The Terrible Sweal

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,149682,00.html As an aside, that is easily the most asinine "commentary" I have ever had the displeasure of reading. You just wan to blind yourself to the reality. Her finger was clearly on the very trigger that shot her.

So what? So nothing.

Agreements are metaphysical concepts. Therefore they don't really exist. Therefore people never agree. Love is a metaphysical concept. Therefore it does not really exist. Therefore no-one can be in love. Intention is a metaphysical concept. Therefore it doesn't really exist. Therefore no-one is responsible for their choices. Why golly! Words are all metaphysical concepts. Therefore they don't exist. Therefore meaning is impossible. Therefore (and only therefore) Hugo is right!

This thread is the proof.

Lie. False attribution. And strawman. And apparently, "could be" means "always is." Intentional distortion. And red-herring.

Agree or disagree?

You're a brilliant sophist. But why do you bother? No single individual creates the social contract. A contract requires counterparties. The counterparties in the social contract are the individuals who comprise the public. Meaning, you can't give me any example which stand up to scrutiny. BTW, see my lower posts in reply to your 'definition'. Lie. But according to the definitions I gave you, governmental laws can have no competition. Therefore, for their particular law, there is not and can never be a competing law in the same area. The same is not true of private law. Private law may exist only outside the government's field of interest. ... SO, ... neither Equifax nor Law Merchant are examples of truly 'private' law. If that much is true, then even the self-restraint we apply to ourselves, the laws we invent for ourselves, are governmental. We invent society by existing in social groups. Societies manifest governments and governments manifest laws. No, society is pretty much everything that sharks, parrots, and muskrats don't have. Again, why? This is no argument. You might as well state that the moon is made of cheese. It's not enough to state something, you need to demonstrate it with logic or evidence! I can't make an argument against a definition you haven't given yet. That's your style, not mine. Oh dear me, no! That, Hugo, was your specious strawman response to the original point. No, actually it was a question I posed. No, actually, it was an argumentative tactic in the form of a question with the question premised on a straw man fallacy. Will you ever learn to desist from such peurile debating club maneouvres? I never answered it because it is premised on something I never said. Will you ever learn to desist from such peurile debating club maneouvres? There is no such thing. Social contract theory is invalid because a contract is an agreement between consenting and specific parties with very specific terms. The "social contract" is an agreement between people who not only don't consent but often aren't even born, and the terms are not so much vague as completely unspecified. That's a completely ridiculous argument. Whatever you may say constitutes a "contract" (which I dispute), the 'social contract' is distinct and different from it in way which make it 'the social contract'. Your argument doesn't disprove the social contract, it merely distinguises it from (your definition of) a "contract". For you to tender such an argument bespeaks either that your grasp of abstract reasoning is exceeded by the demands of this material, or that you'll throw in any old argument just for the sake of disputatiousness. Spurious and invalid. WTF??? Ludicrous. Okay, we're done. You're a total waste of my time. Bye.

Link In my personal opinion the age should be raised to maybe as high as 18, with the italisized scaling measure above amended to reflect the same concept as now. I.e. We should not criminalize the hormone-driven experimentation of young people. Remember the rule: divide by two, add seven.

Hugo's source says ...

No, I don't believe I have. Can you believe it? Hugo, making up something like that? Shocking.

Look we have travelled very far from the point of this thread. The issue is the nature and interaction of public and private interests as they relate to water and I'm not inclined to wander further into diversionary rhetoric. I challenged you on a side issue: the notion of 'private' substitutes for government. So far, your examples, Equifax and law Merchant fall short of qualifying as 'private' endeavors. The larger point of this is that there is not really any such thing as 'private' except as the public defines it. You, I imagine, will disagree with that, but your objections are not reasonable. I will quote the passage, again: Quote it as often as you like, what on Earth does it do to support your contention? Are you saying that the author is differentiating St. Ives from Law Merchant? If so, show me a case which you say is representative of Law Merchant, please. It should be self-evident ... The argument of a man without an argument! Having a little trouble reading? I asked you to rebut the characteristics I noted. You did not. If this is your definition of government, then it is mutually exclusive with private law in any such geographic area. This aligns perfectly with my contention that we observe no truly 'private' law anywhere that government holds sway. My next contention is that in instances outside of government sway where we observe 'private' law to exist, it is indistinguishable from and equates to government. See 'Rules' Rules: a set of regulations. See 'Regulations'. I see no difference there whatsoever. Whatever definition of law you are using to arrive at that conclusion is probably unworkable. Oh dear me, no! That, Hugo, was your specious strawman response to the original point. That is in and of itself another word game. The "observed characteristics" you see are that each thing is characteristic of the other thing. Government is characteristic of regulation, regulation is characteristic of government. The sphere is characteristic of the ball, the ball of the sphere. You see? Instead of using your fallacious analogy, why don't you speak to the actual characteristics I specified and the generally accepted meaning of those terms. I'm sure diversionary flourishes are all the rage down at the Libertarian Youth Coalition, but they don't cut ice here. No. Self-regulation amounts to serving your own desires, ... Well, now you've introduced a new term: self-regulation. This is ridiculous. Exactly. As in the social contract theory of the formation of the state. What about when he doesn't recognize that? There's a lot of short term thinking goes on, when you're hungry. Have I tendered a definition of regulation?

The claim in bold was incorrect.

Over-hyped, ignorant, paranoid, self-righteous, trigger-happy, and led by group-think. No sane ally should deploy closely with with the American military, and civilians should avoid them completely, to avoid being killed 'by accident'.

The socio-economic costs cannot be gauged with any kind of accuracy, so it's pretty ridiculous to advocate punishing somebody for crimes you don't know about but only suspect may have happened. Innocent until proven guilty - or perhaps, like a good socialist, you advocate "innocent until accused"? 1. Punishment is a red-herring of your invention -- not really my point though. If you want to change the subject from time to time, it would help if you said so. 2. Socio-economic effects are often sufficiently discernible to warrant persons and groups making choices about them. 3. I'm not a socialist, so please just spare me the tired rhetoric. I read the source sufficiently to discern that Law Merchant was steeped with governmentalism. Nothing you've provided refutes that. Too bad for you. Then you understood wrong. Here is the very first time I mentioned Equifax: Well, sorry, but I can't even see the hair you're trying to split there. Please explain why the characteristics I have noted about Equifax don't amount to governmental involvement. Your point appears to me to have undergone substantial evolution in the course of this discussion. Good for you. So then why are we arguing, if it is purely subjective? I surely don't know why you're arguing with me. But, btw, it's not 'purely subjective', except at a meta level. Yes - it is a circular description. It describes two things only as they relate to each other and not to anything else in the world. It would be analogous to saying that a ball is a sphere and a sphere is a ball - It is not analogous to that at all. I am defining a thing in terms of its observed characteristics, not merely substituting one word for another. Do you have an alternate description we can use? Obliged by their own desires. So, if I'm following you correctly, regulation, in your view, amounts to serving your own desires? I'm sorry, but I don't think that serves very well. Firstly, different persons' desires may conflict with eachother and the common interest. Second, why would you bother to regulate what happens anyway? Well, that situation doesn't, in my opinion, fall within the applicable meaning of regulation, and it certainly doesn't exhaust the entire spectrum of regulation as we encounter it in reality. I've already offered my demonstration of how I was not lying in imputing that you had misinterpreted the text on the Law Merchant and you offered absolutely no counter-argument. I don't intend to dignify lies by responding with arguments.

error

Why not? Their main goal in life was to get rich through selling energy. That hope is now dashed. ... To ask for any more sounds like a petty desire for vengeance ... Specific outcomes for individual wrongdoers doesn't begin to cover the socio-economic and regulatory issues in this matter. No, you haven't. As we've established, you've read very little, ... True, on that particularized topic, I've read little. But the little I've read is perfectly clear, and refutes your contentions. So what sources say different and what do they say? Make an argument if you have one. Lies. I understood you to have tendered Equifax and "the" Law Merchant as examples of non-governmental regulation. So for each I have provided facts and evidnce which disprove that. Who defines legitimate and authoritative? You and I do, as the observers attempting to explain our observations on this subject. Once again I have the impression that we are approaching these discussuions with completely different emphases: you from the perspective of advocating for a philosophy, me from the perspective of seeking to understand phenomena encountered. But anyway, give the terms the general meaning and consider the point, why don't you? It's not an ARGUMENT, it's a description. Do you have an argument with that description? A rule that people are obliged to follow if they want a desired outcome? But 'obliged' by what? You've merely substituted a new word. I don't lie. You do. You have. You are.

The agreement of the parties concerned. Perhaps you are familiar with terms such as "honour" and "reputation"? Absolutely. I am also familiar with the terms greed and opportunism, which are equally real, I assure you. You can hardly consider that outcome either desireable or sufficient though, can you? No. The Law Merchant functioned by simply ostracizing those who did not comply with the Merchant's decisions. I've read differently. What are your sources? This was my point. It obviates completely your contention that Equifax is an entirely private dispute resolution regime. Thank you for conceding the obvious. Your argument hinges upon a word game: "regulation" must mean "government". No word game. I am operating on the only definition which makes sense (to me at least): Anything falling short of 'legitimate', authoritative, and enforceable is, for the intents and purposes of this discussion, non-governmental. And anything that is all those things is, for all intents and purposes is governmental. If this isn't a definition you can concur with, let's deal with that. Exactly. Now what constitutes a 'requirement' in this sense? Who are the members? No, it isn't. Watch, I'll demonstrate. First you quoted the actions of the abbey as being indicative of the functioning of the Law Merchant, stating that "an insane gibbon could see that... it utterly rebuts Hugo's claim of non-governmentalness [sic]." Then I quoted a passage from the same text saying that the actions of the abbey were in fact distinct and separate from those of the Law Merchant, which completely refutes your point. In response, you started blustering about how it was somehow a failure on my part that the first Google link you saw took you to a text that you didn't read properly and therefore wholly misunderstood. More lies.

You know, like in the movie. A spineless, simpering, obsequious servant, treacherous and immoral yet bound to service of power through its own lust for gain. Kind of like Howard Wilson was for Jean Chretien. -kimmy

"gollum"??

How could binding arbitration fail to reach an agreement? Man! You shift ground so fast it makes the head spin. Now, in yet another whirl, you're talking about binding arbitration. Binding arbitration is not mediation, but it is more like what I meant in the first place. Note the term 'binding'. What, Hugo, do you imagine creates the 'binding' part? Pursuant to LEGISLATION, subject to review by the COURTS, and enforceable by LAW. I can't help but point out that every example you have offered over the course of these discussions has been open to the same point. Try to come up with one that isn't. By that same standard, parties in a court of law resolve their disputes. No. That's a simply ridiculous comparison. Not if it's voluntary. Voluntary regulations are either not regulations but merely guidelines, or if they have greater authority, precision and enforceability, they are an alternate manifestation of government (as I already said). You tell me. I already gave you a link and suggested a starting-point for you to find this information. I don't think it would help you to repeat myself. Evasion. Lies.

So you think the only worthwhile resolution of a dispute is one that is dictated to one or both parties, rather than one to which they can both agree? I'm drawing (since you seem to need it clarified) a distinction between disputants who cannot reach an agreement and those who can. The latter are not our concern here. Is this or is this not what you said on March 4th at 3:32 PM? Yes. Seemingly the context of this conversation did not make it sufficiently clear that parties settling their own disputes was not included. No. Parties in mediation resolve their disputes. A body of REGULATIONS, is not governmental to you? Whoever wrote this does not understand the meaning of the word jurisprudence. Also, they don't understand that extant jurisprudence is also derived from business practices. Who interpreted it? Who enforced it? Under what authority? If you read more of that, you will find the following passage: ??? So what? The title says law merchant and it was the first source Google produced. It was YOU who told me to google it. If you had better sources, why the F didn't you cite them in the first place, Mr. Dillatory?

Consider the very first listing ... The Law Merchant and the Fair Court of St. Ives, 1270-1324

!! Missed the budget speech did you? Argus, I agree that many of your criticisms are valid, but that one undermined your credibility fairly badly.

Don't make the mistake of thinking I am arguing with you. I'm not (yet, anyway). I'm telling you that your posts and sources not yet merit any argument since they don't amount to anything. Power Corp and the Demarais family are influential. Yes. Politics is corrupt. Yes. What of it?