[lprent: Well your comments are pure crap, classically moronic right wing, they are largely devoid of any significant content. However they seldom come up for moderation - mainly because you actually write your own opinions rather than spouting someone else's lines. I think that IB probably went a bit overboard on my defense (which wasn't required), so I will rescind the ban.

Anyway to answer your question - why should we deprive RB of his pleasure. I get the distinct impression the main reason that he is here is because all of the left-wingers have left the sewer. How can you be a red-baiter if all of the other commentators are sycophantic John Key brown-noses mindlessly following the ideology of PR. I seem to remember a philosophy of that kind of personality cult. Jamestown? Stalin, Mao, ..... etc ]

And this entails that everyone is a business unto themselves how?

As an individual you need an income to cover your expenses and, if you’re doing well, have some left over. That really is all a successful business is. They have income, expenses and, if they’re doing well, profit exactly the same as any individual. It should come as no surprise, given the similarities, that businesses are legal persons. It should also come as no surprise that you can’t provide your labour at less than cost price and so you actually do need to know what the cost is, ergo, you need to account for everything you do.

The difference in todays society is that we define business as something other, something that people aren’t and this, IMO, is a fallacy and it needs to be changed. You aren’t a worker; you are a business and what you’re supplying is labour.

To say that you shouldn’t do this or have to cost everything you do because you’re a person and not a business is wrong because we don’t have unlimited resources. We do need to know, as a society, what resources we have available to us and how they’re being used so that we can ensure that what we’re doing is sustainable.

State:
I dislike the term government because it denotes an authority that I believe that no one should have (note: This is why I also dislike capitalists and capitalism because they seem to go to great pains to tell us that we need an authoritative hierarchy (usually with them at the top)).

I prefer to call our parliament an administration. They’re hired, by us, to do a job and that job is to ensure that we have the infrastructure and laws so that our society can function. What they do should be at our behest and not at their own or the behest of others. With this in mind state and society become one and the same. I suppose that it could be argued that in this definition the the authoritative state is gone and only society remains.

I do find that our present representative democracy doesn’t come close to this ideal though but I think we have a long way to go to get to full anarchism (yes, I do think we’ll get there against the wishes of the capitalists).

Political Compass
I use it not because I think it’s entirely accurate but because it’s constant. It hasn’t changed in the 5 years since I first found it. For it to be accurate it would need hundreds, if not thousands, of questions. I certainly think some of the questions are leading and that some are just wrong

Definitional madness – nevertheless I believe that society can exist without the state or government.

It’s sad that I realise that we live in a limited world with limited resources available to us and that we need to take care not to over use those resources while ensuring that everyone has a quality life?

And this entails that everyone is a business unto themselves how?

I don’t know about that political compass. I used to think it fairly accurate, but now my definition of left and right is different it’s one firmly rooted in history and so the defintions contain within them the libertarian/authoritarian divide – left being trenchantly anti-authoritarian. Further, I wouldn’t have such a divide between economically authoritarian and socially. As Gandhi specifically described himslef as a philosophical anarchist and didn’t believe in the state or representative democracy, whereas you say people should just leave if they don’t believe in the state ( to where?) a la John Locke or form a politcal party if they don’t like the government (I don’t like government fullstop) I would say that a political compass that puts you two on a similar footing isn’t very accurate. Furthermore, someone would have had to answer those questions for Gandhi.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Redbaiter does, in fact, speak for all three of ‘We’, whereas there is quite a collection of collectivists; thus I can’t speak for them all – he’s just gormed there are so few of Redbaiter’s ‘We’ and so many of the ‘collectivists’ ‘Us’…

The old ‘fleeing the debate with tail between legs’ gambit, while maintaining a transparent pretense of not doing so.

I have seen all your repertoire of tricks RB, and you are rapidly using them up.

I don’t believe in the fiction that the state is separate from ourselves.

You do realise that people can cooperate without state coercion don’t you?

The rules are there to protect the majority from the depredations of a minority – those who think that they can do as they wish no matter who it harms. The rules are, hopefully, come to by some cooperation amongst the people. Enforcing them would be part of that administration I was talking about earlier.

It’s pretty sad that you think everyone’s a business unto themselves and we should all do a cost analysis on everything we do.

It’s sad that I realise that we live in a limited world with limited resources available to us and that we need to take care not to over use those resources while ensuring that everyone has a quality life?

Gandhi (he’s probably a bit of an extremist for you

o_O

I think I’m one of those as well – but more of a redbaiter-baiter

If you are on some form of ideological crusade to expunge the use of the personal plural pronoun from the English language, why not come out an just say so, instead of being ill mannered, ignorant and insane about it?

A remark directed at The Voice of Bigotry, and not any kind of request, and certainly not a request of you.

If you want your remarks to remain private use a private medium like email. If you make general remarks in a public forum, others such as myself will read them and reply if we wish. In trying to stop me from doing so, you again act like a petty tyrant.

Its an attempt to puncture your self importance, pomposity, arrogance and condescension.

So now you DO want something from me. If your words remained unread by me and unreflected upon by me, then they could have no effect could they? You require me to not only read what you say, but for them to have ANY effect (such as puncturing my self importance), it is essential that I believe them to have some truth or import. At that point you ask something of me RB.

And how I choose to spend my time and energy responding is entirely a matter for me to choose. Again, trying to shut me down, by telling me what I can or cannot reply to is the act of a petty tyrant.

You are not at all the clever person you so obviously believe yourself to be.

I am secure about where my ‘cleverness’ fits in to the general scheme of things RB. But your clearly pointless attempt to shut me down by judging me to be an utterly brainless idiot is the act of a petty tyrant. It’s the kind of scathing humiliation that incompetent, bullying school teachers indulge in when they have lost control.

As with much of your language.

Yeah, the commun*st apparach*ks were saying just that kind of thing immediately prior to the collapse of the Sov*et Un*on.

The same old same old collectivist drones who throughout history have failed to grasp the simple idea that there has to be prosperity before there can be tax.

Yeah, the commun*st apparach*ks was saying just that kind of thing immediately prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The same old same old collectivist drones who throughout histroy have failed to grasp the simple idea that there has to be prosperity before there can be tax.

It is ill mannered, ignorant, and insane.

“Yes you do. In just the post above you stated:”

Piffling coward. A remark directed at The Voice of Bigotry, and not any kind of request, and certainly not a request of you.

“It wouldn’t be petty, petulant and worthless by any chance?”

No it wouldn’t be. Its an attempt to puncture your self importance, pomposity, arrogance and condescension. All completely misplaced. You are not at all the clever person you so obviously believe yourself to be.

Now, if you want to talk tax, go for it, but your partisan expressions of dislike for Redbaiter are just boring infantile shit.

and why is it that you collectivists always always always insanely express yourself using the plural pronoun

This is an open forum RB, and your comments can be read by anyone who can be bothered. In this context the use of the plural form is perfectly legitimate.

Completely wrong Redillogix. I ask nothing from you.

Yes you do. In just the post above you stated:

I’m hoping that I can shock you from that state into a return to normality.

So in one post you explicitly state an expectation from those reading this thread, and in the next you say you ask nothing of me. It does not add up buddy. (Again you address these comments in a general fashion in an open thread, on which anyone is free to read and reply…so the ‘I wasn’t talking to you’ line won’t cut mustard.)

Only an utterly brainless idiot would put such time and effort into something so petty, petulant and worthless.

Denial mode RB. I’m not an utterly brainless idiot and neither are you, so what exactly was the point of this sentence. It wouldn’t be petty, petulant and worthless by any chance?