The Glenn Beck/Goldline Scam (large graphic)

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

If people are stupid they, deserve to be took. Maybe they'll wish they stayed awake in school.

Bullpucky. The greater sin is not that someone was gullible, naive or too trusting - the greater sin is taking advantage of people, defrauding and misleading them. That kind of blame the victim attitude is one step away from saying "she was asking to be raped because she was dressed that way."

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Bullpucky. The greater sin is not that someone was gullible, naive or too trusting - the greater sin is taking advantage of people, defrauding and misleading them. That kind of blame the victim attitude is one step away from saying "she was asking to be raped because she was dressed that way."

That's a bit of a strecth, don't you think? People are often motivated to accept deals that are " too good to be true" because they are lazy, stupid, and blinded by greed. That's rather different than rape, which is completely involuntary. I hate fraud as much as you do, it's anathema to libertarians, but there's a difference between being defrauded and defrauding yourself, especially when the intent of the buyer is to defraud the seller. Watch an infomercial. Do you really believe that people who buy those products are motivated by anything other than an irrational belief that they are getting a "great deal" for only $19.99 against a product with a retail value of $99.99 or whatever number they stick up there? How can society ever be responsible for the actions of people who are just as selfish as the people who purportedly take advantage of them? Something doesn't add up there, and the missing element in the equation is self-interest. People are all too ready to blame the self-interest of others for their own misfortune, but when you flip the equation around and put the self-interest of the self-interested before the self-interest of the productive, you end up with a failed industrial or commercial sector. Even then, the self-interest doesn't stop. They demand that others make up for their shortfalls and pay their way, ridiculously, out of some other motivation than self-interest.

Even if the greater sin was to defraud or mislead people who are idiots, which itself makes a kind of social-Darwinist case, what case can you make for people with legislative power whose very existence depends upon defrauding and misleading people by virute of the system in which they are selected? You do realize that in attempting to prevent voluntary and often self-imposed fraud that you are promoting fraud of a greater and legalized nature, right?

If you'll allow me to be frank, I'll posit the idea that you have been mislead and defrauded by people who have a vested self-interest in making people believe that they have been mistreateed in the amazingly consistent goal of forcing others to give them money, through direct or indirect means.

[FIREWALL]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Bullpucky. The greater sin is not that someone was gullible, naive or too trusting - the greater sin is taking advantage of people, defrauding and misleading them. That kind of blame the victim attitude is one step away from saying "she was asking to be raped because she was dressed that way."

Give it a break.

And rape is a ignorant comparison. You dropped the ball on this one.

[mookiemookie]

Undersea-

Still workin on your economics dissertation.