This is clearly a horrific health crisis that could spread across the land like… hold on… Yeah, pass that over here… Umm… Now, where was I?
It’s a routine declaration of the Oakland City Council, but yeah, it’s kind of funny too. The City of Oakland is set to renew its declaration of a “local public health emergency” stemming from a local lack of medicinal cannabis.
Oakland official Barbara Parker says the proclamation was originally issued in 1998. It effectively means nothing, but it does buttress Oakland city policies like permitting medical cannabis dispensaries, and ordering Oakland Police to effectively ignore pot offenses.
Parker said the city originally issued the declaration because federal and state law enforcers were busting local growers and cancer patients. That threat of imprisonment persists to this day. The declaration says people could die due to lack of cannabis, so it’s cause for Oakland to continue the declaration.
#20–BM-BB==total Fail. Answer the question.
Like most Dogma, it has a certain ring when spounted from the vegetable crates in the Public Square, but get it down to specifics, and you prove yourself the fool.
Answer the question.
My bad. Same dispute on different thread.
Here’s the question as yet unanswwered from the “Send in the Clowns” post:
“For this blog–why don’t you explicate how YOUR beliefs didn’t directly lead to the crash of 2008 and tell us why reregulation along the lines of Glass-Steagall is not a necessary social control over this unregulated business?”
@bobbo, #35
Since you posted the question to me in 2 separate columns, I’ll post this retort in both.
Man, ok, since you want to bring up Glass-Steagall, let’s talk about Glass-Steagall. First of all, President William J. Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act into law, which effectively repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act, the part that eventually led to the crash of 2008. So keep kissing his butt, you liberal scum.
And before you say, oh, Bubba couldn’t help it, it was Veto-proof, read:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/04/how-democrats-were-hijacked-by-wall.html
and do your research on what the final tally was on the vote for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, for which your precious Joe Biden, D, Delaware voted AYE!!!! Boo-Yah! You’ve been PWND!!!
It’s really funny when people think there is any such thing as the free market in this country, then turn around and use Greenspan as an example. Greenspan is the penultimate example of a regulator. The very fact that he set monetary policy by setting interest rates, regulated banking institutions and took over troubled banks “temporarily” using stolen money from tax payers puts him in YOUR camp, the camp that opposes the free market. When he introduces money into circulation, he inflates the currency because the more of it that exists, the less it is worth. So, please, don’t confuse Greenspan’s ideology with the free market. That’s an oxymoron.
Finally, there is no such thing as effective legislation, as history has repeatedly shown, over and over. Lawyers are good at leaving loopholes in legislation, so they and their buddies can get around it, while you and I get screwed.
#23–BM-BB==well, since this is the newer thread, I’d say lets keep the discussion here==but you aren’t discussing it. You refuse to answer the question and prefer to use one of your shit can rants.
To rephrase slightly as a response/integration to your mostly off point rant:
why don’t you explicate how YOUR beliefs/”free market no regulations” didn’t directly lead to the crash of 2008 and tell us why reregulation along the lines of Glass-Steagall is not a necessary social control over this unregulated business?”
@bobbo, #24
Ok, I guess I haven’t made it plain and simple enough for you. So here goes:
MY BELIEFS/”FREE MARKET NO REGULATIONS” did NOT directly lead to anything because they have not been practiced. Isn’t that what my “rant” was all about? Ever since 1934, when the SEC was created, there have been regulations created to directly affect the market. And since government has a monopoly on currency and can effect rates and inflate money and pick winners and losers through legislation, there is no free market. Hence it hasn’t been free from direct government regulation so that means legislation is what lead to the crash of 2008 (and numerous crashes before that).
Regulation along the lines of Glass-Steagall don’t work because politicians can be BOUGHT, just like your precious democrats were on November 4, 1999 @ 3:30PM:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=s1999-354
where they changed their vote from Nay on a former, similar bill, to Yea, along with the gop, for the gramm-leach-bliley act, which effectively nullified the Glass-Steagall Act, according to the following link:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2007/04/how-democrats-were-hijacked-by-wall.html
I answered your questions, plain and simple. I wonder how much of the kool-aid you’ve gotten yourself drunk with. Will you finally stop blaming the “free market” for what legislation and regulations and government corruption has wrought upon us?
Sad.
Sad BECAUSE you are totally unreal in your assessment. Our current financial debacle, the oil spill in the Gulf, the lack of single payer healthcare and all other sorts of social dystopia is brought on by your idiot version of libertarian/free market philosophy.
To say that current REAL examples of it are invalid because “true libertarianism/free market” were not really in play acts as if it ever would be. Nonetheless, Greenspan is a free market f*cktard and libertarian advocate. He did the best he could and look what he and his attitude and his philosophy brought us.
Your “thinking” is totally circular. If it a situation doesn’t work, its because libertarian principles weren’t really followed. From your point of view, you can’t lose. From my point of view, you are nothing but.
Like I said–Sad when you can’t understand/accept OVERWHELMING evidence right before your eyes.
Down right LIEberTARDIAN. You have no clothes.
@bobbo, #27
The only reason it’s sad is because you are right, the government will never allow free markets to reign. And short-sighted people like you will always depend on the government to tell you what you can do and how. If only people like you had the guts to tell nanny state to leave nonviolent people alone to make their own decisions.
Still, you have to admit, all politicians, even your precious liberal d-bag democrats, are all corrupt and able to be bought. Can you at least admit that?
BM-BB==thats the whole point. People are “corrupt.” Your ideology only works if people are pure, or act purely==in accordance with your philosophy.
So, your notion of libertarianism only works in a pure world that doesn’t exist. THAT WHY trying to implement its tenets in the real world doesn’t work.
This is all right before your eyes and your experience yet you continue to champion your dogma over your experience.
PRAGMATISM===defined: its what works.
DOGMA===believed whether it works or not.
Libertarianism fails when it becomes dogma. Wake up.
@bobbo, #29
Since people are corruptible, as you readily admit, why give some of them power to exert their own self-interests at the expense of others? Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
My ideology DEPENDS on people acting in self-interest. Unlike yours, where you dupe yourself into believing politicians will look after the public’s best interest. My philosophy is simple, don’t aggress against people who haven’t aggressed against you. Unlike the millions of laws on the books. Even the lawmakers themselves don’t know all the laws, yet “ignorance is no excuse” if you break one.
The reason the tenets of libertarianism aren’t implemented is because people have been indoctrinated to follow a leader, to need to have other people tell them what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. That’s what they mean by structure. Like in prison or in the military. Some people need it. If you want that, I say, go ahead, you’re free to have it. Elect you a president. Pay taxes. Just don’t bother me if I don’t want to go along with YOUR system or ideology.
My experience has been forced upon me. But I choose see things how they aren’t and ask, why not?
Your argument is fallacious. Back when monarchies were rampant, that was what was deemed “pragmatic”. It worked, as long as you had a just and wise king. Then when his spoiled brat of a son gained the thrown, shyt hit the fan. Same with democracy. If you’re lucky, you get a president who does less harm than most and a deadlocked congress/senate.
My beliefs are not dogma at all. In my belief system, there is no authority. Everyone deals with each other on a voluntary basis. Your beliefs are dogma, because they come from up high, the white house and capitol hill, kind of like temples of sorts, eh? They come down with their tablets of LAWS, which you cannot dispute. Even if they make no sense. Voting for new politicians every 2,4 or 6 years is a sham. It gives them way too much time to ignore your desires and make deals with “contributors” until the next election comes around.
You’re a serf in this feudal kingdom called the US. You’re the one who needs to WAKE UP!
Idiot.
The final recourse of a defeated man – insult, with no retort.
Well, I did come back to finish the thought. Makes us both idiots.
YOU are an idiot I picture much like the skit characters that when hearing information they don’t agree with put their fingers in their ears and sing “La, la, la . . . . ” except your tune is “My ideology DEPENDS on people acting in self-interest.” REPEAT until adversaries call you an idiot which is your signal you have won.
You responded to NONE of the specific questions posed to you.
You agree with one over-arching reality that people are not pure but then ((blindly, hypocritically, stupidly, fingers in your ears)) base your philosophy on people acting in their self interest.
If Big Business acts in violation of law, in their own self interest, to steal money from other people, why wouldn’t they steal in a market/society with only free market “no rules” in play. Can’t you see the self-conflicting, incoherent, nonsense you regurgitate???
And the answer is no which is how dogma blinds you.
Ok–I only posted for the few who might be following the thread.
Absolutist positions like yours offer no interest once their rigidity is confirmed. Took me a while to conclude just how retarded you are. My apologies.
@bobbo, #33
Wow, you are truly retarded. First of all, I took both of your questions and answered them thoroughly. How does people not being pure contradict with people acting in their own self interest? Big Business doesn’t steal from anyone without using the government. Only government can steal from people without recourse. If government, and their laws, didn’t exist, then big business couldn’t use it to steal from people or to hide behind those laws. How dense are you? In a free market voluntary society, businesses would have to steal from people the old-fashioned way, with a gun to your face, instead of letting the government do it for them. In a free market society, people would avoid businesses who stuck guns in their faces, and patronize those who work their hardest trying to please the customer so they get repeat business. You know, the way things work now with most things except for where the government has stuck it’s big ugly nose!
The only rigidity in my argument is I think it’s wrong for one group of people (the government) to steal from another (its serfs, erm, I mean, citizens). And you think it’s okay to steal from others, as long as the ends justify the means.