>> ^NetRunner:

Hitler isn't infamous because he built the Autobahn. Making an omelet generally doesn't involve crimes against humanity. Nor does building roads.

You're wrong. His omelet was the greater good of Germany. He broke a number of eggs that involved crimes against humanity, segregation and imperialism.

He was building the utopian society. Through force and coercion.

That aside, the civil rights act is poorly written and a huge encroachment on our rights. It stands in the way of equality because it tips the playing field unfairly and tries to legislate the hearts and minds of men and women. Terrible central planning morass.

The difference is that one has actual facts behind it....the other is just a loudmouthed child behind it.

Per this sift, my post was an opinion piece based on observation and what actually happened in the early 90s. Calling a socialist "Cankles" is far less obnoxious than the grandiose plans these utopian knuckleheads have for MY freedom.

One can be demonstrated, the other is just someone looking for attention.

Everyone that posts seeks some attention. Everyone that does anything in the public eye is seeking some kind of attention, positive or negative. I'm merely typing my mind and if you disagree with it, that's all right by me. If a liberal wants to prove something with facts and data, I'm all for it.

When we call someone racist, we're arguing that what the person is doing is wrong: judging people based on their race.

You mean like when the left prejudges all minorities as helpless victims who need special government help?

When you call someone a name, you're ignoring the actual issues at hand and just playing a child's game. the same ad homs you always do QM and you instantly lose any high ground you might have gained if you were actually debating instead of slinging mud. Sure, dems do it too, but again, using that as your excuse is what a child does.

I harbor no illusions about "changing" anyone's mind about anything. I doubt anyone logs on thinking, I hope someone challenges my belief system so I can see their side of things!

More peeps enjoy witty sarcasm than long-winded essays. I admit to not always being witty, but so what, I ain't gettin' paid, this is a labor of love and annoyance.

QM FTW.

GenjiKilpatrick:


I wonder why @<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/quantumushroom" title="member since June 22nd, 2006" class="profilelink">quantumushroom never feels the need to comment on videos like this


Explained above. I submitted this yesterday and it didn't come up as a dupe.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eternal fools like Crowley aren't yet fools in the traditional sense.

(1) A free people with their own capital (that which they're still allowed to keep) create wealth and jobs.

(2) Government creates nothing and can only take at gunpoint that which already belongs to one person or group to give to another.

We can argue how much is too much (or too little) for a government to redistribute, but (1) and (2) are true forever.

Rep. Crowley has to know (1) and (2) are true. In fact, all taxocrats at some level know this, but their audience is made up of people ignorant about economics or high on a utopian dream.

Jobs bill? His Earness has spent 1 trillion and not made a dent in unemployment.

We need a Government GTFO Of The Way Bill.

Why do markets allow people to suffer?

1. Better system than capitalism would be a balanced hybrid system of capitalism and socialism controlled by people in a true democracy - as opposed to the plutocratic charade we live under now. Think Finland, Switzerland, Nordic Slavic type social democracies. These systems are infinitely better than our capitalist nightmare by any metric.

2. All the think tanks that tell you what to think are funded by deep corporate pockets. Your guru milton Friedman was chummmy with all the neocons - Reagan, Rummy and some pretty nasty dictators. David Koch was even on the libertarian ticket. Open your eyes to reality, friend.

3. Feudalism is only freedom for the wealthy elite. You don't seem to understand that you have a very subjective and limited concept of 'liberty'.

7. Free market reforms are terrible to labor, as we are seeing right now, where libertarians are calling on American labor to 'get competitive' with Chinese slaves. No fucking thank you.

8. There's no shortage of excuses for your belief system, and never any empirical data. This is why I deride your political beliefs as religious beliefs.

9. It's nice that you used 'Corporatist America' as a way of refuting my contention that European social democracies are superior.

It's amazing to me that someone with such a tenuous grasp on reality could call anyone else ignorant. Time and time again your politics are debunked on this site, only for you to redouble your efforts. I hope one day you are able to overcome your indoctrination.


In reply to this comment by blankfist:
I'm an atheist. When I attribute things to God and say things like, "Why does God allow the his devout followers to suffer?" I don't mean, "Why does the ancient fictional religious construct that you based your life around allow his devout followers to suffer?" What I do mean is, "Why does your personal god that you believe in allow his devout followers to suffer?"

Most atheists, I think, tend to use God in this way, not because they believe in the existence of a personal god, but because it's the widely held understanding of God (if not the original definition). It's irrelevant to our conversation, so I'm not sure why you keep bringing it up. Your analogy is bad, IMO.

And you and I will continue to disagree what free markets are, and that's something I cannot change.

1. The claim was "[A free market] states that altruism and empathy are bad; greed and selfishness are good." That's what I was responding to. Still ridiculous. I've said constant that if you could find a better system than Capitalism, I'd be on board, but there IS NONE. All of this tap dancing around definitions is obfuscation.

2. Patently false. An absolutely disingenuous and false statement. What's pathetic about this comment is how you continue to twist this bastardized government legitimized entity back on free exchanges when we've covered this a billion times. Again, corporations are antithetical to free markets, because they enjoy a government created reduction of competition, government subsidies, corporate welfare, and so on. In short, they enjoy intervention in the marketplace, which is what YOU'RE touting, not me. So, it's YOUR concepts of government that have been and continues to be shaped by corporations?

3. I think people claim the free market is "self-correcting" more than "self-regulation", but that's a digression. But listen to what you wrote. "Claims of freedom, liberty" will spring forth in a free market? Yes. Yes very much. Why, you ask? One must only look to the definition of a free market: the voluntary exchange between people without coercion. That is liberty and freedom on its face. The opposite, your idea of regulated and interventionist markets, is coercive and authoritarian. The opposite of free.

5. Good for them.

7. What? No, I'm saying you're associating things like lowering taxes and "taking away power from labor" with free markets, which is ridiculous.

8. Failed states caused by the failure of statism (and the pilfering of government employed opportunists) is not the free market in action. Nice try.

9. Says you. California is a perfect example. It's struggling at the moment to pay for the huge number of government pensions for those unionized "heros" that retired at age 55 and get 90% of their income for the rest of their long lives. But then just recently the LA city council, a haven for modern liberalism and your capitalist/social-democratic utopia, cleared a 1.2 billion dollar construction project to build a fucking luxury hotel. According to this article, "overtime pay for the Los Angeles Fire Department soared 60 percent over the last decade", and "the department's top earner racked up a total of $570,276 in overtime in the last three years, including $206,685 in 2006." And that's just overtime. I could go on, but I've already been over this with NetRunner. Suffice it to say, this is your utopian hybrid in action, and it's a complete failure. And it's slowly going bankrupt. In fact, California has asked the Federal government repeatedly for a bailout.

Do go on, though. I like to watch you dig that grave a little deeper.

Ignorance is not a moral high ground.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
It's very common in arguments of religion for atheists to attribute things to "God". Why does God cause so much pain and suffering? Why doesn't God heal amputees?, etc. It rolls off the tongue a lot better than 'Why doesn't the ancient fictional religious construct that you based your life around heal amputees.?'

It's not the definition of 'free market' that I question, it's all the wide eyed, miracle elixer promises that are used to entice gullible followers. For instance, there is no evidence that free markets self-regulate. There is no evidence that living under unfettered markets would create a desirable political climate for anyone but the super rich. All that stuff about 'voting with your wallet' is naive.

Free Markets do not equal free people. This is the big lie that gives this ideology its (fake) moral center. Under a free market economy, there would be a huge power imbalance between business and labor, which is why corporations champion (if disengenuously in your eyes) the free market. Deregulation, privatization, gutting social welfare programs and other "Free Market" inspired austerity measures always result in low wages, unemployment, poverty and labor abuse. Free Dumb.

1. Friedman has praised greed. Rand has praised selfishness. You have complained about the dangers of government programs motivated by compassion. Do you dispute this?

2. My point is that corporations, regardless of how you feel about them, are the driving force behind American styled libertarianism. Doesn't it give you a moment of pause that your concept of liberty has been, and continues to be shaped by corporations?

3. Again, it's not the definition I object to, it's the wild ass claims of freedom, liberty, self-regulation and other doctrinal bullshit that is supposed to mysteriously spring forth somehow once a set of arbitrary conditions are met. When I talk about lack of evidence, I'm talking about these pie in the sky promises.

5. It is funny that liberalism and libertarianism have swapped meanings in this country. American libertarians are always so confused when Chomsky calls himself a libertarian.

7. So you are saying that deregulation, privatization and the cutting of social programs would not function as intended if they were implemented by force? Why is that? Can you understand my skepticism when individual elements of free marketism fail on their own, and then I'm told that we need even more elements of free marketism for everything to work correctly? It's like a homeopathic doctor saying "of course these homeopathic remedies are making your cancer worse, you forgot the ginseng. You can't cure cancer without ginseng, silly fool."

8. Failed states with no taxation or government should be free market wonderlands, no? It's a common swipe at free market partisans that never gets addressed. Care to give it a go?

9. The most successful states are currently capitalist/socialist hybrids. We trail behind other states (European states) with a more even balance of state and business. If I believed in utopia, I wouldn't be a liberal, because compassion and empathy would be unnecessary in a true utopia.

http://videosift.com/video/The-evolution-of-empathy

For a rugged individualist, you sure do love your little categories and boxes. Do you ever notice your need to be defined and to define others? I don't share your need for precise definition. I like to keep my options open.

"Ignorance is not a moral high ground." I like this quote, especially when you use it to defend an irrational belief system. I'm stealing this quote.

I'm an atheist. When I attribute things to God and say things like, "Why does God allow the his devout followers to suffer?" I don't mean, "Why does the ancient fictional religious construct that you based your life around allow his devout followers to suffer?" What I do mean is, "Why does your personal god that you believe in allow his devout followers to suffer?"

Most atheists, I think, tend to use God in this way, not because they believe in the existence of a personal god, but because it's the widely held understanding of God (if not the original definition). It's irrelevant to our conversation, so I'm not sure why you keep bringing it up. Your analogy is bad, IMO.

And you and I will continue to disagree what free markets are, and that's something I cannot change.

1. The claim was "[A free market] states that altruism and empathy are bad; greed and selfishness are good." That's what I was responding to. Still ridiculous. I've said constant that if you could find a better system than Capitalism, I'd be on board, but there IS NONE. All of this tap dancing around definitions is obfuscation.

2. Patently false. An absolutely disingenuous and false statement. What's pathetic about this comment is how you continue to twist this bastardized government legitimized entity back on free exchanges when we've covered this a billion times. Again, corporations are antithetical to free markets, because they enjoy a government created reduction of competition, government subsidies, corporate welfare, and so on. In short, they enjoy intervention in the marketplace, which is what YOU'RE touting, not me. So, it's YOUR concepts of government that have been and continues to be shaped by corporations?

3. I think people claim the free market is "self-correcting" more than "self-regulation", but that's a digression. But listen to what you wrote. "Claims of freedom, liberty" will spring forth in a free market? Yes. Yes very much. Why, you ask? One must only look to the definition of a free market: the voluntary exchange between people without coercion. That is liberty and freedom on its face. The opposite, your idea of regulated and interventionist markets, is coercive and authoritarian. The opposite of free.

5. Good for them.

7. What? No, I'm saying you're associating things like lowering taxes and "taking away power from labor" with free markets, which is ridiculous.

8. Failed states caused by the failure of statism (and the pilfering of government employed opportunists) is not the free market in action. Nice try.

9. Says you. California is a perfect example. It's struggling at the moment to pay for the huge number of government pensions for those unionized "heros" that retired at age 55 and get 90% of their income for the rest of their long lives. But then just recently the LA city council, a haven for modern liberalism and your capitalist/social-democratic utopia, cleared a 1.2 billion dollar construction project to build a fucking luxury hotel. According to this article, "overtime pay for the Los Angeles Fire Department soared 60 percent over the last decade", and "the department's top earner racked up a total of $570,276 in overtime in the last three years, including $206,685 in 2006." And that's just overtime. I could go on, but I've already been over this with NetRunner. Suffice it to say, this is your utopian hybrid in action, and it's a complete failure. And it's slowly going bankrupt. In fact, California has asked the Federal government repeatedly for a bailout.

Do go on, though. I like to watch you dig that grave a little deeper.

Ignorance is not a moral high ground.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
It's very common in arguments of religion for atheists to attribute things to "God". Why does God cause so much pain and suffering? Why doesn't God heal amputees?, etc. It rolls off the tongue a lot better than 'Why doesn't the ancient fictional religious construct that you based your life around heal amputees.?'

It's not the definition of 'free market' that I question, it's all the wide eyed, miracle elixer promises that are used to entice gullible followers. For instance, there is no evidence that free markets self-regulate. There is no evidence that living under unfettered markets would create a desirable political climate for anyone but the super rich. All that stuff about 'voting with your wallet' is naive.

Free Markets do not equal free people. This is the big lie that gives this ideology its (fake) moral center. Under a free market economy, there would be a huge power imbalance between business and labor, which is why corporations champion (if disengenuously in your eyes) the free market. Deregulation, privatization, gutting social welfare programs and other "Free Market" inspired austerity measures always result in low wages, unemployment, poverty and labor abuse. Free Dumb.

1. Friedman has praised greed. Rand has praised selfishness. You have complained about the dangers of government programs motivated by compassion. Do you dispute this?

2. My point is that corporations, regardless of how you feel about them, are the driving force behind American styled libertarianism. Doesn't it give you a moment of pause that your concept of liberty has been, and continues to be shaped by corporations?

3. Again, it's not the definition I object to, it's the wild ass claims of freedom, liberty, self-regulation and other doctrinal bullshit that is supposed to mysteriously spring forth somehow once a set of arbitrary conditions are met. When I talk about lack of evidence, I'm talking about these pie in the sky promises.

5. It is funny that liberalism and libertarianism have swapped meanings in this country. American libertarians are always so confused when Chomsky calls himself a libertarian.

7. So you are saying that deregulation, privatization and the cutting of social programs would not function as intended if they were implemented by force? Why is that? Can you understand my skepticism when individual elements of free marketism fail on their own, and then I'm told that we need even more elements of free marketism for everything to work correctly? It's like a homeopathic doctor saying "of course these homeopathic remedies are making your cancer worse, you forgot the ginseng. You can't cure cancer without ginseng, silly fool."

8. Failed states with no taxation or government should be free market wonderlands, no? It's a common swipe at free market partisans that never gets addressed. Care to give it a go?

9. The most successful states are currently capitalist/socialist hybrids. We trail behind other states (European states) with a more even balance of state and business. If I believed in utopia, I wouldn't be a liberal, because compassion and empathy would be unnecessary in a true utopia.

http://videosift.com/video/The-evolution-of-empathy

For a rugged individualist, you sure do love your little categories and boxes. Do you ever notice your need to be defined and to define others? I don't share your need for precise definition. I like to keep my options open.

"Ignorance is not a moral high ground." I like this quote, especially when you use it to defend an irrational belief system. I'm stealing this quote.

When I speak of "God" to Christians, I usually speak to them in terms of a colloquial personal god, and sometimes I use the Einsteinian meaning of creation or nature. I find it bizarre, and frankly a bit misleading, to use it to mean their fundamental teachings and their effects. That's very bizarre indeed.

Quick point of information: it's not volunteerist society; it's voluntaryist society. I don't want you thinking I'm talking about people volunteering out of the goodness of their hearts to run some form of public works projects.

Just like your bizarre and revisionist definition of God, you're also following a bad trend of modern society to change the definitions of free markets to suit a political end; in your case, conflating free markets with the negative impacts of corporatists. When I point out the differences, you loudly profess that you don't care if you're painting the two with the same broad brush. That's where ignorance begins, dft. And ignorance isn't a moral high ground.

Free markets are as idealistic and utopian as freedom itself. There's no more an invisible deity that guides free people to make free choices than there's an invisible hand guiding their free exchanges.

1. Wait, wait, wait. I never said selfishness was a virtue while empathy and compassion was evil. Please don't put words in my mouth. That said, what assertions in favor of free markets require evidence? That they've helped humanity? I think you mean capitalism. There are loads of examples, dft. The entire industrialized revolution which lifted poorer generations out of poverty is a good place to start. Today live longer, healthier lives which is the result of capitalism. Even Karl Marx understood the necessity of capitalism in the betterment of human lives and saw it as an evolution.

2. Corporations are fair-weather. They enjoy regulated markets as long as they're regulated in a way that benefits them. Corporations hate competition, which is the cornerstone of free markets. There's absolutely zero connection between corporations and free markets (i.e., the free and voluntary exchange of people without coercion).

3. My view isn't "utopic"; it's the real definition. You speak here again about capitalism, which is dangerous, I agree. Corporations collude with government to use unilateral aggression in areas of the world that have plentiful natural resources. It's robbery. It's greed. And it's horrendous. And I stand in open opposition to it. But to me this is ultimately the failing of government and the centralized bank system, but that's a whole other conversation.

4. Meh.

5. Doesn't matter. If we have to change the definition of free markets, then so be it. We had to change the definition of liberal from it's original meaning to now embody anti-liberals like yourself.

6. Surely. But go back and read what you initially wrote. Comes off as alarmist and paranoid.

7. No. This was about government "implementing" reforms as being part of the free market. You're changing the criteria now. I would NOT agree that "taking power away from labor" is a principle of the free markets. Remember, free markets are voluntary exchanges between people without coercion.

8. I have no idea what you're getting at. This started with a comment about chaos where there's no taxation. Still irrelevant.

9. Hahaha. Talk about utopian! That's what we have today.

Nah, you don't need to purchase the book for me. I can do that myself. And, to be honest, I don't want to give you a reading assignment, because I doubt that will benefit our differences in world beliefs.

And I know you're more of a Social Democrat than a Docialist. Funny thing, the social democrat is disliked by both the Libertarians and the Marxists equally. Marxists tend to think Social Democrats perverted the socialist movement. Marxists and Libertarians (don't think the party) have a lot in common in terms of how they view human interactions and the evolution of human society. Tangent.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
When I argue with Christians, I sometimes use the word God, which is occasionally confusing to them considering the fact that I don't believe in God. When I refer to God, I'm not really talking about God, but rather Biblical doctrine, it's real world effects and the words and attitudes of its adherents. Abstractly I don't object to an all knowing, all loving God that answers prayers and reunites you with your loved ones after death, but I do object to all the real world suffering and strife that seems to be done in the name of God. If you were to say, "it's not God's fault", you would be correct.

Similarly, when I speak of "free markets", I am not talking about your idealized utopic vision of a volunteerist sociecty, I am actually referring to market doctrine, it's real world effects and the words and attitudes of it's adherents. Abstractly I don't object to a volunteerist utopia. Abstractly I don't object to any utopia. The problem is that I don't believe in utopia - be it one with invisible hands or one with invisible deities. I do object to all the real world suffering and strife that seems to be done in the name of unfettered markets.

It's not the Free Market's fault.

1. Concepts do not have the capacity for thought or emotion, nor the ability to speak, so I agree with you that free markets do not state anything, however, it's adherents - Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand and yourself - in defense of free markets assert their affection for greed and selfishness, while cursing the evils of empathy, compassion and dogooderism. They never provide any evidence to support these assertions, and real world evidence seems to contradict these assertions.

2. I understand that corporatism has no place in your utopic vision of a free market, but that doesn't seem to stop corporations from bankrolling the free market movement. I'm not sure if corporations think they exist within the spirit of the free market or if they are just using the free market as a tool to manipulate people into supporting plutocracy. Either way, corporatism and the free market are in completely solidarity on subjects of taxes, deregulation, privatization and organized labor.

3. Again, I understand that violence and coercion have no place in your utopic vision, but in the real world, as illustrated in great detail in The Shock Doctrine, coercion and force seem to be the only reliable methods of forcing market principles of austerity on an unwilling public.

4. Again, I understand that concepts are not capable of promoting ideals, but adherents to free market ideology use anti-scientific arguments against climate change regulation. I would respect their arguments more if they were based on the principle that regulations should not be used, even in the face of environmental disaster. It wouldn't be a very persuasive argument, but at least it would have some integrity.

5. Write off corporatists and Republicans all you like, but they outnumber you by the billions. If you are all fighting for 'free markets', whose vision of the free market do you think will win the day? Probably not yours.

6. Keeping people from joining together is a time honored totalitarian tactic. I can cite you examples if you need them.

7. Would you agree that deregulation, privatization, taking power away from labor and lowering taxes are free market principals? Is there some reason why these principles should not function as you intend them to if they are implemented by force? Milton Friedman has lavished much praise on the free market reforms put in place by authoritarian regimes. Only one of you can be correct, and I'm siding with you on this one.

8. An unregulated market is an unregulated market is an unregulated market.

9. A better system: A balance of 'pro employee' socialism with 'pro employer' capitalism where free enterprise is allowed to thrive, but abuse of labor, the economy, the political system or the environment is not.

10. This is pretty much the same as 5, but I wanted to make it an even 10, so....

11. Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?


I know you said you didn't want to be spoonfed by a liberal, which I took to mean you don't want to read about "The Shock Doctrine" from the person who wrote "The Shock Doctrine". How's about a bargain, if you read the book, I'll promise to read something you care about of similar length. Freidman? Adam Smith? Selma Von Heyak? Whatever you want me to read, so long as it is a legit, important mainstream book. Also, I'd send you the book in the mail so you don't have to give your money to some pinko commie bitch, and I'll use my own cash to buy 'Road to Serfdom' or whatever it is you want me to read. It's only appropriate for the socialist* to give his book away, while purchasing the capitalist book.

Fair?

In all honesty, I think you'd get a lot out of the book. All of the dirty deeds are carried out by governments, corporations and Chicago based economists. None of it lives up to your ideal of a free market and all of it could be correctly defined as statism. It really makes sense of our foreign policy; which nations are chosen and why; why every president seems to have to have his own conflict... I'm officially anti-Libya now (I'm sure your happy to hear this) because the CIA is a recurring theme in all of these tales and they are usually the ones that teach strategic foreign allies how to torture, kill and disappear anyone who stands up to the despotic puppet of choice. The only negative you might get out of the book is seeing how closely Friedman works with the government, the right wing and despotic dictators. It's all cited and footnoted. If Chomsky were into some nasty shit, I wouldn't be happy about it, but I'd want to know.

Have a bitchen summer. - dft

*dft is not really a socialist. He wants a system that balances the rights of the worker with the rights of the boss.

Wake the fuck up my friend. I want to stage an intervention of one right here and now.

Let's take war, since we both agree.

How has the US conducted itself in it's corporate driven foreign policy over the last few decades? What is the pattern of our imperialism?

Step 1: Destabilize the economy, whether it be through violence, sanctions, puppet governments or all 3.

Step 2: We force these countries to privatize and to sell off their infrastructure to big business.

Step 3: Corporate profit.

Now take a look at our own nation. Do you see any similarities?

Our economy has already been destabilized by way of the deficit. Unfathomable amounts of money have gone towards war, corporate welfare and tax cuts for people who are making record profits, cleaning out our treasury and creating debt for many generations to come. We are now on to step two, which is to destroy and privatize the infrastructure. The same people that created this deficit are now saying that we can't afford education or social security, and you, Mr sanctimonious libertarian, in your eagerness to have anything at all to back up your shallow excuse for an ideology, latch on to this bullshit like a child hugging his teddy bear. When you say things like 'education is unsustainable' or other such provably false statements, you are a parrot of the right. If it pisses you off, then good, but don't be mad at me, talk to the guy in the mirror.

You aren't a rebel or a rugged individual. You are a pawn. Congrats for having liberal social views and supporting the ACLU, just like almost every other person on this site. I never know what response you are looking for when you trot out that unremarkable fact. Would you like a trophy? A handjob?

I don't care if you respond or not, because you are just going to trot out the same tired bullshit arguments that have already been thoroughly destroyed many times over on this site. You are being manipulated, your ego is being massaged, and Koch and Mellon Scaife are laughing all the way to the bank as they fill your head with utopian daydreams. Your own idol, Milton Friedman, supported death squads that killed tens of thousands in Chile. You've never responded to that fact, probably because you can't without having your worldview crash down on top of your head. Your economic belief system has nothing to do with liberty and everything to do with imperialism.

Everyone deserves liberty, not just rich people.

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Public eduction is perfectly sustainable. Take a look around the rest of the world. It's just not sustainable when you spend $1,154,031,244,020 on war in the middle east, give trillions away to corporations in the form of bailouts, subsidies and bailouts, and give tax cuts to the super wealthy. When did you become such an uncritical right wing parrot? >> ^blankfist:
Maybe the government shouldn't be in the business of education? Public schools will forever be "under funded" as long as it remains "free". Completely unsustainable system.


I was going to respond favorably to your comment, until I read your last sentence. Yeah, I'm so right wing with my ACLU card and all those right wing things I do in favor of people's equal rights and civil liberties. Your personal attacks diminish the effectiveness of your arguments. Try not doing that sometime and see how it works out for you.

@Psychologic, it's absurd because it's not a good comparison. If rent is too expensive, it requires a move to a new building. The person who owns the building doesn't lay some dominion over my person. If taxes are too expensive, it requires a change of citizenship. The people collecting taxes claim to have dominion over my person.

If you can't see why comparing those two is absurd, I simply don't know what we can accomplish.

I voluntarily signed a lease so that contract and the rules in which I chose to be bound is voluntary. I didn't sign a "social contract" so that contract is compulsory. We don't choose where we're born. We all have a mother country. You act as if it's as easy to change citizenship as it is to switch apartments. There's more to switching citizenship than just the cost of the move.

Furthermore what gives a group of people the right to lay dominion on another person without his or her consent regardless of geographical location? How is being born naturally bind any person to the arbitrary dictates of other people? This is the inherent problem I have with statism. I understand that we live in a world where government is common. We used to live in a world where slavery was common. To me it's about evolving to a voluntary society - a free society - where the need for government may be a thing of the past. Who knows? I'm sure the idea of a free society in the time of monarchs appeared utopian and farfetched.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Law, I like that Ron Paul is liberal on some social issues, but his economic views would only serve to hasten the power and influence of corporations in this country, thus negating everything else. All that utopian free market stuff sounds great in the abstract, but when you put it into practice (see Chile and Argentina and the US over the past 3 decades) it fails badly. I don't want change for the worse.


I agree, the free market does little policing. I don't think though that it would have mattered. Where it would have mattered--like Iraq and Gitmo--he could have ended those programs. The market, however, Congress would have blocked, and so you would have come out on top there too.

Law, I like that Ron Paul is liberal on some social issues, but his economic views would only serve to hasten the power and influence of corporations in this country, thus negating everything else. All that utopian free market stuff sounds great in the abstract, but when you put it into practice (see Chile and Argentina and the US over the past 3 decades) it fails badly. I don't want change for the worse.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Without regulation, what prevents one person from enslaving another? or robbing another? or killing another? or raping another? or molesting a child? or destroying the environment? or exploiting labor? He makes it clear that he does not like government, but he provides no evidence for his own utopian belief system, and belief without evidence is the definition of faith.


You want an answer. Okay. We have those things you listed now under your perfect big government system. Let's go through SOME of this list.

1. "Slavery". We have slavery or servitude thanks to compulsory taxation (aka theft), so I guess your system hasn't proved capable of stopping that.

2. "Robbing another". What does your system do to prevent robbery? Strict penalties if the assailant is caught is not preventative.

3. "Killing another". Same as robbery above. Your ideal system does nothing to prevent murder. Your ideal utopia would make killing easier as people are stripped of their rights to self defense (gun laws). They'd instead have to call 911 and hope the cops show before they were murdered.

4. "Rape" and "Child molestation". Again. Same as robbery. Your system is not preventative.

And so on. The point he's making, I think, is that we already experience all the evils of man right now in our current system, and it was powerless to prevent it, and what's worse it's created more tyranny than justice in the process. We still have servitude, robbery, rape, murder, etc. And on top of that we have less personal liberties and less avenues to protect ourselves.

By the statist calling our voluntaryist viewpoint religious you're using the same tired semantic argument theists use when calling atheism a religion.

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
I'm sure this chap means well, but this is not a lecture, it's a sermon.
Without regulation, what prevents one person from enslaving another? or robbing another? or killing another? or raping another? or molesting a child? or destroying the environment? or exploiting labor? He makes it clear that he does not like government, but he provides no evidence for his own utopian belief system, and belief without evidence is the definition of faith. I'll say it again....
Belief without evidence = Faith
On the other hand, we all have a good understanding of government; which types of governments work and which kinds of governments don't. We also have a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of these different types of civic structures. It's a known quantity, with thousands of years of evidence to draw from.
Unless this guy's pie in the sky resembles Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome, he is hopelessly naive.

"It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil." -- F.A. Hayek


Yeah, look at religion. Government, however, is a necessary evil, and would be less evil if it were less self-serving (I'm looking at all you stock-holding, lobby-swinging, corporate-pandering politicians) and more about the people's needs.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

I'm sure this chap means well, but this is not a lecture, it's a sermon.
Without regulation, what prevents one person from enslaving another? or robbing another? or killing another? or raping another? or molesting a child? or destroying the environment? or exploiting labor? He makes it clear that he does not like government, but he provides no evidence for his own utopian belief system, and belief without evidence is the definition of faith. I'll say it again....
Belief without evidence = Faith
On the other hand, we all have a good understanding of government; which types of governments work and which kinds of governments don't. We also have a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of these different types of civic structures. It's a known quantity, with thousands of years of evidence to draw from.
Unless this guy's pie in the sky resembles Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome, he is hopelessly naive.


"It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil." -- F.A. Hayek

I'm sure this chap means well, but this is not a lecture, it's a sermon.

Without regulation, what prevents one person from enslaving another? or robbing another? or killing another? or raping another? or molesting a child? or destroying the environment? or exploiting labor? He makes it clear that he does not like government, but he provides no evidence for his own utopian belief system, and belief without evidence is the definition of faith. I'll say it again....

Belief without evidence = Faith

On the other hand, we all have a good understanding of government; which types of governments work and which kinds of governments don't. We also have a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of these different types of civic structures. It's a known quantity, with thousands of years of evidence to draw from.

Unless this guy's pie in the sky resembles Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome, he is hopelessly naive.

So here's my take on this whole thing. Basically, Obama is being shortsighted.

During the primary in 2008, Democrats had a choice between a hard-nosed centrist who was an experienced inside the beltway deal maker, and a passionate, idealistic newcomer who had little patience for the kinds of backroom dealings that tend to dominate our political process.

It's true that in terms of specific platforms, Clinton and Obama were almost indistinguishable. The difference was that Clinton presented that moderate, centrist platform as though it was some utopian dream, whereas Obama presented it as just what was possible now, while painting a picture of what more could be possible if we could change the political landscape by electing such an inspiring visionary.

Long story short, that's what we did.

Thing is, that person who had become the inspiring leader of a renewed progressive movement disappeared November 5th, 2008.

After that day, what we got was a not very hard-nosed centrist who was hoping to quickly become an experienced inside the beltway deal maker. He stopped trying to present his inspiring progressive vision to the American people. Instead, he basically spent all his time saying to liberals "no no, conservatives have a valid point of view." Frankly, that's insane for anyone to think anymore, and completely wrong for the leader of the primary political opposition to conservatism to say out loud, much less say in front of cameras.

He has, ever since he was inaugurated, acted like he doesn't need to reach out to the American people at all. What started as a reasonable strategy of ignoring the uglier, crazier things said about him in the media quickly became a refusal to fight for any news cycle. It seemed he had this naive idea that if he ignored politics, and focused on the mundane aspects of governance, the politics would take care of itself.

The problem with that is that the way you acquire the power to govern is by playing and winning the political game. Winning a term of office isn't the end of your political campaign, it's just another chapter. That's doubly true if you're aiming to do big things. By focusing on the inside the beltway deal making, he's ignoring the bigger picture. If he spent more time trying to rally the public to his cause, and making sure the Democratic positions on issues were being clearly expressed to the public, he'd find that when it came time to negotiate legislation, he'd be starting from a much stronger position.

This tax cut thing seems to be the ultimate culmination of this trend. He's not said one damn thing about it for almost 2 years, until the Republicans made a stink about it in the run up to the election, and rather than reiterate his position from 2008, and make that the clear, unambiguous party line that he'd veto anything but his tax plan, he and the rest of the Democrats kinda just ran away from the issue and hid, and then finally said they'd "address" the issue in the lame duck session after the election.

Democrats have a strong position on this: they still have their large majorities in both chambers of Congress, the majority of the people say they prefer Obama's tax plan, and the best part is that if nothing passes, all the Bush tax cuts expire for everyone, so if the Republican block Obama's tax cut, they'll be doubly responsible for the tax increases. Plus, with all the deficit bullshit we've been hearing, it seems like it'd be worth reminding people that the tax cuts are responsible for most of our debt, and that the more we extend them, the worse the budget picture looks.

But instead of having the fight, Obama just goes ahead and says "I'll do anything to just make sure the taxes on the middle class don't go up, what do you want in exchange for a couple votes?" to the Republicans, and they amazingly extract a huge list of concessions from Obama.

Obama justifies this thusly:

I've said before that I felt that the middle class tax cuts were being held hostage to the high end tax cuts. I think it's tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers unless the hostage gets harmed. Then, people will question the wisdom of that strategy. In this case the hostage was the American people and I was not willing to see them get harmed.

Yeah, but you kinda fail to understand that there's a larger picture here. Because you've fucked up the politics of this, no one's going to remember that the Republicans took anyone hostage. Mostly they'll just remember that you said you're not going to renew the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and then did it anyways.

The Republicans will learn (as if they didn't know before), that they can always count on you to cave when hostages are taken.

You know the debt limit needs to be raised in March of 2011, right Obama? You know they're gonna hold that hostage, right? You know unemployment benefits? Those will be held hostage again too, and I guarantee we'll need them in a year. How about just budget resolutions? Remember the government shutdown in the 90's? They wanna do that again.

This is a fucking war. Compromise isn't something that happens at the beginning of these things, it's the cease fire agreement that comes after you've unleashed hell on them and tried to defeat them outright. They are out to destroy you, and the Democratic party at all costs. They don't give a fuck about what's good for the country, or anyone but their cadre of corporate interests. All they care about is getting and retaining power, so they can be rewarded by their masters.

You need to come to grips with that, and quickly, or we're all going to wind up paying for your naivete.