Here in Indiana we still have some Sunday closing laws. Car dealers are closed by law on Sunday. There's no liquor or beer sold on Sunday here either.

The big chain stores wanted to get the Sunday liquor law changed. The mom and pop dealers fought tooth and nail against it. They liked being forced to take a day off of work every week. More to the point, they didn't want to be forced to work on Sunday because the people at WalMart don't give a fig what day it is. The car dealer Sunday closing law isn't changing any time soon, either.

I think blue laws are a good idea. I would like to see all advertising on radio and television forbidden on Sunday. Billboards must be covered on Sunday --- that'd fix 'em. Close everything on Sunday. Credit cards will not be processed on Sunday. Any contract signed on a Sunday is void. If somebody tries to sell you something on Sunday, you get to keep it without paying.

Not because of any religious reason, but because the business of buying and selling makes too much noise already, and a day off from having that constantly in your face would remind people of how intrusive and annoying it is when it comes back. Just shut down the damn economy one day out of seven, just to show that the government is in charge of it and not the other way around.

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laika   |2012-08-14 21:44:03 SteveGus wrote: Not because of any religious reason, but because the business of buying and selling makes too much noise already, and a day off from having that constantly in your face would remind people of how intrusive and annoying it is when it comes back. I sincerely wish that more people dared to take a day off from The Worship of Mammon, but hell, it's getting rare to see a business close its doors for a single day of the year. Seven day a week commerce is probably the sickest feature of our culture.

SteveGus   |2012-08-17 00:17:14 The original argument against Sunday laws was that they discriminated against faiths that observed a different day as the Sabbath day. After a brief rustle of Amens, most of the laws were repealed on this ground. The iron law of unintended consequences strikes. In the deregulated environment, economic pressure and a wholesome scarcity of jobs guarantees that nobody can count on getting a Sabbath day off, no matter when they observe it. Even if there's a law on the books that says you're entitled, you probably don't have the stones to insist. You can expect the paperwork that will get you fired on some unrelated but carefully documented reason will start getting typed up if you dare.

whitemice   |2012-08-29 22:54:11 Rights without power are just words on paper. Freedom requires both right and power Sadly with so much emphasis on "my rights" our culture has for a long time been blind to the growing divide in power; which renders much debate about rights quite pointless.

laika   |2012-12-03 20:00:51 SteveGus wrote: ...the people at WalMart don't give a fig what day it is. And now that we've seen them testing the waters with Thanksgiving Day openings, how long before Christmas Day more universally falls to commerce?

emperorbma  - It is for freedom that Christ has set us free   |2012-12-04 02:34:36 Warning: Long rant against corporate cronyism from a pro-free market perspective follows... you have been warned. laika wrote: And now that we've seen them testing the waters with Thanksgiving Day openings, how long before Christmas Day more universally falls to commerce? Indeed, the wickedness grows, but it grows in a way that most people do not understand today.  They blame the thing that can fix the problem and give control to the thing that causes the problem.  Death abuses the law to create sin. The Lord uses grace to bring life. The Law does not save, it shows us sin. Let me bring in a bit of history for the purpose of this discussion. Before the 20th Century, we know that workers were usually subjected to days longer than 10 hours with no weekends or vacation time and in abysmal conditions. Why is this not the case today? Did you answer "government" or "unions?" The reality of it is that Henry Ford introduced the concept. Ford realized that tired workers were not good workers and by giving people he increased his own company's profitability.  That's right: Limited work weeks and time off are the result of the free market, not government regulations or state-backed unions. Likewise, child labor and slavery were only abandoned when society reached a point that they were unnecessary. Ever wonder why the Northern States weren't slave states but the Southern States were? North: Economy was based on industry and factories. South: Economy was based on agriculture. Before there were tractors and cotton gins, slavery was more cost efficient. The North, however, had already industrialized due to the fishing industry and the lack of agriculture in the cold winters and it was easy enough to drop the demeaning practice in light of this fact. The cotton gin, unfortunately, was invented too late to make avoiding revolution possible. The thing is: any reasonable entreperneur realizes that absolute greed is destructive and not profitable.  Maximization of profit involves benefiting everyone who helps you to be profitable so that they can work at their peak efficiency as well.  We either forget this because someone subsidizes our laziness or we forget this because someone keeps us from realizing the better alternatives.  Contrary to popular belief, free time is not wasted time. Likewise, contrary to popular belief, a supervised police state is not conducive to good human behavior. Yet, we are heading towards this police state. Indeed, the police state can only serve to make everyone a criminal for the purpose of making us slaves of sins by binding us to them and giving us no freedom to escape them. Indeed, it will also take things which are not crimes and cause them to be treated as crimes for the sake of enslaving everyone who previously fell outside of its reach. Why do we, as a people, insist on using the Law lawlessly, against Paul's recommendations? The Law is good when used lawfully, but when it is used lawlesslly it conjures from the depths of Hell the sins that Christ freed us from and, furthermore, binds us to imaginary sins which Christ never considered sin. The problem is not that we need more nanny state regulations. These, in fact, tend to exacerbate the problem by protecting the real villains from scrutiny. Rather, companies must be weaned from their addiction to government-granted monopolies and control and be brought to realize that caring for people is where the true profit is to be made. Why would anyone have any incentive to pirate songs if the media charged reasonable prices and let people try the music to see what they liked? In fact, piracy is shown to increase sales since people will want to buy what they like. Yet, the media blames their potential customers for their own sins of greed. They gobble up all the record profits and force people to buy obsolete media for the sake of lining their own pockets. Then, they point to the poor artists and demand we give them more money so they can rip the artists off some more. And, if anyone doesn't play their game but goes independent, they will sue them because another one of the artists they control made a similar thing that copied the independent artist. To top this off, they have the gall to try to take control of the internet through government legislation and are on their way to inducing several ISPs to cooperate with them since the government effort was largely stymied by the peoples' protests. These statements are all matters of public record, by the way. The enemy is not the free market but the corporate cronies who have abused the government and its laws to defend their parasitic behaviors from scrutiny. The only reason that companies like Wal-Mart, which abuse workers, can exist is not because a free market makes it profitable to do so. On the contrary, it is because the government protects the company from *liability* under the delusion that a company is a legal person which is exempt from all liability for any crimes it commits. This is the epitome of crony capitalism and this is the antithesis of what a free market entails. The government creates false bubble markets which have a high barrier of entry and where any real opportunity for competition is squelched. If the flood gate of government regulation is removed, then it is obvious that competition takes the form of self-controlled progress. If someone outsteps their bounds, they are able to be reigned in by everyone else whose toes are being stepped on. The Law must be used lawfully, or it is of no profit. We are not justified by the Law but by grace. Do not rob your brother of liberty and he shall not rob you of your liberty. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Love one another as Christ loved us. It is nigh, approaching an icon of Christ that we should have the freedom to live godly and peaceable lives and, used properly government does this as it is in many ways a reflection of God's own Law. Yet, we continue to turn the government into a tool of invasion and control despite this being contrary to God's purpose. Therefore, by using the Law lawlessly, we have defiled the government with our sinful nature and made it an engine for the devil's attack. Therefore, if we fear the loss of our holidays, should we beg the government for it like slave dogs? By no means. Instead, I say we should we work together as a people to make clear that free time is profitable time for everyone.  The enemy of our freedom is not the free market.  Free exchange is precisely what we require to be freed from our present tyranny, being ever mindful not to use our freedom for evil but to glorify Christ. Neither is our enemy trade or commerce.  These are merely the outgrowth of God's command to share freely with others. A free market is a symptom of freedom not of slavery. Rather, it is our own faith in "controlling" and "regulating" the market which has been whole-heartedly embraced by those who want to control *us* through these means... It is not to slavery which Christ calls us, but to freedom through Him to do the good we are called to serve Him by. We are servants to God, called to serve our neighbor in His image. However, we are not slaves of the systems of control and oppression.  God Himself is the enemy of the oppressor, the violent and the evil. How much more so does God oppose those who take away our freedoms under the guise of security? Does He not oppose those who commit violence against the people to take their time, talents and treasures to serve the state instead of God? Likewise, will not God judge those who wickedly hoard their goods at the expense of their workers, such as the bankers who ride on golden parachutes or the media which spin lies into truths for the purpose of gaining more viewers?

laika  - re: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free   |2012-12-04 19:56:32 emperorbma wrote: Did you answer "government" or "unions?" Yes. Not being familiar with this alternate history to which you subscribe, I was left with answering "yes." Something has to counterbalance corporate greed, and that something historically has taken the form of government and unions. Take away the fine old notion of noblesse oblige, take away unions, and we're left with the robber barons and the sweat shops of today. emperorbma wrote: The reality of it is that Henry Ford introduced the concept. Ford realized that tired workers were not good workers and by giving people he increased his own company's profitability. And Ford also realized that paying his workers enough to be able to afford the products they manufactured was good for the economy, but he was the exception then and he would be the exception now. emperorbma wrote: The only reason that companies like Wal-Mart, which abuse workers, can exist is not because a free market makes it profitable to do so. On the contrary, it is because the government protects the company from *liability* under the delusion that a company is a legal person which is exempt from all liability for any crimes it commits. This is the epitome of crony capitalism and this is the antithesis of what a free market entails. And the government subsidizes Wal-Mart in other ways too: many Wal-Mart employees need and use government assistence because they're not being paid a living wage. But make no mistake that Wal-Mart wouldn't thrive in your free market. The 800 pound gorilla gets what it wants. Wal-Mart has enough clout to drive down wages globally when governments and unions step aside to let it have its way. What answer would your unfettered market have to the kind of power that Wal-Mart has? emperorbma wrote: However, we are not slaves of the systems of control and oppression. But we line up to do do business with those systems. We happily gulp the systemic Kool-Aid and parrot the system talking points. In the name of convenience and price matching we defy any attempt at making things more fair. emperorbma wrote: Likewise, will not God judge those who wickedly hoard their goods at the expense of their workers, such as the bankers who ride on golden parachutes or the media which spin lies into truths for the purpose of gaining more viewers? And will He not judge us for camping out on holidays and lining up on Sundays to participate in these oppressive sytems? I, being guilty to some degree, shudder at the thought.

emperorbma   |2012-12-05 09:38:41 laika wrote: Yes. Not being familiar with this alternate history to which you subscribe, I was left with answering "yes." I anticipated this response, really. The point was not to find out what you would answer but *why* you answered as you did. laika wrote: Something has to counterbalance corporate greed, and that something historically has taken the form of government and unions. Take away the fine old notion of noblesse oblige, take away unions, and we're left with the robber barons and the sweat shops of today. I think it is time to discuss what libertarians criticize and what they do not about states and unions. The libertarian is not criticizing the union on the grounds that a union is a response to abusive practices and, insofar as they are voluntary and non-coercive we would have no objection to them. Rather, the libertarian criticizes the unions on the grounds that they rely on strongarm tactics to get their way and they rely on government protections to enforce its will. The libertarian is not criticizing the state on the grounds that it does its job to punish wrongdoing.  The libertarian criticizes the state on the grounds that it does wrong to the people through overtaxation, overregulation, criminalization of non-violent behaviors and the protection of crony capitalists who abuse the market from the consequences of their actions. This leads me to thsee robber barons. It is enlightening when we read the truth about these "robber barons." The thing that most people do not realize is that there are two kinds of entreperneur. There is the market entreperneur which succeeds by doing his or her job better than others. There are also political entreperneurs who "succeed" by the abuse of contracts and force to take control away from other people. When a market entreperneur gains a monopoly, it is a good thing. This business succeeded by providing value, not by taking things it didn't earn fairly. The alternative monopoly relies heavily on things that states provide in abundance: litigation, subsidy and redistribution of property and wealth. Now, which of these kind of monopolies were you criticizing? The thing to realize is that the coercive political monopoly can only exist in a system where political coercion has an incentive. In a free market, there is no incentive to coercion. An entreperneur who gains control by force cannot succeed when *fairly* competing against someone who does the job well. The government's job is not to provide incentives. When a government provides incentives, it creates a market favorable to political mongers who who rely on coercion because this is what the government itself relies upon via taxation and armed forces. When a government limits itself only to restraining those who commit abuses, it removes any advantage that abuse of its services could have curried. Only a government which fosters a free market is able to prevent itself from being used as a bargaining chip by cronies. If the government becomes a source of free handouts, then the only market that thrives is that of political brokering and lobbyists: the parasites who only take but do nothing to give back. laika wrote: And Ford also realized that paying his workers enough to be able to afford the products they manufactured was good for the economy, but he was the exception then and he would be the exception now. Again, this is because our present system favors the crony, not the entreperneur. When a market is free, the entreperneur is incentivized to innovate. When a market is strictly controlled, cronies are encouraged to do as little as possible to innovate and to take as much as the government will give them from everyone else's pockets. Henry Ford innovated, not because the government forced him to, but because it was beneficial. Our current administration has taken away much of the incentive to buck the trend of more "push, push, push." Such an institution benefits no one except the weasels who can game the system. Who can we blame for a system where it is so profitable to litigate that people make it a career choice and run entire businesses dedicated to mass litigation? How can anyone imagine that such a system could arise out of a truly free market? Only government-granted monopolies can thrive in such a system as we have today. laika wrote: What answer would your unfettered market have to the kind of power that Wal-Mart has? How about by removing the unfair crutches that the government provides Wal-Mart? Preferential treatment for zoning? Protection from liability?  Government bids for putting down a Wal-Mart in their locality? On the one hand, Wal-Mart is effective at playing the market game, but on the other hand it is a ruthless abuser of the system. If you take away the things that it abuses, it will have no choice but to act like the market requires. In the market there is liability. In the market, there is competition.  In the market, the public watches and responds to what businesses do. In the market, coercion is frowned upon and punished. If we want people to receive a fair wage, we need to remove the disincentives for employers to give out a fair wage. Does raising taxes give an incentive to raise paychecks? Does paying more to Medicare help raise paychecks? Does the government giving money to failing businesses help to raise paychecks? Does the abuse of government provisions help to raise paychecks?

holmegm   |2012-12-06 11:56:09 Quote: Not because of any religious reason, but because the business of buying and selling makes too much noise already, and a day off from having that constantly in your face would remind people of how intrusive and annoying it is when it comes back. Just shut down the damn economy one day out of seven, just to show that the government is in charge of it and not the other way around. Wow ... so don't mandate one day off from seven for a (traditional) religious reason, but instead to show the power of government over and against the people (who, after all, are choosing to operate and patronize stores)? There's always a god at the top of the system ... the only question is which one. In this case, the god is government?

laika   |2012-12-23 17:25:21 holmegm wrote: Wow ... so don't mandate one day off from seven for a (traditional) religious reason, but instead to show the power of government over and against the people (who, after all, are choosing to operate and patronize stores)? But we (and the Founders) have arranged for ourselves a form of government that shies away from mandating things for traditional religious reasons. Can't speak for SG, of course, but maybe that's part of his point here? Government can't  get itself into the business of naming the day of week that will be the National Sabbath, but it could give us a break from our own destructive inclinations, maybe? holmegm wrote: There's always a god at the top of the system ... the only question is which one.In this case, the god is government? And would the fetish at the top of your system be choice - "the people (who, after all, are choosing to operate and patronize stores)?" Choice here for you seemes to obviously validate {the people choose, after all!) a behavior. Is choosing inviolate and never answerable to the government?

holmegm  - re:   |2012-12-27 14:58:47 laika wrote: But we (and the Founders) have arranged for ourselves a form of government that shies away from mandating things for traditional religious reasons. Since several of the original colonies had state churches, and blue laws were common, I'm not quite sure how to parse that. laika wrote: Can't speak for SG, of course, but maybe that's part of his point here? Government can't get itself into the business of naming the day of week that will be the National Sabbath, but it could give us a break from our own destructive inclinations, maybe? Well, I was responding to SteveGus. He's the one who says he wants blue laws not for religious reasons (which to me, would at least be arguable), but instead to show the power of government over the economy. That was SteveGus's stated position. laika wrote: And would the fetish at the top of your system be choice - "the people (who, after all, are choosing to operate and patronize stores)?" Choice here for you seemes to obviously validate {the people choose, after all!) a behavior. Is choosing inviolate and never answerable to the government? Again, I was responding to SteveGus, in his specific proposal. Yeah, if my only choices are 1. government and 2. the decentralized, non-violent choices of people together in an economy, I'll generally take #2 :) Clearly I don't agree with all their choices, but hey.

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