be people involved.

Before Walmart arrived, that grocery store sold many, many items that were not produced locally (bananas, coffee, orange juice, etc.). *When the grocery store sold those items, was that bad, since the profits on the sale of those items left the community? *If this is a farming community, some of the ingredients in the food sold may have been produced locally, but they were shipped out to be aggregated, resold, processed, packaged, then shipped back.

Part of the point of distributism is to have lots of small producers. So the local store would sell locally-produced pasta, tomatoes, etc.

And there might be fewer things like grapes from Chile in the middle of winter etc, but that would hopefully encourage a resurgence of our own production capabilities, because right now, several areas have been greatly reduced or even shut down because of food coming in from other countries where they pay people a pittance and don’t have the same safety and health standards in place.

Of course, if they also became distributist, their standards may also improve.

Was this trading with other locales a bad thing? *Can you see how that trade made those in distant locales part of the community?

I don’t think that the destruction of much of our food productiin capacity has been a good thing, and I don’t see how an unnamed place in Australia becomes part of the community just because WalMart sells their apples.

And now that Walmart is selling those items, has something bad happened solely by the fact that it is now Walmart doing the selling?

The fact that several local stores went out of business wasn’t a good thing. The fact that the money which previously went to those entrepeneurs who spent it locally is now going to people far away who spend it in another locale altogether is not a good thing.

If the grocery store were an instance of a large corporation, such as a King Soopers or a Safeway, you had a large corporation in your town before, now you still have a large corporation in your town.

But that wasn’t what I posited, is it?

What has to change in this scenario is that those people who once worked for Safeway now work for Walmart, and the guy who used to manage the Safeway now manages the grocery department at Walmart.

So those who were once income-producing property owners are now simply employees, and they spend less and can do less good in their own community.

As time passes, people change professions or start new businesses, or new workers arrive to start other businesses, some of which exist to trade with or supply Walmart, just as before people traded with or supplied the King Soopers (directly, or indirectly through other members of your extended community). *Others to do things that Walmart does not do, by starting new businesses, or going to work for businesses that open up shop here because there is a ready labor supply.

Well, actually, since the kids don’t want to work for WalMart, they go somewhere else to live, their parents eventually die, and the WalMart closes down for lack of customers

It is a mistake to treat change as automatically bad. *

It is also a mistake to treat it as automatically good.

The heart of the capitalist system is creative destruction brought about by changes in the competitive environment. *To prevent that change is a bad thing, in part because in the long term it simply makes the situation worse,

What I see as having happened in the US is that we have sent a huge percentage of our production capacity overseas, leaving us in a terrrible mess and very vulnerable. This international interdependency may cause a world-wide breakdown instead of merely localized breakdowns.

I don’t see anything good about many of the changes which have occurred over the past few decades.

and in part because the only way to prevent that change is to give away your personal liberties and rights to an entity big enough and powerful enough to temporarily and partially prevent said change until the power of that change can overwhelm even the most powerful temporal entity.

And you wondered why we thought you were a free market anarchist!

What I see is an acceleration of transnationalism caused by businesses requesting government to make barriers into entry for local businesses, unions requesting ridiculous bargains from their employers and being backed up by the government, and government wanting too much power. The three of them were in league, not necessarily for the same goals, but greedy for their own power.

Now we the people, and our children and grandchildren, will end up paying for it all.

 

[meme1961]

Here we go again…

The free members of the market decide. Distributists just believe that you should try to affect lack of concentration of land and capital, perhaps through encouraging smaller levels of ownership, cooperative ownership and discouraging concentration of the ownership of land and capital.

youtube.com/watch?v=a7xNmEAqPrk

Well, yeah, because one of the trick words here is “encourage”. You can blame unscrupulous politicians for using “encourage” when by right and truth they should have used the word “force”, or “enforce”.

But thanks for the video link. If I can take this definition as authoritative, then I’m definitely opposed to Distributism. In part because it is immoral (the implication of the use of force is quite clear), and in part because it is unworkable (because it can’t create new and especially revolutionary businesses).

 

[David_Castlen]

Here we go again…

The free members of the market decide. Distributists just believe that you should try

Try!!! It is a system of tryiing???

to affect lack of concentration of land and capital, perhaps through encouraging
How would (who?) the government encourage?.. this is key… this answer is key???

smaller levels of ownership,

why is smaller leverls of owenrship (carte blanc) necessary? I say heck “no” what about industries that require vast amount of resource and make profit only every few years? For example mining?

cooperative ownership and

discouraging concentration of the ownership of land and capital.

Who is going to do the discourgaging? The gods? who will know how to distribute concentrate properly in order to encourage "proper’ concentration? This is baffling; but i tell you what, it will sell.

youtube.com/watch?v=a7xNmEAqPrk

I think a big problem is the meaning of the word “distributism”. It is not talking about an action, the act of giving land and capital to people. It is talking about the level of concentration,
Who determines the best level. Where can I go to decide the best levels. I would like to be that guy. Can you image the fine “gifts” I would get.

how the land and capital are distributed.

 

[David_Castlen]

Today is Encouragement Day :clapping::clapping::clapping:

**Would all Encouragers please show up an hour early in order go go over the names of those who have over concentrated. We have developed a new script that well help you to be more effective in your efforts to encourage a reduction concentration.

Please note those of you who have the names of the Concenstrators with over 70% of their base effecientcy levels report to room 121. We will discuss some flaws in the system .

We are having a rally at Bob’s Bar next Saturday to encourage new legislation that will force the “over 70%ers” to give up their excessive immoral concentrations. We will march in the streets for proper concentration levels!!!

Bring your copies of Das Capital to next Thursday’s meeting as we will address the only alternative if our concentration levels goals are not met by EOY

**

 

[meme1961]

If Walmart hires the people who used to work at the other stores, then how will the community grow?

Ah, I see. The problem here is one of defining the word “community”.

The Catholic church is, in its entirety, a community.

You seem to be using a definition that assumes a particular amount of geographical locality.

Just having a big building does not cause the community to grow; there have to be people involved.

Walmart is lots and lots of people.

If you, as a Catholic Evangelist, enter a small town that has no churches, and plant one, you’ve dramatically increased the size of that community by incorporating it into the Catholic community. This is what I meant by the word.

Part of the point of distributism is to have lots of small producers. So the local store would sell locally-produced pasta, tomatoes, etc.

False equivalence. “Small” is not the same thing as “geographically local”. I can be a small producer of coffee in Columbia, yes? If your definition of Distributism includes a geographical constraint, then we’ve uncovered another area of ambiguity. Just how geographically close does it have to be to be Distributist?

And there might be fewer things like grapes from Chile in the middle of winter etc,

I take it you’ve never tried to draw up a list of foods that are available at your local store that are not grown locally. If Distributism includes this concept, then you aren’t talking about a few things, and if you are prepared to grant “license” to trade non-locally in some cases, then you are talking about a kind of feudalism, with all the opportunities for corruption that are intrinsic to such a system.

but that would hopefully encourage a resurgence of our own production capabilities, because right now, several areas have been greatly reduced or even shut down because of food coming in from other countries where they pay people a pittance and don’t have the same safety and health standards in place.

By your definition, it seems as if I can’t even buy oranges from Florida when I live in Minnesota, as such fruit is not locally grown.

Of course, if they also became distributist, their standards may also improve.

Or the opposite. Which is much more likely. Free trade with a large number of geographically separated partners has increased world wealth, not decreased it. That is why free trade evolved . . . people were highly motivated to increase their wealth, opportunities and the scope of their lives, and free trade gave them that, and quite efficiently, too.

I don’t think that the destruction of much of our food productiin capacity has been a good thing, and I don’t see how an unnamed place in Australia becomes part of the community just because WalMart sells their apples.

Two mistakes here: the food production capacity has not been destroyed. The fields may lay fallow (and in some cases, in some places, this is a very good thing!), and they will probably remain such until such time as it becomes more economically efficient to use them rather than trade with another locale.

The second mistake is in assuming community is a physical thing only.

The fact that several local stores went out of business wasn’t a good thing.

Yes, it was. Those stores went out of business because the could not compete. That is a good thing, and is referred to as “creative destruction”. Going out of business frees up both labor and capital so that it can be invested in a new business, or at least something competitive.

The fact that the money which previously went to those entrepeneurs who spent it locally is now going to people far away who spend it in another locale altogether is not a good thing.

Yes it is. You fail to mention that the reverse is also true. People in other locales spend their money which comes to your locale. If not, you wouldn’t have trade.

Your original scenario was an implied straw man (which I let slide at the time because of the ambiguity), because such a situation would not exist, could not exist for long. For Walmart to come to a town, there has to be a market for Walmart products. That implies that that locale is producing some wealth that is being traded locally and/or with a remote locale so that the local populace can afford to buy Walmart products.

But that wasn’t what I posited, is it?

Who could tell? You left the nature of the businesses ambiguous.

More in another post. This 6000 character limit is enforcing a split in my replies!

 

[meme1961]

So those who were once income-producing property owners are now simply employees, and they spend less and can do less good in their own community.

Perhaps for a while, yes. But to assume this state is permanent is a mistake. Employees can quit to start their own businesses, and often times do. In all the complaints about “income disparity”, the truth of “income migration” is ignored. People who are rich move down the ladder of income, people who were poorer move up. That is the way of a free society.

Well, actually, since the kids don’t want to work for WalMart, they go somewhere else to live, their parents eventually die, and the WalMart closes down for lack of customers

Or as free individuals, the start a business that either competes successfully against Walmart, or trades with Walmart, or does something that is totally incidental to Walmart existing or not.

It is also a mistake to treat it as automatically good.

No, it is not. Freedom is automatically better than not being free.

What I see as having happened in the US is that we have sent a huge percentage of our production capacity overseas, leaving us in a terrrible mess and very vulnerable.

That may be what you see, but that is not what is actually happening. In point of fact, America is still the number one manufacturer in the world!

The fact that this disparity is slowly adjusting itself to be more even may be of concern to economic imperialists, but is at the end of the day both fair and to be entirely expected. You can’t have either desired or expected the rest of the world to remain poor just to benefit us forever!

This international interdependency may cause a world-wide breakdown instead of merely localized breakdowns.

A totally unsupported hypothetical. Do you have any reasoning to back it up?

I don’t see anything good about many of the changes which have occurred over the past few decades.

Just because you can’t see it, that doesn’t mean there is no good in these changes, though.

And you wondered why we thought you were a free market anarchist!

“We”? Who is “we”? But to set you straight, no, I’m a limited government, free market kind 'a guy (a traditional capitalist).

What I see is an acceleration of transnationalism caused by businesses requesting government to make barriers into entry for local businesses, unions requesting ridiculous bargains from their employers and being backed up by the government, and government wanting too much power. The three of them were in league, not necessarily for the same goals, but greedy for their own power.

Well, I pretty much disagree with your assessment, but I suspect that will come as no surprise to you.

I would assert that trans-nationals exist, in part, to exploit the difference in scope between a political jurisdiction, and the economic scope of an activity.

Businesses may request that governments create barriers to entry for local businesses, but if such a thing actually occurs, the issue is one of not having a sufficiently limited government, not a flaw in the concept of a corporate business. A government should not have the power or the right to pick and choose between two businesses.

While I am not fond of unions, I would again assert the problem is not with the unions, but in fact with government creating a situation that gives unions an unfair and excessive advantage over business.

One should expect a union to be short-sighted, selfish and greedy. One should not pass laws or regulation that allow that selfishness and greed to damage or destroy a business.

 

[Cho]

Who enforces the rule of law in this stateless society? How does it not devolve into the strong preying on the weak?

Before the advent of the modern state, many people lived lives that were untroubled by the decisions of any political class, because whatever state there was was very feeble in its powers. At the same time I’m not sure there was much of what we moderns would consider the rule of law. If someone wronged you I suppose you could take it up with a local lord, or take matters into your own hands. However if the party who wronged you had a larger or more powerful family than yours, you were probably just inviting retribution. It was the Hatfields versus the McCoys all the time, and I’m not sure many people would like to return to that.

You are welcome to live subservient to a state dictating your every move, molesting you at airports, randomly persecuting people, stealing your hard earned wealth and property because you are frightened that your neighbors might do what you are quite content to allow a state to do. You simply have no right to demand that ALL live that way.

 

[Cho]

You avoid the point, the US stopped killing when the city more or less had surrendered, the Mongols started killing at that point. That is a vast difference.

And how can you call what the US does total war?
Didn’t you read? Of some 200000 inhabitants of Fallufah 6000 were killed. That is not total war. The last time the US fought total war was WW2, there they wiped out entire cities with tens of thousands of dead civilians on single days.

Whatever you believe about government spin, why can’t you notice the difference in war between US in WW2 and today?
The brits in WW2 build a miniature model of Berlin to test, how they could set it aflame although it had many stone buildings.

At least we can agree that we have a different perception of reality and that at least one contains serious errors, so at least from my point of view you are wrong about much what happens. (And i am wrong from your point of view.)

How do you know the seals are dead?
If i would be the one responsible for them i would do everything in my power to make everyone think they are dead. Not too aide some conspiration faking Bin Ladens death, but to protect them.

You are correct. We have entirely different views of reality. I see that the killing and mahem has continued and simply been enlarged in its scope to include other countries. YOU avoid my question of what right does the US government have to attack ANY of those countries? Total War is war that targets old folks, women, children, structures of no military significance. It is intended to wipe out/demoralize and “break” a population. Lincoln re-instated it in his war against the Southern states which is why he was so admired by Hitler and Stalin. Total War is not decided by numbers killed, it is a tactic. Yes, many more were killed in WW2, it was also Total War. But as humane as you think US aggression has been in Fallujah they had no right being there at all, much less killing anyone.
On Seal team 6, deaths that were predicted by “conspiracy theorists” when this laughable story was released about OBL. Sooo, you seriously believe that their deaths were faked to protect them??? So WHY publicize who they were in the FIRST place?? Be logical, dude. Nope, they were loose ends, had to go.
articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/06/world/la-fg-afghanistan-chopper-20110807

 

[Cho]

You criticize the distributists because they do not seem to have a plan for getting from here to there, yet your plan does not seem to consist of much. What do you think, that the government will wither away?

OK, people have been doing this for a century, and yet all that has happened is that by your standards, things have gotten worse.

I agree with you about education, but at the same time, I think that you go too far in your thinking. The fact that it is wrong of the government to force a business-inspired propagandistic education on our children does not mean that it is wrong for the government to tax, which you call stealing, even to use some of that money to help people who really need help.

Continued below…

You view the state as “protecting” you, an “umpire”. That is not reality. The state claims a monopoly on violence and aggression, cannot exist without theft, frequently kills those it desires at will, views itself as a higher class than the masses. It is immoral. The state does not stop anyone from being raped. People who are raped go to the hospital or rape crisis center, maybe call the cops, they fill out a report and don’t do a whole lot else. I can cite you many, many examples of state incompetence in even BASIC police work where women went missing and were found by family members and friends searching. A woman is much better off getting a gun and learning to use it. The state passes countless laws presented as “protecting” us but in nearly every case they are barriers to economic entry or are a means of making us the pigeons for corporations. The past hundred years the state has gotten larger BECAUSE of government school brainwashing teaching people that they “are” the state that “we” “govern ourse4lves” and other illogical mythology. We are taught to bind ourselves into slavery using our own minds, we are turned into idolators as children. If you do not think this is true then WHY are you willing to be subservient to a political class that steals, kills, and routinely lies to you?
I am perfectly willing for you to contract to live subservient to the politcal class, I simply deny your right to demand we all must live that way.

 

[Cho]

The biggest problem we are having here, and it is really a travesty, is about the name “distributism”. The word “distributism” is not talking about an action of distributing something. It is a word meant to describe the market,

“capital and land in the market has a status of wide distribution” (like in statistics)

as opposed to

“capital and land should be distributed from all of the this class to another”

The word is just being misunderstood and it is very unfortunate.

Alas, hopes dashed. You have no idea either. Just pie in the sky utopian crud about how property will be magically “distributed” in small and fair holdings.

 

[Cho]

…continued from above

I see two problems here. One is that there will be some people who want to maintain the current system, either because they benefit or hope to benefit from it or because they believe that it is all right. It seems ironic that people who want people to live as they please would try to force people to abandon the form they choose.

The other is that you are putting things as black and white, either/or. Either we have the intrinsic evil of government, or we have the intrisic good of no government.

I cannot see it that way. I see that we need some government–the Church teaches that human nature requires government–and I see that when people do not have government, government develops anyway. Government develops even among people who consciously eschew government. As soon as a group of people decide to pool their resources to get some road built in their neighborhood and form a committee to investigate it, government has started.

I would say that the bolded part is ETA: NOT (oops!) entirely true. Not everyone in the government is totally socialistic.

But what I reallly want to mention is that protection is not precisely what government promises: they would not actually be able to do that without giving everyone something like the Secret Service.
If I say my neighbor wants to kill me, even if I provide quite a lot of evidence, the police can do nothing to him until he performs some sort of act, which unfortunately may be killing me. Why? Because the police are not there to protect us.

Their purpose is to deter crime by the prompt investigation and punishment of crime. So, my neighbor is less likely to kill me because he believes that the police will come after him and put him in prison.

I agree that our self-government has gone astray, but I think that many of the reasons for that lie outside the government.
??? I can think of so many people who have created wealth, provided products that people were advertised into wanting, competitivized into needing, who were not thrown in jail or hounded that your examples are kind of silly.

I mean, if you want good examples, go to the raw milk problems!

OK, you don’t use Microsoft products (DO you???) or like Stewart, that is fine. But some people do and were not "advertised or competitivized (??) into wanting them, MAYBE they made an adult decision that YOU simply disagree with. The point is that they CREATED wealth, and jobs and made some peoples lives better. Raw milk is just one more example of the police state we are stuck with, that is the inevitable result of statism. The state (it may be yours, but it is not mine so it can’t be ours) has not “gone astray”. This is what they state does, period. It is the nature of the beast. It is a parasitic class of immoral human beings enslaving other human beings.