236 Comments

This could use a couple more hours to hammer it out, but that's time I don't have. :( If I sucked bad at explaining something hopefully I'll be able to shore that up in the comments.

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I'm glad you explained what Opening Day was,as I'd feared I'd missed your announcement of a business foray!

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Sports are like religion. For the initiated, no explanation is necessary. The non-initiated wallow in confusion. I used to be at a loss for water-cooler conversation but then I quit my job and that solved that problem.

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😂 I have never been drawn to team sports ( except the Olympics for a few decades, now I could care less about that either) as I've never been great at Team Play. I understand it,but chaff when others don't pull their weight...

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It's sort of funny, because as long as I've been alive I've been listening to "old" ballplayers, and almost all of them say the same thing after they get done playing -- they miss the game, but they REALLY miss part of being a team.

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Having an uncensored comment section is kind of like being part of a team, n'est-ce pas?

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Since we are in a libertarian/autist-friendly forum, I will go ahead and say the unspeakable: THE PROBLEM IS ALWAYS OTHER PEOPLE

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Crony Cap. Or Corptocracy

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It all boils down to your popularity in high school.

https://youtu.be/0wP01rZ2DC8?t=64

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Right behind you …….

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I wish I knew where I was going. It inevitably involves dealing with other people.

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As an Astros fan I remember the 2004/05 seasons and how fleeting that period of winning was that ended with a sweep in the WS…but this period of winning will never end!! Suck it Yankees!!

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2005, what a wonderful year to be a White Sox fan. Which I am. Which means I haven’t had much to crow over since that season, while you, the Astros fan, have been able to celebrate numerous outstanding seasons.

ChiSox vs Astros tonight for Opening Day!

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Since Biggio hit his 3000th hit in 2007 there were some dark days until 2015. And I remember playing KC in the playoffs and Correa made an error that cost them the series and thinking it would be another 10 years before we made the playoffs again…little did I know that the “process” was working.

Btw, before the Texans entered the NFL everyone was saying they were the best run expansion franchise in history and they would start winning very quickly and once games started they have very obviously been the worst run franchise and so I don’t believe speculation about “process” until I see results!

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Our 2015 almost ended in Houston. Once we managed to overcome that deficit, there was no stopping us.

Now we're terrible again. :(

Our "process" has us in the playoffs every 30 years or so, with winning seasons roughly two a decade.

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The Royals have those two fairly recent Series, and a championship, to lean on. Still one of the more successful expansion franchises despite the last 30 years.

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Getting less "fairly recent" every year. :( Next year will be the 10-year anniversary of the '14 run.

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I’m a lifelong White Sox fan, but my all-time favorite player is George Brett. Jamie Quirk and Dan Quisenberry are also favorites of mine from that era.

Quisenberry, renowned for his unorthodox submarine throwing motion and productivity as a closer, passed away at the age of 45. How he’s not in the Hall of Fame is beyond me.

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Brett is why I love third base :)

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Same with the Nationals. For the Astros it’s all about drafting and developing players and then payroll management…because you don’t want to end up like the Tigers or Angels paying a 36 year old first baseman $30 million a year that can barely run to first base. So we let Correa go in free agency and then his rookie replacement won WS MVP!

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They brought in Abreu, a Chicago fan favorite.

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My problem is the with the 10 year free agent contracts. I think 3 year contracts to over 35 year olds are reasonable. Let the Yankees and Dodgers and Mets take on the those contracts and the Astros and Rays can continue winning by sticking with what has worked so far.

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Not sure what you guys think, but I am dreading the new rules : an enforceable pitch timer, 2 throw-overs, eye contact w/ the batter ? ... Let's see how many games are "walked-off" by judgement calls.

One thing my wife and my late mother agreed upon : Baseball isn't worth enduring unless it rewards the viewer w/ a few minutes of close-ups of HofF'er Jim Palmer

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The Royals game was over in a perfectly acceptable 2:30. The Jays/Cards game was a slugfest but never felt 'draggy'. The Guardians/Mariners game is in the bottom of the 6th after 1:20. (0-0 tie, but still.)

Now it seems like the focus is always on the game, instead of wandering around near the batter's box/pitching rubber. Hopefully this keeps up all year, because I'm very happy as a baseball-watcher.

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SimCom, as a KC Royal fan, I wish you the greatest luck w/ RHP Jordan Lyles. He was a rock for us after the ASG and chewed thru , I think, 180+ innings. The younger, inexperienced starters really looked up to him and was as instrumental to their development as any coach.

Obviously, I am p!$$Ed that the team was too cheap to exercise their option to keep him, instead signing another 1 yr RHSP , K Gibson.

Hope he kicks ass for you all

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He's about to throw his first pitch as a Royal!

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Three weeks ago, I started watching the WBC and just enjoyed the heck out of it except --- the games were just. So. Friggin' Looong. After setting the DVR for 3 hours, and an additional hour, there were games that I missed the last couple AB's for lack of space. Post-season games are always that way ; so, maybe I'll like the timer.

Words I never, ever thought I'd say regarding ANYTHING : i' ll keep an open mind about it

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agree. takes a little getting used to with the eye though, given we've had a 20 year slide into "slow-play"

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I don't hate the pitch timer as much as most, because as a (very old) pitcher, I always felt I had the ability to speed up or slow down the game as I needed.

I'm not a fan of the "only two pickoffs" rule, and I think the hitter should just be able to beat the shift. (LAY DOWN A BUNT!)

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How about "The Bird" Mark Fidrych or "The Mad Hungarian" Al Hrabosky?

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Different era, to be sure, and their wild antics were terrific theater. Loved Al’s facial hair.

Can you imagine where Tom Seaver’s first pitch to Nomar Garciaparra would have gone after the shortstop finally completed his exhaustive pre-swing routine? In the words of Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams, “…watch out for in your ear.”

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"Loved Al’s facial hair."

How much of sports is about facial hair? How much of it is about recreational hallucinogens? https://youtu.be/yqvlrJQVAP4?t=65

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It says something when sports figures break out of the sports ghetto and become a thing that non-sports people know about. Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Dock Ellis.

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As to the latter, not enough. ;)

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exactly; or cleats up to avoid a double play

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Now we are getting somewhere.

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I love the pitch clock. I think every pitcher should battle like Buehrle.

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If Buehrle can throw quick, everybody can!

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"You guys know I’m a Royals fan, and we’re probably going to be somewhere between terrible and bad. But until we actually ARE somewhere between terrible and bad, I’m optimistic!"

Update: We were 56-106. That's bad.

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I'm working on a longform piece explaining authoritarianism as a perversion beginning in the second (Security) level of Maslow's pyramid.

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So, been seeing the media constantly report that the statute of limitations for Trump’s alleged crime could be paused for the time he spent out of state. Which appears to be true but if they can’t tie his payment to the campaign and therefore a felony, it doesn’t look like it might not matter. Here’s what the regulation actually says:

“ In calculating the time limitation applicable to commencement of a

criminal action, the following periods shall not be included:

(a) Any period following the commission of the offense during which

(i) the defendant was continuously outside this state or (ii) the

whereabouts of the defendant were continuously unknown and continuously

unascertainable by the exercise of reasonable diligence. However, in no

event shall the period of limitation be extended by more than five years

beyond the period otherwise applicable under subdivision two.”

https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/CPL/30.10

So, I’m not quite sure how to read that, is it 2 + 5? Or five total? In any event, it sounds far more complicated than what is being reported. If it is actually seven, then I guess this could fall into the window and perhaps why they needed to do this now because it seems very unlikely that NYS can actually tie this into a felony that they could actually prosecute. Any thoughts SimCom?

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They've been going after him for like 10 years at this point. They NEED something to "stick" by the election -- even if that "stick" is just an indictment that goes nowhere.

The obvious problem they're having is that they didn't even COME UP with the crime until now. So it's not like the fact that Trump was out of state was an issue at all.

The whole thing stinks.

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I can’t read the piece. I am laughing and coughing too much from (hahaha) the picture. Ernie’s least favourite day. Oh my God.

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Not everybody enjoys a good Hump Day.

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I’ve seen “volunteerist” as a way to explain anarchism that aren’t fucking morons.

Now I see you saying it.

I like this.

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I thought that was Burt's job. Or was it Big Bird's?

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Nobody really knows what was going on behind the scenes, just the The Brady Bunch.

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Bottom of the first and I'm already a mess! Got out of the bases-loaded jam though!

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Well, on the bright side it only took 2:30 to fall out of first this year. Really like the new pace of play. Dislike we couldn't even score a run.

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Last I heard, they want to ban our GAS stoves, not electric ones.

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Example of why this needed more edit time!

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Thanks for the great writing, though!

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Fellow voluntaryist, here! Also, anarcho-mutualist, if that's not too heady. For a minute I thought I might be an anarcho-capitalist, but they tend to whitewash legit problems with capitalism (being forced into the market for instance), and I am not going to ally with anyone willing to defend a monster like Pinochet. When you have a theoretical like Stalin or Pinochet, the answer is always a) it depends on who you are, and b) fire. 🔥 is always preferred to Totalitarianism. These people who say Totalitarianism is okay as long as it's the left wing variety, or the right wing variety, depending, can suck it. But I digress.

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Totalitarianism is a gun. The degree to which you like it depends on who is holding it and whose finger is on the trigger. I am loosely quoting Mao here.

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I don't want anyone to hold it! 🙂

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Yeah.

Explain that to the holders.

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Agreed. The anarcho-capitalists tend to think those first couple steps of our society pyramid will naturally fall into place -- I'm not so sure. Having a government focused on protecting rights seems to be a solution we KNOW works, so that should be the end goal.

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*Minarchist raises hand* If we have to have a government, can it at least, like, fix potholes if I pay taxes?

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I guarantee you any governement can fix you potholes.

How many do you want?

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When pervasive potholes are the new normal, no amount is too many.

U.S. citizens are roundly mocked by the so-called "civilized world" for driving 4x4 pickup trucks with semiautomatic rifles in them. The fact is that 4x4 pickups with semiautomatic rifles in them are a necessity of life for many in this vast wasteland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im4EFEDSUVI

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Owning a Nissan Navarra myself, and having driven a Jeep Grand Cherokee to destruction (crankshaft went into a zillion pieces after 370 000 kilometers), I'm not throwing stones.

Sweden's got the same problem with roads: the big motor ways are fine and so are the major cities.

The countryside where we have ice/frost-cracking every year, where 64 ton heavy lumber transports run, about two per hour or more during logging season, mudslides, flooding, et c? We can just FOAD as far as city-folks are concerned.

Until they go on holidays in the country and complain about the roads, the bloody idiots.

As for SMGs, a Red Army surplus AK-47 costs between $350-$700 depending on your relationship with the dealer - illegal obviously.

Which is why only criminals have easy access to real weapons.

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"As for SMGs, a Red Army surplus AK-47 costs between $350-$700 depending on your relationship with the dealer - illegal obviously.

Which is why only criminals have easy access to real weapons."

The key difference between Sweden and the USA/Southeastern Europe/Darfur etc. in terms of illegal weapons accessibility might seem to involve the age and competence of the dealer. Old criminals get old for a reason.

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You'd think, right? They brag so much about being the only ones who can build the roads..........

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Obama: "You didn't build that!"

Me: "If you are going to appropriate our wages, fucking build something that taxpaying citizens and their children can actually use. Right now I'm not seeing it."

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They say "you gotta break a few eggs", but they never manage to produce the omlette.

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The omelet got divided into PMC breakfast long before it got to the workers.

To one of my old bosses' great credit, he always bought us McMuffins in the morning. "The system works!"

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No way that happens today.

Egg McMuffin® - $5.79

https://www.menuwithprice.com/menu/mcdonalds/

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Oh, I know. Even at the time he was clearly an insane person. I love having principled managers who defy received wisdom, but they don't last long. Time for a new gig post facto.

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I obviously am skeptical of all government. I think it's important to limit how much power one person can have over another. Our founding fathers were very smart, with all the checks and balances on power. Some of those barriers are still working today. If not for that, I think our current government would be more openly autocratic. But our founding fathers also acknowledged that governments tend to become more despotic over time and rarely less. That's why we need to be vigilant.

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Thanks for a simple and most welcome definition of Libertarian. I ve opted to “Independent” after being told far too many times that Libertarians are just lazy and chicken to commit to a political ideology.... the glitch in that pyramid today is that the yellow stage is deemed elitist and more easily attained by those privileged. You are assuming that’s what people want...

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"after being told far too many times that Libertarians are just lazy and chicken"

There is an essential distinction between "not willing to work" and "not willing to be a slave." People whose identities are formulated on being part of a hierarchy have difficulty grasping this.

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You know, I mostly agree with you on almost everything, but there's one giant piece of free-market reality I keep banging my toes into so hard there's blood all over the carpet.

The cost of housing.

If my parents hadn't purchased a co-op apt. in 1955, my mother would've been homeless before she died in 2009. The way the maintenance costs on my own co-op apt. increased between purchase in 1997 and sale in 2013, I would've been homeless if I'd wanted to stay in NY.

I've heard the screaming between market-rate advocates and rent-control/stabilization advocates in places like NY all my life, and all I know is, when I was a teenage bride a long time ago, our first modest apt. cost $105/month, and the average now is over $1600/month, and normal ordinary working-class people can't pay that without needing to live on Saltines.

My own rent, where I am now, is unaffordable but I have no choice but to pay it. It's a bargain because it includes heat and hot water; it's a beautiful safe well-maintained property, but in terms of my budget I ought to be living in a hovel and being glad I ain't living in a tent.

But my retirement income is more than a lot of other normal average people have, especially if they'd worked at lower-paying jobs/shorter working history than I had, and what do they do?

I was shocked when my kid told me about all his friends back in NY, all of whom graduated from excellent colleges with good degrees and who found real jobs, and who nevertheless must have roommates in their now full adulthoods in order to pay the rent.

I dont know any urban area with plentiful jobs where rents are truly affordable. I understand that government controls depress construction and investment. I still see the actual real-world consequences of that free market thingy when it comes to housing and it's brutal.

This is the most basic of serious problems. I get the feeling that most readers here own their own homes and maybe you guys have had no experience of rental markets for decades. But it's my life experience that the time when ordinary people could rent a place in a decent neighborhood and still be able to put a little money aside for a higher grade of crackers is long gone, and nobody seems to have a clue as to how we can bring it back.

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To fix housing, get government out of the way.

We have (or had, rather) a terrible housing problem in Portland. It's not that there's not enough land in the area, drive 30 minutes away from I5 and there's tons of land available. The problem is that it costs so much to actually go through the bs to build that the only "profit" is available in high-end condos and whatnot.

"I still see the actual real-world consequences of that free market thingy when it comes to housing and it's brutal."

What you're seeing is the brutal LACK of the free market. From the first step to the last, government is controlling what you can build and threatening you if you get out of line. If you manage to, say, create an entire section of tiny homes, government will just bulldoze them.

https://www.ktnv.com/13-investigates/officials-in-nevada-demolish-tiny-homes-built-for-homeless-in-las-vegas

This is one of those things that government decides it needs to control, and then the thing turns to shit. (Just like higher education)

For the vast majority of human existence, you could just go out into the woods and build your own house. Now government won't even allow you to build a "mother-in-law" shed without spending $100,000.

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"For the vast majority of human existence, you could just go out into the woods and build your own house."

The trouble comes from the effort to privatize the woods. Native Americans had a thing or two to say about this. To whom do the woods belong?

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To be sure Native Americans were constantly fighting other Native Americans to hold onto settled or hunting territories. There's a big difference between tribal communal control and a free earth.

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Free earth is the ideal. Tribal communal control is the shit we have to deal with.

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I live in a libertarian state now and our housing needs are desperate, and private landlords are quite often horribly exploitative.

It's true that in my own little area dominated by idiot progressives, the barriers to building more housing are daunting, but the whole state is in urgent need of affordable housing and its lack is seriously impeding business growth.

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"I live in a libertarian state now"

I'm sorry but you almost certainly do not. If the whole state is in urgent need of affordable housing, SOMETHING is stopping it from being built.

https://www.ramseysolutions.com/real-estate/how-much-does-it-cost-to-build-a-house

There is no state in the country in which new housing builds are reasonably priced. This means the people who can't afford to build/buy a home will be stuck in high-density housing (what we used to call "the projects").

And honestly, it seems like the 'leaders' are perfectly happy with that arrangement. (Don't want "those people" driving down the property value of by suburban fortress)

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"This means the people who can't afford to build/buy a home will be stuck in high-density housing (what we used to call "the projects")"

This seems like like a feature, not a bug.

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To some people it is.

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But you understand how that's like being the skinniest kid at fat camp, right?

---------------

"To give some examples, Free Staters have helped with the passage of constitutional carry, the expansion of school choice, and the decriminalization of recreational Marijuana use. New Hampshire also has widespread cryptocurrency use, no seatbelt laws for individuals over the age of 18, no mandatory car insurance (and subsequently low insurance costs), and a low overall tax burden, having abolished the state income tax, state sales tax, inheritance tax, and capital gains tax. The culture has also changed to heavily favor homeschooling and an accessible political scene. The state has even entertained a constitutional amendment for secession from the United States."

-------------

That sounds great, but the state still assumed the power to make it illegal to go to work. The free staters are nibbling at the size of the state, but there's a long long long way to go before it's anything resembling libertarian.

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Yes, I agree.

And as I've said at other times--I'm not a libertarian; I'm not any category, I have no tribe. I'd much rather be up here than back down in NY, but looking around at the dreadful housing stock available for working-class renters and the relentless electrification of heating in a place like this, I fight off despair frequently.

My feeling about civilization--them artworks are great things, but if we're in the 21st century and people are still at risk of dying of cold in the US, of limiting food so they can pay the rent on a pile of crap--

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Ironically a couple of articles dropped about this today:

https://reason.com/2023/03/30/real-estate-xenophobia/

https://reason.com/2023/03/30/new-york-lawmakers-could-pass-the-nations-strictest-state-level-rent-control-law-by-the-end-of-the-week/

The recent push for rent control is exactly the time of meddling in the market that I'm talking about. Everybody knows price controls don't work and only lead to shortages, but here we see "leaders" implementing them anyway.

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Another article that perfectly explains why government fails at fixing housing:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/andrew-lewis-announced-a-fundraising-plan-to-double-seattles-tiny-houses-so-where-are-they/

In January 2021, Seattle City Councilmember Andrew Lewis announced an ambitious goal to double the city’s tiny house stock, calling the plan “It Takes a Village.”

He wanted to raise more than $15 million in public and private dollars to add 480 new tiny homes and create 12 new villages. Once off the ground, he estimated 720 people could be temporarily sheltered within 18 months of the program.

Lewis gave himself a hard deadline to get everything done: the end of 2021.

More than two years since its reveal and more than a year since its deadline, there’s little to show, other than social media posts promoting the effort and a webpage explaining the proposal on the city’s website. Zero new city-initiated tiny houses were built from the money Lewis said he raised.

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I truly don't know what the solution is. Can you point to any free-market rental area (anywhere--here or abroad) where people get appropriate value for their money and housing is sufficiently available?

When I moved up here I rented an apt. carved out of a portion of an 1860s-era house. The landlord had sealed off the heating ducts from the basement and installed electric baseboard heating for my place and the upstairs rental unit too. My living room portion was on a cement slab, so there was no warmth coming even tangentially from anywhere.

What I'd thought was reasonable rent in the warm months was exposed as a real sleight of hand when heating season started--and it starts early up here. This area is full of landlord shenanigans of this nature.

In NY I'd been a renter for 30 yrs give or take, and my experiences were almost all bad ones. Affordable rents were for places with some pretty awful flaws that one often doesn't discover in time, but there aren't really better options for the ordinary person.

In any desirable area, investors come in, buy up the stock (rental buildings, coops, condos) and then jack up prices; there are always rich people willing to pay insane prices for ridiculous apts. (money laundering or any reason you can think of) and the ordinary person has nowhere to go. Those rich people always tip the equation.

And don't think I don't have sympathy for landlords with integrity hobbled by idiotic regulations and, in our Plague Era, emergency diktats that have destroyed so many of them.

I want justice and fairness and safe well-built housing ordinary people can afford. Show me where the market let that happen.

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First we'd have to have a market, right? Read the article I just posted about Seattle's attempt to even build tiny homes.

The whole situation is so screwed up right now that we have entire strip malls sitting empty instead of lowering rent to the point where businesses will move in -- while we simultaneously regulate away more housing and ensure that rents stay high. (And around here, we also have to deal with the people who might be off the books yet still need a place to live)

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There is so often a mindset of landlords that if they hold out long enough, moneybags will come and rent their ridiculously overpriced spaces.

The area I'm in, small businesses are very dependent on college-student custom, so anything closing or interrupting the semester schedule hurts them terribly, and the landlords don't care. Good solid eateries keep closing because of that, but the landlords remain in fantasyland, and maybe they get tax breaks for losses, I don't know. All of it a very cynical business it seems to me.

Did you see the story in the Daily Mail about a couple who purchased an entire Welsh village and are now raising rents to "market value" on people who've been there for decades and are now retired on fixed incomes? Of course these are desirable properties, but what is someone in their 70s supposed to do now? Feudalism lives.

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SCA……..First, decentralize the friggen government…………..well, it’s an idea anyway. Everything you just said makes me want to cry, scream and if that doesn’t work, hang myself. That said, ……….where has all the humor gone. Americans have always been able to crack-wise…….it was easy to find the funny side of things…….not so much now. It has to change.

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"decentralize the friggen government"

I am fully in favor of this concept, much as I am in favor of Ben Franklin's concept that the seat of the Federal government should rotate every few years, but good luck achieving this ideal until a nuke gets dropped on DC.

"Americans have always been able to crack-wise…….it was easy to find the funny side of things…….not so much now. It has to change."

I think the only way forward here is to keep cracking wise. One knows a regime by its dissidents and prisoners.

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Do not hang yourself. The great thing about life, it ends anyway. Let it take its time.

Our doom was sealed in taking rudeness out of the schoolyard. Physical bullying--yes, that needs a hosing with ice-cold water. But the freedom to be rude and funny is essential to the growth process. You have to learn on your own what's wrong, and what's great political commentary. You gotta have good antennae and it's life let loose that calibrate 'em.

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As a man who was once a boy, I assert that physical bullying has its place.

There are few greater feelings in life than to punch a bully in the nose and watch him bleed and cry.

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As a gal who was once a girl, and had poor physical skills and no one to help 'em get better, I had to fight back with words. But I didn't get good at them until a lot later.

The desperation of no escape is pretty bad to endure. I'm all for kids learning to deal with the challenges of life, but being afraid all the time in one's own neighborhood is maybe not the best teacher.

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"being afraid all the time in one's own neighborhood is maybe not the best teacher."

Agreed. How is this to be fixed when the authorities themselves are the source of that fear?

I cite Ray Bradbury's "The Pedestrian": https://www.riversidelocalschools.com/Downloads/pedestrian%20short%20story.pdf

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Well, I'm against all bullies, ain't I?

Listen, I tried to do my part, I served on a city council advisory committee while having lotsa letters published in our regional newspaper excoriating the city council; I've been fated to be the Peasants' Rebellion everywhere I settle--

--and truly, I feel a wee little bit weary of the fight. But I ain't dead yet so am still resisting.

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Bully vs. Bully is a real thing. It behooves all latent bullies to examine their practices.

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Everyone fights for dominance.

Even purported peaceniks. They want their side to win too.

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This is the way.

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I intend my headstone to read "She was incorrigible to the end."

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**I WAS NOT!!**

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Well, boy, you shine now!

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Koshmarov……Now, I’m laughing……..thanks for that!

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GOD, Of course, you’re right. That’s the way I have always lived. I get a little maudlin and I have an extremely dark sense of humor so don’t worry about me hanging myself……..I wouldn’t waste the rope.

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Whenever the window looks a little enticing, make some ginger tea and have a B-complex capsule. You'll right yourself in a jiffy.

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Oh, not a problem…….I always have my “ledge” just waiting for me to climb out on!

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Not to get too much darker, I like the (probably apocryphal) anecdote about Isabelle Eberhardt and her father; she complained about how awful life was and he gave her a revolver. Suicide is always there if you want it, but as SCA points out, you only get one death and whether you want to hurry it is up to you.

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/23/books/she-was-a-desert-cavalier.html

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A piece of wisdom from my old friend Stoopid Jonny, who lived in a van/the university library when he was a student at the university: "When you actually OWN YOUR HOUSE -- I mean, not a mortgage, but you LEGALLY OWN THE WHOLE THING -- there is nothing anyone can do to you." His typical hyperbole notwithstanding, res ipsa loquitur.

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Yeah, Jonny was wrong. Them property taxes keep accruing and increasing and your bought 'n paid for home is never yours so long as there's a taxing authority that can take it.

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Oh, of course he was wrong, hence the moniker. The point I was vaguely attempting to make is that when you live in a van, property taxes don't seem so bad. Grass is greener on the other side etc.

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Every time I read of some elderly person who's lived in their home for sixty years and is losing it because of the property taxes, the steam vent in the top of my head gets a little bigger.

They made things so we'd never own anything and never be happy so long ago we didn't realize they already won.

edit PS: Haven't had my tea yet. Reading comprehension may not be up to speed yet.

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"You'll own nothing and you won't be happy."

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You've probably never read the children's book (I consider it for all ages but my tastes may be unusual) "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH."

The precipitating plot event is a family of mice imminently losing their home to the plowman and little sick Timmy can't be moved. Die this way, die that way.

One of my own recurring (actual) nightmares is of the door that can't be locked, keeps falling off its frame etc. etc. etc. The integrity of a home is a basic need that's violated every moment of every day somewhere, and the horror of that mundane atrocity is something I myself am clearly rather obsessed by.

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Oh, I've read it. I am of the belief that all events in life are handily explained by classic kids' lit.

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My man!

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From my perspective, the issue is not the label, the issue is that we are being forced to make economic (and social, and physical, and medical, and dietetic, and vocational, and educational, and, and ... and) decisions based on the false premises of overpaid gangsters acting as benevolent lords of our kingdoms.

The problem isn't the label. The problem is that we are made to feel there is a need for a label. That we have given our rights away, for the sake of ease and convenience is the problem. That we have decided to label ourselves and create "others" is the problem. That we have joined the collective chorus of "that's the governments job", is the problem.

Now go pretend it's still baseball, enjoy the sounds of "play ball!"

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Yep, and that's really what the next article is about and what I wanted to stress, but I wanted to write this "build-up" first so we're all starting from the same jumping-off point.

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It could be worse. You could be stuck watching and cheering for mediocrity...like the NY Yankees.

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I still haven't found any political name to use for myself. I like "leave me alonist" the best. Most of the monikers out there have some philosophy attached that describes "what I'm supposed to believe" as a (fill in the blank). So at my age I've decided I just want to be left the hell alone by the man. I, like you, SC have gone through the list of monikers and none of them really fit. Thanks for another great post.

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Since I feel both parties have betrayed the electorate, I call myself a "Best Dealer". Whoever gives me the best deal gets my vote.

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Exactly so. Being a nice person, I would prefer to live on a nice island with other nice people who engage in mutually beneficial transactions, per SimCom's OP. That is not where I live; I live in the midst of feuding mafia organizations. Given the reality of this situation, it behooves me to find the best deal I can. Dashiell Hammett's RED HARVEST nicely explains this socioeconomic dynamic; given its multiple reinterpretations (YOJIMBO, FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, etc. ad in) it is clearly a metaphor with staying power.

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Try "Democracy of Dollars" by Richard Jacobs if you can find a copy.

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In that metaphor, sign me up for the role of coffin maker.

Don't care which gang or clan runs the show, they all need burying at sometime.

Just as the All-Father's blackwings don't care whose flesh is now cold and ripe.

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I called myself a Conservative Libertarian for about a decade... then the national/and often state party kept showing itself to be ...well... imbeciles.

I'll need to look into Voluntaryism, but until then, I'll stick with Conservative Independent.

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