as with much argument, asserting BWF w/o foundation is simply cowardly straw man for the sole purpose of making your opponent look stupider than his argument alone. what appeals so strongly to “BWF!” bleaters is precisely how obviously stupid the fallacy is. however, it’s so stupid that even most stupid masochists of the state don’t assert it outside of their holy war fixation. the BWF-bleaters want the associated absurdity tainting their opponents without the opponents meeting all the criteria of BWF, the most outrageous of which being acclaim for and defense of a destruction layer before the layers dealt with as a complete package elsewhere in bastiat’s book.

my initial comment on the vid:

2ndAsstJizzMopper

as usual, later sections of TWISATWINS are falsely ascribed to the first of its stories (BW), inflating a damned rare fallacy into supposed widespread use outside of WWII and similar chest-pounding hoowah. nearly a third of this video is contextually wrong, for the first element of BWF is wanton destruction preceding the wealth transfer.

the standard fixation with BWF, evinced here, contributes nothing to understanding economics, except as it leads newbies to the source being distorted.

stupid fuck doing the usual, assuming that criticism of a supposed liberty advocate’s bullshit argument is criticism of liberty:

Soonerliberty

@2ndAsstJizzMopper Rare fallacy? Diverting money that could have been spent on other goods and services, thus destroying unseen jobs, is not a rare fallacy. It is very widespread. Taxes, subsidies, stimulus programs, and wars all precede the unseen wealth transfer. Of course, you could yell loudly that something is wrong or “contextually” wrong, but you might want to demonstrate how.

my reply:

2ndAsstJizzMopper

Soonerliberty, consider reading thoroughly before commenting. mere “[d]iverting money that could have been spent on other goods and services, thus destroying unseen jobs” alone is not BWF, nor is merely noting a silver lining of a natural disaster or similar destroyer.

analysis of BWF from “austrian” economists is often embarrassingly shallow, throwing praxeology to the wind in favor of squawking “BWF! BWF!” at anything with an element remotely resembling something in bastiat’s story. shameful.

dumbass:

Soonerliberty

@2ndAsstJizzMopper It is wealth destruction, no matter how you cut it. You don’t need to break something to get the same effect. And how many times was I told during indoctrination that war is a good way to end economic depressions? I was under the impression that mainstream economists are shallow and have massive conflicts of interest, trading legit economic analysis for government funding. How can we expect an honest analysis from those who are beholden to the state and who seek influence?

Soonerliberty

@2ndAsstJizzMopper Besides, complex doesn’t mean correct. See Occam’s Razor.

ha! most of the time, as here, someone invokes “occam’s razor”, it’s a vomiting sheep doing it. inconsiderate yappers are pollution. no explaining anything to the transmit-only fixated crew.

2ndAsstJizzMopper

Soonerliberty, read my first comment, not ignoring the bits that bore you. you’re lost. occam’s razor? please.

Soonerliberty

@2ndAsstJizzMopper Still wrong. You’re confusing destruction that we see with that which we don’t see, unless you claim we can only use this analogy in one specific case, which is absurd. Your problem is that you assume taxes, etc., are not destruction. Smugness never helped an argument, and attacks show that you view Austrians as a threat. I see we’re making progress. Besides, Austrians go further, showing that taxation, subsidies, stimuli, etc. provide a net loss to society.

something, isn’t it, that nearly all the ron paul and LRC/LvMI droids figure that if you criticize them on anything, you’re behind them, not ahead, and antithetic to all their avowed goals?

2ndAsstJizzMopper

ugh. you’re cautioned to read something you’re missing, then you immediately go back to keyboard clacking. here ya go: “[...] the first element of BWF is wanton destruction preceding the wealth transfer.”

not going to explain it again, nor define “preceding” or “wealth transfer” or quote marks for you, “Austrian”. laughing.

peripherally, you have missed the boat by 180 degrees with your ludicrous unfounded presumption that i think “taxes” are not destruction. slow down and read.

Soonerliberty

@2ndAsstJizzMopper “Wanton destruction” is taxation, subsidies, stimuli, inflation, anything that makes someone give up wealth to the government instead of spending it on something they would have otherwise or invested in otherwise. There is nothing in the example that says you have to actually destroy something first. That’s absurd and not even true to Bastiat’s attempt, which was aimed at the French government. Before you throw around insults, at least understand the context.

2ndAsstJizzMopper

and — shocker — not slow enough. almost pathetic that in reply to “ludicrous unfounded presumption that i think ‘taxes’ are not destruction”, you apparently explain to me, via fallacy of affirming the consequent, that taxation is destruction. wow.

huge hint: all of the video is covered in TWISATWINS. all of the video is not covered in TBW.

what rough third of the video am i referring to as contextually wrong? if you haven’t yet answered that for yourself, what’s the point?

it matters.

["all of the video is not covered in TBW." is incorrect, and should have been, "not all of the video is covered in TBW."]

Soonerliberty

@2ndAsstJizzMopper Sure, default insults when you are threatened. Insults are the first sign of intellectual defeat, so I take it as a compliment. Taxation precedes the unseen expenditures, just like breaking the window does. How is that hard to understand? Should I explain it to you in another language: German, Spanish, or Russian? It is always the same with statists. They assume everyone is ignorant while reveling in their supposed intellectual superiority and their beloved Volkskoerper.

Soonerliberty

@2ndAsstJizzMopper I assume it’s a sisyphean fallacy to assume I can engage in intellectual debate with one of your mindset. Why would you come here to argue if you don’t have an open mind? You probably took one philosophy class, macroeconomics class, and read the Huff Post, and now you feel empowered to do battle with the plebeians, but, of course, on our behalf. “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”

2ndAsstJizzMopper

populist dreck fallacy (“you insult me; i ‘win’”), then apparently you call me a statist (ha!), while still missing entirely my accurate assessment of this vid’s error. overt nonsense: “Taxation precedes the unseen expenditures, just like breaking the window does.”

the most charitable edit of that disaster would be, “Taxation precedes the unseen _unseen_ expenditures, just like breaking the window and paying for it does.”

and back to: lost, doubling down on comment blocks, psycho projecting.

not a chance in hell he’d have parsed that one, but WTF.

Soonerliberty

@2ndAsstJizzMopper Robber takes money from victim and spends it on something. Stimulus!!! Victim is deprived of money he could’ve spent on other things. Nope, not the same. I’ll just repeat and rinse. Not the same. Having money expropriated is not the same, b/c, wait for it, plebeian, there is no window!!!

Insults after insults. Nice, keep ‘em coming. In the words of Borat, “I like . . .”

one might hope that even someone as recalcitrantly oblivious as Soonerliberty would note that he’s insulted me repeatedly while bitching about insult, throwing the usual towel of projection poser desperation pleading for mercy at the kill.

The Massachusetts Legislature has approved a new law intended to bypass the Electoral College system and ensure that the winner of the presidential election is determined by the national popular vote. [...]

nitwit:

[... Senate minority leader Richard] Tisei also criticized the proponents for not following the normal procedures to seek a constitutional amendment.

“The thing about this that bothers me the most is it’s so sneaky. This is the way that liberals do things a lot of times, very sneaky,” he said. “This is sort of an end run around the Constitution.” [...]

no amendment required, asshole. and regardless of the merit of the “electors” system, it was already gutted by many (if not all) states via “law” to force electors to follow the state’s popular vote. given that the constitution blows, i’m going to laugh if enough states pass similar “laws” to kill the electors system entirely, using the hallowed goonited state_ constitution. it’s a mild (very) “fuck you” to the emerging soviet state, and doesn’t change the looming destruction of the empire.

the plan:

[...] Under the law, which was enacted by the House last week, all 12 of the state’s electoral votes would be awarded to the candidate who receives the most votes nationally.

Supporters are campaigning, state by state, to get such bills enacted. Once states possessing a majority of the electoral votes (or 270 of 538) have enacted the laws, the candidate winning the most votes nationally would be assured a majority of the Electoral College votes, no matter how the other states vote and how their electoral votes are distributed.

Illinois, New Jersey, Hawaii, Maryland, and Washington have already approved the legislation, according to the National Popular Vote campaign’s website. [...]

anyone doubting that the “electoral college” was pummeled long ago, study the standard practice of announcing, the day after the election, which goon “won” — a technical impossibility under the system presumed by “the founders”. against general delusion, the imperial communal toilet rag doesn’t even require a popular vote for president. oh my.

The Importation of Intelligent Thought

Posted by Butler Shaffer on July 25, 2010 03:07 PM

My wife and one of my daughters prevailed upon me, this morning, to make a trip to our favorite French restaurant to pick up some wonderful French pastries for them. The woman who waited on me at the pastry counter was probably in her fifties, with a decided European — probably German — accent. After boxing up my selections, she informed me that the charge was “$13.90.” I replied that “1390 was probably an interesting year.” She responded “that was after the Dark Ages,” to which I added “yes, but the Dark Ages were not as bad or as ‘dark’ as we have been conditioned to believe.” She agreed, reminding me that 1390 was “about the start of the Renaissance.” As I drove home, I wondered with how many other persons I would have to engage in such a conversation to get similar responses.

“Intelligent Thought”. WTF. $13.90? “ah yes, i’ve something for that. ahem…

“Probably an interesting year!”

pant. pant.

“oh well, sir, allow me to retort. and here i go.”

ponder the probable instant orgasm if his verbal noise partner had quoted a latin phrase. there’s a nirvana anecdote for the smoking jacket crowd.

Daughter urges Okla. voters to not vote for father

most self-styled grammarians leap to their “look at me” buzzers and nearly trample one another to be the first to smooge, “forsooth, a split infinitive. oh dear.”

and they are fucked, for “split infinitive” or not, “Daughter urges Okla. voters to not vote for father” is more accurate than “Daughter urges Okla. voters not to vote for father”. that didn’t prevent at least one member of the grammarati from switching to the shit version for the anchor tag.

consider these pieces:

“i urge you not”

“she urged not the voters”

“she urged the voters not”

placing the “not” immediately after “voters” introduces the possible meaning that she didn’t urge voters to vote for her father, a completely different action (or inaction, if as a fool you require).

the correct, awkward, and unnecessary non-”split infinitive” version:

“Daughter urges Okla. voters to vote not for father”

and even “Daughter urges Okla. voters not to vote for father” (along with “Daughter urges Okla. voters to vote not for father”) is ambiguous regarding whether to not vote altogether or merely not for her father. funny. with the not-vote-altogether rendering, it emerges as a favor for her father.

rarely should fear of “grammarians” (i.e., neurotic buffoons) and their often nonsensically arbitrary rulebooks be allowed to prevent accuracy. wrong avoidance of “to not” infects most speech and writing.

why “legal”? only because these deals went through guildists, anointed by the official crime syndicate. how many more of these obvious exposures are required before herbert p. normalon sees there’s no difference between this and any offer to withhold for money the publication of information peaceably obtained?

the “crime” of blackmail is yet another barbaric relic preserved via the disgrace of fools who believe everything they’re told in “higher education” or courtrooms.

Pride Goeth Before The Fall

Posted by Christopher Manion on May 16, 2010 02:42 PM

The word “tragedy,” properly employed, denotes a particular genre of drama or literature that features a main character defined by one dictionary as a person “impelled by moral weakness or psychological maladjustment” – or hubris — “exaggerated pride or self-confidence.”

So I find it interesting that a Detroit police chief calls the shooting of seven-year-old Aiyana Jones by a SWAT team member “a tragedy of unspeakable magnitude to Aiyana’s parents.”

So Aiyana’s parents are the ones “impelled by moral weakness or psychological maladjustment… and exaggerated pride or self-confidence”?

egads. yes, chris, completely ignore that the dominant modern definition of tragedy in common nondramatic use is — fucking obviously — “2 a : a disastrous event : calamity b : misfortune”

there’s a term for what you’ve done there, chris, and i’ll let you provide it since you should know it better than i do. hint: it’s a named fallacy from sophistici elenchi. jesus christ, talk about a stretch for drama.

so on to the abcnews article linked above. more language abuse:

A sleeping 7-year-old girl was shot and killed when an officer’s gun went off while Detroit police were searching a duplex for a suspect in the slaying of a teenager, a police official said.
[...]
[Assistant Chief Ralph] Godbee said officers with the department’s Special Response Team set off a flash grenade as they entered the apartment with their guns drawn about 12:40 a.m. Sunday with a warrant to look for a suspect in the Friday slaying of a 17-year-old boy.

The lead officer encountered a 46-year-old woman immediately inside the front room of the house and “some level of physical contact” ensued during which the officer’s gun went off, Godbee said. The officers had identified themselves as police, he said.

note the dishonest language for the sole purpose of exonerating the state’s goons. paragraph one, the gun was the actor; it “went off”. paragraph 2, SRT was the actor, for they merely “set off a flash grenade” (i.e., not “the flash grenade went off”). paragraph 3, it’s back to defending the murderer, for the only guilty part was the “officer’s gun”, which “went off”.

this is standard lunacy when the lamestream media discuss a topic about which they know shit, especially when it fits their destined position as the state’s mouthpiece. note to career louts: with extremely rare exception, modern guns don’t “go off”; the trigger must be pulled. unlike you and your pravdalicious aspirations, the gun is not blameworthy.

“sticking up for monopoly corporations”? interesting that the so-called federal government is never treated by these economics deficients as the most monopolistic of all corporations, and the only with the wrongly supposed right to — upon the slightest whim of its bestial brain — wave guns in the faces of peaceful folk.

if one is opposed to monopoly, the first sighted for takedown should, sensibly, be the most powerful. there is no alternate, superior species of human occupying this land as our supposed rightful rulers. they are not the fail-safe of child dreams, but rather its opposite. stop appealing to them as children, and stand as a man.

absent voluntary agreement, you do not have the right to force anyone to supply a service to you.* the right is not created from nowhere simply because you joined a mob. written long ago, and nothing’s changed:

What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

if you wouldn’t as an individual pull out a gun and put it to the head of someone offering a type of internet signal for a price, have the bare decency to not clamor for another to do it on your behalf. not enough insulation in the universe to make one right while the other’s so obviously wrong.

* any rothbardian geeks who wander by, i disagree with his assessment of contract scope — especially regarding nonperformance.

coercion doesn’t inspire.

wow. tough one, huh? imbeciles, crumbling as they must. continue please, assholes and airheads.

Posted by: Micanthropyre | 04/24/10 | 11:04 pm |

Steve Jobs is really starting to turn me off from Apple products, which to me is sad and confusing. As a consumer, I love the quality and workmanship that goes into the products Apple creates. However, as a person I have strong beliefs that without accepting responsibility for the well-being of others we are neglecting our own obligation to each other. Steve Jobs is a screw-everyone-else sort of individual, an Ayn Rand capitalist to the letter, and this poses a certain danger to economy.

I guess even though I love the Apple products, I’d rather support someone who is “doing it right” in more ways than just the product.

blah blah. that’s the sound of an ignorant pussy with zilch for argument, burrowing into the sand with his vacant skull leading the way. mind that it isn’t enough to lie about one of the greatest balls-fortified thinkers ever; the hack must announce in halo-encrusted sanctimony his comparative righteousness. the usual formula.

the side chuckle regarding these fools: “an Ayn Rand capitalist to the letter” understands that dishonorable behavior first fucks him. rand was not merely being provocative with book titles such as The Virtue of Selfishness. however, getting morons to understand truth and halt their disingenuous prancing was beyond her extraordinary ability.

message to jackals: you have not won an argument by applying to an opponent your farcical view of a woman who could kick autonomically your shallow ass into the ropes of an intellectual boxing ring. your primary weapon is the wrong assumption that rand was dishonorable and unempathic.

want to kick ayn rand’s ass? do it soundly, absent the usual weapon of straw, after you’ve mastered her inarguable theme (the non mozart-was-a-red part). also understand that where she was hyperbolic, it was often in reaction to years of ambient yammering from the dolt herds. she was not perfect, and opposite-implying approaches to her work usually testify to the intimidation felt by her wannabe opponents (or worse, randroids).

yeah, stupid move.

attempted refutations of the possibility are soft, centering on the tactic of the horrible snopes.com — bastard cousin of the wikipedia scam and “mythbusters”-idjit types.