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1.3
date	2011.06.04.00.39.08;	author baccala;	state Exp;
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1.2
date	2011.04.26.01.24.40;	author baccala;	state Exp;
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1.1
date	2011.03.21.22.54.41;	author baccala;	state Exp;
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@Mercuriou: "Well, I've 'learned my lesson'!  I've figured how to 'get
things done' in the 'real world'!  I've learned to 'compete'!  You
crow on about rewarding people for their hard work!  I couldn't begin
to build this ship without stealing it!  Where's my reward?  Why do
you have to become either a capitalist or a thief to get this kind of
opportunity?"



Ecks: "Again, it comes down to a simple principle, captain - freedom!
The businessman does not dictate to his stockholders how they should
spend their money.  Instead, the businessman collects revenue from his
customers, uses those revenues to pay the expenses of the business,
and then returns the surplus both to the employees in the form of
bonuses and to the investors in the form of dividends.  It is then up
to the employees and investors how to spend _their_money_.  If they
wish to give to charities, they can do so.  Furthermore, the
businessman has a moral responsibility to operate his business
responsibly, because it _isn't_his_money_."

Mercuriou: "Isn't his money?!"

Ecks: "That's right, captain.  It's the shareholder's money.  For the
businessman to simply give it away as you suggest would amount to
taxation without representation, or to put it more bluntly, theft.
Many capitalists are good, decent people who have founded charities,
started schools and universities, established endowment funds...  Your
ideas sound very noble and idealistic, but how do you put them into
practice?  Force them on people with the government, right?  That's
what it always comes down to.  Look, let's take a break now and I'll
introduce our next guest when we return."

Mercuriou: "Is is time for the 'democratic response'?"


==================

"See this is what people like you don't understand about capitalism.
It gives people opportunity..."

------

Ecks is going to pull out the line about "work", and Mercuriou's
answer will be "Let's just cut right to the chase and shortcut this debate.
'Work' becomes 'making money'.  There's lots of work you can do..."



Liberalism makes people lazy.  Work this in somewhere (probably Ecks)

------


won't work for these bums, you'll be put homeless on the street and
all these great, decent people will sneer at you as they walk past and
call you a bum without saying a word!"


------

One can't live without sustaining oneself.

In one sense, this is obviously true - if most of us don't contribute
meaningfully in some way, we'll all starve.

Let's face it - we live in a society where
we are FORCED to work.  You're not sustaining yourself; you're doing
what you are FORCED to do by an oppressive and immoral society!

Freedom - can you give people the freedom to choose their own work?

------

and all this bullshit about your "competitors"?!  Who are these people
They're your colleagues, right?  They're the people doing the same
kind of things you're doing, but instead of helping each other, you
try to bust each other's bank account.

-----

Implicit in his argument is the assumption everyone lives that way!


-----


Ecks: We need to lower taxes and get rid of government regulation on
private enterprise.

Mercuriou: Then you'll be right back to where you were a hundred years
ago, with massive pollution, key industries run into the ground by
monopolies.

-----


Mercuriou: You're damn right I've got a problem with authority!  I've
got a problem with authority when the people in authority are just a
bunch of self-serving creeps!  Now why couldn't we have just put that
program up on the network?  What is so terrible about that?



-----

Mercuriou: "_Freedom_?  You'll be remembered for _secrecy!_ The books,
the blueprints, the source code, the circuit diagrams, the
manufacturing processes!  All kept secret by these capitalists
determined to enslave the world under 'globalization'!  They want
'freedom'...  they want their _own_ freedom!"


------




Ecks: "Captain, you seem to think everyone has to do things your way!
Those authors, those designers, they could give everything away like
you suggest, they have that power, they have that _right_!"

Mercuriou: "I am so sick of hearing about people's 'rights'!  Whenever
I hear that word, the next thing I start figuring is 'who's getting
screwed'..."

Ecks: "It's called _freedom_."

Mercuriou: "Freedom?  What freedom?  Under capitalism?  The freedom to
starve if you won't work when you're told?  The lion and the
wilderbeast both have 'freedom', Congressman..."

Ecks: "Captain, if you don't work, you will not starve, because just
about every American city has a soup kitchen or homeless shelter of
one kind of another.  On the other hand, those who do work can expect
to be paid for their labor, and it is entirely up to them what they do
with it.  The abundance of charities in this country is an elegant
testimony to the generosity of the American people."

Mercuriou: "Sounds great.  Sound like everywhere you go in the U.S, you
must see charity after charity after charity, and occasionally a
business."

Ecks: "There's nothing wrong with running a business.  Where do you
think all that money comes from for those charities?"

Mercuriou: "OK, if those businesses are so generous, why bother with
the price tags?"



Ecks: "I know, I know, everyone who wants to make money is trash,
everyone who wants a better life for their children is a creep..."

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1.1
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@a7 25
Ecks: "Captain, you seem to think everyone has to do things your way!
Those authors, they could give everything away like you suggest, they
have that power, they have that _right_!"

Mercuriou: "I am so sick of hearing about people's 'rights'!  Whenever
I hear that word, the next thing I start figuring is 'who's getting
screwed'..."

Ecks: "It's called _freedom_."

Mercuriou: "Freedom?  What freedom?  Under capitalism?  The freedom to
starve if you won't work when you're told?  The lion and the
wilderbeast both have 'freedom', Congressman..."

Ecks: "Captain, capitalism may not be perfect, but if you don't work,
you will not starve, because just about every American city has a soup
kitchen or homeless shelter of one kind of another.  On the other
hand, those who do work can expect to be paid for their labor, and it
is entirely up to them what they do with it.  The abundance of
charities in this country is an elegant testimony to the generosity of
the American people."

Mercuriou: "Sounds great.  Sound like everywhere you go in the U.S, you
must see charity after charity after charity, and occasionally a
business."
a8 5
Ecks: "There's nothing wrong with running a business.  Where do you
think all that money comes from for those charities?"

Mercuriou: "OK, if those businesses are so generous, why bother with
the price tags?"
a52 1
We can't afford to run non-profit restaurants.
d54 4
a57 11
Again, let's get clear on our propaganda terms.  Are you staying
that _in_general_ we can't afford this, or that _under_capitalism_
we can't afford this?

I find this very hard to believe.  You want me to believe that we can
pay pitchers and quarterbacks millions of dollars a year, support
video game, music and film industries that each rake in more than ten
billion a year, blow half a trillion a year on the military, but we
can't afford to feed people in restaurants?  Even if this absurd
proposition were true, it would be an argument for rationing, not
capitalism.
d66 1
a66 4
How do you sustain yourself?  By refusing to do for people unless they
pay you?  How does that sustain anyone?  It makes no sense to say that
people aren't sustaining themselves because they are willing to serve
people that others won't.  Let's face it - we live in a society where
a84 35

Who's doing to pay for it, Captain?

"The authors pay for it.  They write the books, publish them on the
Internet, give copies freely to anyone who wants them whether they pay
or not, and end up homeless on the streets, because most people take
whatever they can get for free, and slame the door shut on anyone who
can't pay."

-----

Mercuriou: You won't be able to compete because your product is
inferior.  Let's take, for example, Kenya.  Now, what you offer Kenya,
under the guise of "globalization", is a straightforward deal - find
something to sell, something you've got and we want, and then in
return we'll sell you our closed, secret, proprietary technology that
you'll have to pay out of the nose [CA] for.  What I'll offer Kenya is
something else - all the software, the chip masks, the factory
blueprints - everything they need to build their own computers, their
own cell phones, their own data networks.  Now, which of these two
"products" do you think this "customer" will prefer?


Ecks: Freedom for thieves!  That's what you want!  Freedom for thieves!

Mercuriou: What "theft"?  You walk into a museum and take a picture of
the painting, or setup an easel to paint your own copy, nobody calls
that "theft"!  You lift the painting off the wall, put it under your
arm and walk out the door - _that_'s theft!  What you call theft is
nothing more than education, and what you call virtue is a world where
knowledge is a weapon used to maintain an economic and technological
tyranny!  "Give a man a fish, he's fed for a day; teach a man to fish,
he'd fed for life."  Well, the capitalists have a new way - get a
process patent on fishing, then he has to pay you everytime he throws
a line in the water.
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