Protests in France - barricades rised in Paris

Fucking French. They demand ever-more socialism constantly, then riot when they get more socialism. Dumbasses.

KneelB4Zod! wrote:

The Original Mind wrote:Fucking French. They demand ever-more socialism constantly, then riot when they get more socialism. Dumbasses.

Well, that's protests over the rise of fuel taxes. Pretty legitimate imho. Especially if their little Napoleon wants to spend tax money on immigrants and EU army. They demands Macron's resignation and step down of his government. Let it be so.

Legitimate from the point of view of someone who wants lower fuel taxes and less money spent on immigrants and the EU army. But that's my very point - the French want higher taxes, money for immigrants, and an EU army. Hence, a bunch of dumb hypocrites. The French have a long history of rioting when they get precisely what they asked for.

KneelB4Zod! wrote:

The Original Mind wrote:

KneelB4Zod! wrote:

The Original Mind wrote:Fucking French. They demand ever-more socialism constantly, then riot when they get more socialism. Dumbasses.

Well, that's protests over the rise of fuel taxes. Pretty legitimate imho. Especially if their little Napoleon wants to spend tax money on immigrants and EU army. They demands Macron's resignation and step down of his government. Let it be so.

Legitimate from the point of view of someone who wants lower fuel taxes and less money spent on immigrants and the EU army. But that's my very point - the French want higher taxes, money for immigrants, and an EU army. Hence, a bunch of dumb hypocrites. The French have a long history of rioting when they get precisely what they asked for.

Well, the protestors demand Macrons' resignation. You remember him, right? It's this guy:



He want's EU army to fight Russia. He attacked Syria. Well, he tried but all his missiles were dud lol. As long as protesters are not Islamists or neo-nazis (I'm not neocon or zionist to go along with such criminals) I have no problem with their demand.

In extend, the protests are AGAINST higher taxes. Specifically the fuel one. So "the French want higher taxes" completely contradicts this very basic reason of the protests. And yes, the protests are against privatization of public services, too. And it's quite logic. Macron tries to loot taxpayers even more with higher taxes and, at the same time, he intends to make huge savings on public services with their privatisation. I would protest against this as well, bud.

Yes, I remember who Macron is. He's the man who openly announced his intentions during the election and won a massive victory against the only sane figure in French politics.

The French knew precisely what they would get with him, yet voted for him anyway. Le Pen warned the French, and they ignored her.

That the protestors are protesting higher taxes is irrelevant. The French frequently protest higher taxes. Yet they consistently vote for parties that promise higher taxes, and overwhelmingly supports higher taxes in principle.

That the French cannot reconcile their ideology and their lifestyle is their contradiction, not mine. Yet another grave fault of the French public - centuries of self-contradiction.

As to their protestation of the privatization of public services, that is a socialist stance. Public services are by definition the socialization of that service. Don't confuse the manner of privatization with the principle of privatization. The French are opposed to privatization in principle - they do not care whether privatization is genuinely free market or quasi-socialist (e.g. selling out to favored corporations, as typically happens in cases of privatization). For instance, I opposed quasi-socialist privatization but support free market privatization.

This is just another showy protest by the French. It happens every so often. They have a bunch of wonderful catch phrases and memes (e.g. yellow jackets) to make themselves look good on social media. It isn't anti-globalist, isn't anti-establishment, isn't pro-freedom. It's just another orchestrated protest. Same shit, different day.

KneelB4Zod! wrote:

The Original Mind wrote:
Yes, I remember who Macron is. He's the man who openly announced his intentions during the election and won a massive victory against the only sane figure in French politics.

The French knew precisely what they would get with him, yet voted for him anyway. Le Pen warned the French, and they ignored her.

That the protestors are protesting higher taxes is irrelevant. The French frequently protest higher taxes. Yet they consistently vote for parties that promise higher taxes, and overwhelmingly supports higher taxes in principle.

That the French cannot reconcile their ideology and their lifestyle is their contradiction, not mine. Yet another grave fault of the French public - centuries of self-contradiction.

As to their protestation of the privatization of public services, that is a socialist stance. Public services are by definition the socialization of that service. Don't confuse the manner of privatization with the principle of privatization. The French are opposed to privatization in principle - they do not care whether privatization is genuinely free market or quasi-socialist (e.g. selling out to favored corporations, as typically happens in cases of privatization). For instance, I opposed quasi-socialist privatization but support free market privatization.

This is just another showy protest by the French. It happens every so often. They have a bunch of wonderful catch phrases and memes (e.g. yellow jackets) to make themselves look good on social media. It isn't anti-globalist, isn't anti-establishment, isn't pro-freedom. It's just another orchestrated protest. Same shit, different day.

Macron won by 2/3. I wouldn't call it massive but the majoritiy was indisputable. Maybe Frenchmen were not ready for LePen and probably the election today would offer different outcome. Who knows?

Well, I know we have quite different stances on such things as economy and related issues. For example, I'm very sure that there are sectors that shouldn't be allowed to be in private hands regardless whatever. For example water resources and its management. I feel really sick over the fact that is Czech water resources, and distribution of drinking water, is operated by the foreign company. Specifically by French Veolia. How in the hell anyprivate, moreover foreign, company can profit from distribution of something that belongs to our country, thus everyone of us? Similar it is with energy industry or even the military one.

Here I want to highlight one thing you din't adress - Macron wants take more money from taxpayers (higher fuel taxes) and spend less on taxpayers (privatization of public services). That's completely wrong of course because he wants to spend all those money on...who knows what now? But not on public services, that's for sure.

But beside of all of this - I can only enjoy watching another victim of the "Assad must go" curse reaching his end lol.

On the question of 2/3 margin, Macron has the second highest margin of victory in any presidential election in the Fifth Republic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_presidential_elections_under_the_Fifth_Republic 1st place is held by Chirac in 2002.

There's two issues I want to address in your water supply example. First, I disagree that any natural resource is "owned" by the people of the nation that happens to reside there. The natural resource is merely there. It isn't owned by anyone, and any government that claims the right to seize that resource (whether it's water, oil, gas, minerals, or whatever) and then decide who gets to use it (whether a corporation or the government) is exceeding the authority any government may claim. Similarly, the people of that nation have no right to expect that the resource must be used for their benefit.

Don't misunderstand this point though - if the resource is being used by someone, then it is surely theirs. To take a classic example from India: there was a lake in India that the local villages had been using for centuries to water their crops. The government stepped in and seized the lake, then sold it to Nestle (which is a world leader in fresh water resource acquisition). The government claimed that the villages did not own the "public resource", and that the state had to right to seize it and distribute it to whomever would benefit the "public" the most. In this sort of example, the resource is most certainly owned - the local villages have what would be called in Britain a "common law" right to the resource. Their use of the resource coupled with no prior ownership claim constitutes a common law right to own that property. So the lake was illegitimately seized in the name of the public, in my view.

But there are cases that do not fit this example, because there is no prior owner. For instance, take the case of oil discoveries in Iraq. When Britain governed Iraq, vast oil fields were discovered that no one had previously discovered. The British government permitted British companies to enter Iraq and exploit these fields. Imagine for a moment that the British government was in Iraq legitimately (a separate issue that's beside the point at the moment). The resource was not owned, was not even known about. Someone discovered it and gave it to someone else, who could use it. The Iraqi people certainly did not "own" it - their mere presence in the region hardly constitutes a right. (You could make the same case with Israel: One might argue that Israelis have a right to their land because they've been there for X number of years. But is their presence there sufficient to constitute ownership? What if they arrived there illegitimately? What if they stole the land? In such cases, the Arabs would still have a right to the land. Mere presence is insufficient for ownership.)

Or take another example, an imaginary one. I travel to China, say, and start digging. I discover a vein of silver. I mine it, and take the silver home. As far as I'm concerned, that's my silver. I discovered it. I mined it. I transported it. It's mine. The Chinese "public" has no claim to it, and the government has no right to it.

How does this pan out in the Czech case? It was never the government's to sell to anyone, whether foreign or domestic. It was illegitimately nationalized in the first place.

This brings me to the second point. Having rejected your claim that the water - or any resource - is "public", it's pretty easy to see how a foreign company can come to own a domestic resource. They discover and exploit it, or they are sold it. In the case of the Czechs, it was privatized into foreign hands. Why wasn't it sold domestically? I don't know the details, but I'll tell you what I think ought to be done in cases of privatization. First, when a resource or service is to be privatized, I think that laws restricting the use of that resource or service need to be slashed. For instance, many think America has a free market in natural gas. That's false. The government merely divided it up and gave different corporations monopoly rights to different regions of America. The same is true with electric, and with internet, and so on. Such monopolies exist because the government didn't free up the laws for using, buying, and selling the product. So first, create a free market. Second, divide the resource up and try to find descendants of the last known legitimate owner. For instance, if that lake in India were to be privatized (again), it should revert back to the villages. Depending on how this goes, auction off what remains. If desired, limit the buyers to domestic companies. Then, per the first condition, the new owners can compete freely in a free market with their new property.

On the question of taking more from the public through higher taxes and privatization: I don't know what he wants to spend the money on. I know that, during the election, he promised all sorts of crap the French, and they lapped it up like the obedient socialists they are. Now they bitch about it. But that aside, France has a budget deficit, so they need to cut spending and increase taxes (or, drastically cut spending - my preferred option). He promised to cut the deficit too - so he's fulfilling another campaign promise. Really, all he's done since getting elected is fulfill campaign promises. It's not my fault that the French are a bunch of dumbasses who bitch when their elected officials do exactly what they said they'd do.

The French had their chance. They tossed it away. They can riot all they want, but they aren't an ally in the fight against globalism and global socialism.