# 9/11, We will never forget... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 10, 2004, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-we-will-never-forget/263952 "2004-09-10T20:33:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-we-will-never-forget/263952/61 "2004-09-13T17:20:47Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Fundamentally, I don’t see how that wouldn’t count as selling one’s labor for profit, same as any other job. That is not the meaning of [profit](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=profit). Wages, in fact, are an expense to the employer and an asset to the employee. Profit is money that accrues to a single entity that has borne both the investment and the return. If you want to speak of profit in prison, then you would speak of the guy who has accumulated cigarettes in exchange for blow jobs or other favors. But inasmuch as that economy is even more restrictive than the larger economy that feeds it, it is so far removed from the notion of freedom as for that reference to be absurd. > [@](#): > > Or are you suggesting that the theoretical freedom to engage in economic transactions isn’t really meaningful unless the number of options and the financial rewards exceed a certain basic minimum? That is, people aren’t really free unless they’re earning a decent living? That’s the sort of argument we liberal living-wage advocates like to make, but I never thought I’d see Lib espousing it. People are not free unless they may peacefully and honestly pursue their own happiness in their own way. Freedom is the absence of coercion. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2004, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-we-will-never-forget/263952/62 "2004-09-14T08:28:40Z")
**Liberal:** \* Profit is money that accrues to a single entity that has borne both the investment and the return. […] People are not free unless they may peacefully and honestly pursue their own happiness in their own way. Freedom is the absence of coercion.\* I’ve got no problem with any of that (although of course you and I would disagree somewhat on what constitutes “coercion”, but that’s not important right now). But when I put it together with your comment from a few posts ago— _I’m saying that people are fine so long as they can make a profit. It means they’re free._ —what I think I come up with is that you’re saying that people who are earning wages instead of making profits are not free. In which case the vast majority of Americans, being wage-earners rather than business owners, are not in fact free people. In which case we’d be in worse shape even than the most fanatical extremist terrorists say we are. We’d be worse off in terms of genuine freedom even than India, the majority of whose population are still subsistence and small-cash-crop farmers (albeit very poor ones) rather than salary earners, which by this reasoning would make them more free than middle-class American mechanics and bank managers. This conclusion doesn’t make sense to me, so I think I must be misunderstanding you somewhere. _If you want to speak of profit in prison, then you would speak of the guy who has accumulated cigarettes in exchange for blow jobs or other favors. But inasmuch as that economy is even more restrictive than the larger economy that feeds it, it is so far removed from the notion of freedom as for that reference to be absurd._ Again, this is where I think **Aldebaran** has a point about the inadequacy of defining freedom in strictly economic terms. It ain’t chiefly the restrictiveness of the **economy** in prison that makes it seem so “unfree”; it’s the restrictiveness of even more basic aspects of prison life, like being locked in by armed guards, for example. I think that even if prisoners were making boatloads of profit by day-trading or running start-ups over the internet via XDSL connections from their high-security cells, it would be hard to consider them “free” in any really meaningful way. ---
**Author:** ![calm\_kiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2004, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-we-will-never-forget/263952/63 "2004-09-14T11:45:16Z")
Does money equal freedom? I would rather may more tax for greater social benefit. ---
**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2004, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-we-will-never-forget/263952/64 "2004-09-14T11:49:11Z")
Don’t forget to spare a thought for the 8 thousand or so innocents killed in Iraq since the Bush Administration invaded. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2004, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-we-will-never-forget/263952/65 "2004-09-14T21:26:44Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > **Lib:** _Profit and wage are not synonyms._ > > **MsRobyn:** _What profit would that be? The sub-minimum wage prisoners get for their work assignments, which is less than a dollar per hour in some states? Or income from book, TV, magazine, or film sales, which is confiscated in some states […] That ain’t profit, my friend._ > > Sorry for continuing the hijack, but I don’t understand these objections. In many cases, incarcerated prisoners have the option of voluntarily choosing to perform jobs for pay, either for the prison administration or for private contractors. They don’t get much pay as a rule, but they are choosing to work for the pay they’re offered and aren’t forced to do so. What I meant was there’s still an element of coercion, when the choices are to work for a miniscule wage or to do absolutely nothing. Work makes the time go faster; sitting in one’s cell makes it go slower. :shrug: Robin ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-we-will-never-forget/263952/66 "2004-09-15T03:28:31Z")
People, people, you’re forgetting the _most_ important reason why we should remember 9/11, [so we can profit from it.](http://www.hanford.gov/lessons/sitell/ll01/2001-36.htm) > [@](#): > > Today history is being made! For the first time ever, a legally authorized government issue silver dollar has been struck to commemorate the World Trade Center and the new Freedom Tower being erected in its place. It’s the U.S. territorial minting of the 2004 “Freedom Tower” Silver Dollar from CNMI. Most importantly, each coin has been created using .999 Pure Silver recovered from Ground Zero! :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![High\_Cheese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8797f3/32.png) [@High\_Cheese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/High_Cheese)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-we-will-never-forget/263952/67 "2004-09-15T03:39:36Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > People, people, you’re forgetting the _most_ important reason why we should remember 9/11, [so we can profit from it.](http://www.hanford.gov/lessons/sitell/ll01/2001-36.htm) :rolleyes: I really have nothing to add here, except that I think you mislinked. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-we-will-never-forget/263952/68 "2004-09-15T03:45:09Z")
> [@High Cheese](#): > > I really have nothing to add here, except that I think you mislinked. Damn it, I did. [Here’s the correct link.](http://www.nationalcollectorsmint.com/uploaded/CNMI_Freedom_Tower.htm) ---
**Author:** ![High\_Cheese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8797f3/32.png) [@High\_Cheese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/High_Cheese)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-we-will-never-forget/263952/69 "2004-09-15T03:49:47Z")
Ok, now I do have something to add. > [@](#): > > SILVER RECOVERED FROM > GROUND ZERO! Wow, and maybe…just maybe…it might contain some DNA from a loved one. Buy our coin! ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-we-will-never-forget/263952/70 "2004-09-15T13:38:20Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > each coin has been created using .999 Pure Silver recovered from Ground Zero! The Bank of Nova Scotia stored gold & silver in a basement vault at 4 World Trade Center. I’m guessing that this has nothing to do with those. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-we-will-never-forget/263952.md?page=3)