The liberty club

[the weight of echoes]

Why do I have to keep having to look at liberty club banners on this website? It's annoying enough having to look at their silly propaganda all over the place in town. I thought "liberals" believed in leaving people alone.

[The_Farwall]

Well if you feel like giving J^3MB some money then we could look at your banners instead. Until then you'll have to put up with what the paying advertisers put up, like the liberty club.

[hr][s]If all this wisdom is true,
then I doubt it could really have come from you[/s]

[TheGamesMaster]

So James how much does it cost to put a banner on the sinner and for how long?

[Buzzboy]

Don't you think it's a bit morally dubious for a website that claims it is a forum for debate and unbiased news to receive sponsorship from a political entity?

[James Baster]

Well, The Sinner has running costs. If an alternative source of funding is found, as little as £100 a year, it might be possible to have an advert free Sinner. And in fact this I would prefer. In the meantime tho, I need the cash, and the Liberty Club pays it. Its called a commercial buisness, which Technically, The Sinner is. Deal with it, or help me raise the cash some other way.

Also please notice the advert is clearly marked as being a commercial one. Any other ads that appear on the site will also be marked, there will be no danger of someone confusing a paid message with a students views.

Suggestions for alternative sources of cash are welcome by the way. Would people buy sinner clothes if there were some?

Oh, and as for advert costs, the time period is for the academic year. Discounts for affiliated societys and other nice people. Email for more details, including prices.

[hr][s]Its nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout 'Oh, random-flucuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!' or 'Aaargh, primitive-and-out-moded-concept on a crutch!' - Terry Pratchet, Men at arms[/s]

[James Baster]

Incidentilly, I have a idea for this which would also garuntee The Sinner's future. Will need lots of work. Watch this space.

[hr][s]Its nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout 'Oh, random-flucuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!' or 'Aaargh, primitive-and-out-moded-concept on a crutch!' - Terry Pratchet, Men at arms[/s]

[The_Farwall]

[s]Unregisted User Buzzboy wrote on 23:07, 5th Dec 2002:
Don't you think it's a bit morally dubious for a website that claims it is a forum for debate and unbiased news to receive sponsorship from a political entity?


Only if it is allowed to effect the views expressed on the site. And seeing as most of the views on the site are expressed by users, registered users being allowed to post without going through any editorial process, and considering that we have threads like this running, I fail to see anyway that the Liberty Club sponsorship has squewed the views on the Sinner.
And since when did the Sinner claim to be moral in anyway, that's entirely up to you and I, the users.

[hr]
[s]If all this wisdom is true,
then I doubt it could really have come from you[/s]

[Prophet Tenebrae]

Please weight of echoes, try thinking before you speak - the reason you're being "oppressed" by the liberty club banner is because nothing in life is free.

Maybe we're being "oppressed" by your whinging

[Oli]

So far I agree with all posts on this thread.

Except weight of echoes.

Sponsorship of the Sinner by the Liberty Club (or the Cellar, or Fyfeoffroad or KFB) doesn't affect any of the content of the message boards!

[the weight of echoes]

Sponsorship of the the message boards does affect their content. If the liberty club didn't exist, neither would this thread. I wasn't talking about commercial business, whatever that is. Don't be so mature. It's not really the libery club I object to, just the elimination of world poverty. What a ridiculous idea.

[the weight of echoes]

[s]the weight of echoes wrote on 11:39, 6th Dec 2002:
Sponsorship of the the message boards does affect their content. If the liberty club didn't exist, neither would this thread. I wasn't talking about commercial business, whatever that is. Don't be so mature. It's not really the liberty club I object to, just the elimination of world poverty. What a ridiculous idea.

[The_Farwall]

[s]the weight of echoes wrote on 11:39, 6th Dec 2002:
Sponsorship of the the message boards does affect their content. If the liberty club didn't exist, neither would this thread.

You're right of course, but I think you need to take your argument to it's true logical outcome. Without the Liberty club's sponsorship this thread wouldn't exist but by the same token neither would the entire message board, James not having enough money to cover running costs.

[Guest]

Do the adverts in the guardian affect the opinions of our great thinkers like Polly Toynbee?

[kensson]

James: I hope you're charging the Liberty Club far more than the going rate for their advert. I suppose we could get people to club together to have an advert saying we're working for the elimination of the Liberty Club... not that I'd condone such immaturity, of course, I find their banner quite amusing.

[Guest]

I am rather puzzled by the negative connotations of advertising. All that advertisements do is to proclaim a certain message, like "buy this product" or "join this group". But there is no enforcement mechanism. In that sense advertisements are totally harmless. It seems that the only people who have a problem with them are those who have a problem with the substance of the message. Thus, the original sender to this board clearly objected to what he thought was offensive - namely the ideas associated with the Liberty Club. A green objecting to the sight of a Shell Advert or an anti-smoker objecting to a Marlboro advert come to mind as similar moral parallels. They are all legitimate views as long as none has the power to act on their prejudices and ban this or that expression of belief. Ironically, that is exactly what the Liberty Club stands for.

[the weight of echoes]

Adverts are designed to harm people. First law of advertising: persuade people to buy what they don't need. First myth of capitalism: demand dictates supply, when in fact it's the other way round. If adverts didn't harm anyone in this way, no-one would advertise. They are their own enforcement mechanism. So it's actually self-contradictory for a society that supports not harming people to advertise themselves. Presumably the intended aim is to get people to join the club, and spread libertarianism, which the world doesn't need. Freedom has made us all lazy and fat.

What's wrong with a "green" objecting to shell signs or smoking? Why should people be free to advertise and promote things that harm people, such as libertarianism? Ideology is the moral and intellectual equivalent of tobacco: addictive and destructive.
Why does this website cost money anyway?

[puzzled]

[s]the weight of echoes wrote on 18:55, 6th Dec 2002:
Adverts are designed to harm people. First law of advertising: persuade people to buy what they don't need. First myth of capitalism: demand dictates supply, when in fact it's the other way round.

You really should be congratulated if you've managed to discern how the capatalist system really works (rather than repeat tired cliches) in a manner that everyone agrees on and the evidence supports - none have yet managed this feat.

[sceptic]

I will tackle the easy issue first. "Harm" and "benefit" are relative and subjective terms. Pornography, for instance, may be seen as harmful by God-fearing Christians, but beneficial to those who enjoy watching it. Some things - in other words - may be both harmful and beneficial (depends who is making the judgment). Should we ban something or encourage it? Who is right? And, how can we be sure that he is right and that we will not have to reverse his decision sometime in the future? In a non-libertarian society the only way for a man to triumph over another is through coercion.

Second issue concerns the condescending, arrogant, racist and chauvinistic view that some people know what is better for them than others. Thus the previous contributor implies that while other people will buy things they don't need, he himself is free from such folly. How arrogant to assume that one knows best not just his own wishes but also the wishes of others!

Lastly, there is the question of supply and demand. According to the previous contribution, the reality of capitalism is that supply determines demand. This argument was made by a prominent economist J. K. Galbraith in the 1970's with regard to US car-makers. Galbraith argued that US car manufacturers were so big and so wealthy that they could sell anything - no matter what quality and price. They would, to put it differently, advertise competition out of the market. Most people assumed that that was correct. Except, of course, for the Japanese, who flooded the US market with cheap and reliable cars in the early 1980's and bankrupted a good deal of the “indestructible” US car makers. So much for the power of advertisement and supply controlling demand.

[sceptic]

If you want to see the indestructible "power" of the US automakers, come and visit Detroit. This formerly rich city is now deserted. Most companies there collapsed in the 1980's - after the US consumers switched to autos from Japan.

[Al]

"Second issue concerns the condescending, arrogant, racist and chauvinistic view that some people know what is better for them than others."

This doesn't appear to make any sense. Perhaps you meant that it is people assuming they know what is better for another person than does the person concerned. Is this what you meant to say is "condescending, arrogant, racist and chauvinistic"?

[hr]"Life is a horizontal fall"