Colbert has illustrated this quite beautifully. Ron Paul's views on things are what most consider to be radical, but we will all look back on him because he is right. Its just to bad we will have to wait for people to realize that he is right.

Haha, brilliant. He really does get that point across rather clearly.

it's worth a rewind to see mccain having to resort to the drink. they all have such scared faces on, just like when he went on about the north american union...

I think only the die hard Bushies and neo-con republicans think Ron Paul's view on the Iraq war is radical. It's his other views many people take exception to and call radical.

Ron Paul's views would be great if we lived in a society where most everyone did the right thing and worked for the common good of society. I don't think we live in such a society. If the market were truly free as Ron Paul suggests it should be, it would be a race by the major corporations to see who could create the biggest monopoly. The argument is that competition will rise up, but it's pretty hard for competition to be created when some other company controls all the infrastructure. You think AT&T is going to let anyone else use it's phone lines? The only reason the are competing companies to AT&T right now is because they're forced to share their lines with other companies, by *gasp* the federal government.

The other part is civil rights, Ron Paul himself has said he doesn't think the courts should have had anything to do with the civil rights movement, instead suggesting the changes should have been made locally. Locally?! Locally they were busy beating the crap out of peaceful protesters, turning fire hoses and dogs on them for daring to say they deserved equal treatment. How long was that supposed to go on until something happened locally?

The federal government is there to step in when state and/or local systems of government fail to take action or can't in the interests of citizens well being. Just as the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the federal government act as a check and balance against each other, so do the state governments and the federal government act as a check and balance against each other. If you neuter the federal government as Ron Paul suggests you destroy the ability for the federal government to act as a check on the state governments.

I'm not suggesting our current system is perfect, but its far from completely defunct. From my stand point a few things have happened, one ideological view took control of the federal government. Things went to shit in a hand basket and now the country has collectively shifted it away from ideology. The executive branch was granted/took way too much power, I see this swinging back to a state of normalcy. Bush is already effectively a lame duck president, though he still wields his "executive privilege" like a shield. I think trying to fix what we have is a much more sensible solution than essentially scrapping everything.

I agree with Ron Paul on Iraq and I think history does indeed show that he was and is right about it. Not just with the outcome of Iraq, but the outcome of similar wars and the history of the region. I don't agree with him on other issues, I feel history has proven him wrong in that it has taken a strong federal government to push us past important mile stones as a nation.

How many delegates has Ron Paul got yet?

>> ^dw1117:
How many delegates has Ron Paul got yet?


16 I think. Supposedly he'll get some more from Louisiana, though I've heard rumblings of shenanigans aimed at the Republican party, but I'm not exactly sure what going on there.

Crosswords, I heard Romney just dropped out of the race. How do you think this will change Ron Paul's chances?

What a nut.

^
dw1117

Not at all. I could be wrong but I don't see Romney supporters going for Ron Paul. Romney's platform was strongly pro-war on terror, I think his supporters will be more likely to rally around McCain or Huckabee.

Id vote for Ron Paul.

Ron Paul basically wants the US government to stop what it is doing across the board. The sad part is that the US government is in such a quagmire of poor decisions and corporate pandering that this would be really good for the country. However if Ron Paul was elected which obviously will not happen he should only be in office for one term and then out the door for someone who is willing to spend to rebuild.

"the earth goes around the sun" perfect.

Heres what truly baffles me. Look at the amount of money Ron Paul has raised. None of this came from large businesses or cooperations. Most of his donations came from the people, and at less then $1000 US per donation. Now that means hes got A LOT of supporters. So how the hell is he doing SO bad in the polls?

we export violence to Iraq to help prop up the dollar. Forcing other countries to accept the Dollar for their oil is the best way to keep the dollar from adjusting to our trade deficit. Uh, i didn't mean to say "best way"

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the fact that Ron Paul is the only candidate that talks any kind of sense and yet is considered a whack-job by the mainstream media. I'm not saying I agree with everything he says but he is the only candidate that takes a logical approach to policy rather than an overtly political approach. As an outsider it seems that the opposition to him is more an entrenched hatred of the ideals of 'libertarianism' rather than a true opposition to his policy.

A perfect example is from one of last years debates. Specifically Giuliani's reply to Ron Paul's statement that Al Qaeda attacked America because America has occupied regions in the Middle East for decades. Giuliani immediately played the situation as if Ron Paul is an utter nutter. He claimed to never have even heard of such an idea and then proceed to dismiss it as a conspiracy theory!

arsenault:
maybe because all i ever hear anyone say is "if ron paul stood a chance, i'd vote for him"

"I'm not saying I agree with everything he says but he is the only candidate that takes a logical approach to policy rather than an overtly political approach."

What? Ron Paul is the most ideological of all the candidates. It's not "logical" to want to entirely defund Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, despite their widespread popularity. In other words, he's running on a promise to do these things--and many more which are just as silly and destructive--in spite of the "true opposition to his policy."

So, explain to me how it is that everyone else just has their political blinders on, but RP is really the only "logical" one. Because, frankly, you seem to have it exactly backwards. I mean, even the Republicans, with their dastardly foreign policy and love of corporate welfare wouldn't think of proposing the elimination of Social Security. Do you know why? Because it's a good program with good effects that is very popular across ideological lines.

>> ^arsenault185:
Colbert has illustrated this quite beautifully. Ron Paul's views on things are what most consider to be radical, but we will all look back on him because he is right. Its just to bad we will have to wait for people to realize that he is right.

I have the feeling it'll be awhile before people realize that he is right

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Ron Paul election08 colbert' to 'Ron Paul, election08, colbert' - edited by jwray

Ron Paul == Diogenes
Don't worry, the mass self-delusion is safe, Johnny or Hilary will win and perpetuate the generational fraud for another 4-8 years.

>> ^Tofumar:
"I mean, even the Republicans, with their dastardly foreign policy and love of corporate welfare wouldn't think of proposing the elimination of Social Security. Do you know why? Because it's a good program with good effects that is very popular across ideological lines.


ZOMG.

Tofumar, welcome to the internet. In this crazy place it's actually possible to look up interesting facts like this one:

Ron Paul doesn't want to straight-up abolish Social security. He wants to ween the nation off of it. Keep the people on it that are on it now, but don't make any new workers pay into it. It's a failing system with a shrinking treasury, and the people that pay into it now won't see that money in the future.

Ron Paul is an idealist, and idealists appeal to rational people with good hearts. That, no doubt, is much of his appeal to many at this web-site. Unfortunately, politicians have to be about 1/3rd idealist, 1/3rd realist, and 1/3rd back door negotiator to be effective in office.

His view on dismantling MediCare and Medicaid is logical in my opinion and that of Milton Friedman.

From Friedman's essay entitled "How to Cure Health Care."
"The high cost and inequitable character of our medical care system are the direct result of our steady movement toward reliance on third-party payment. A cure requires reversing course, reprivatizing medical care by eliminating most third-party payment, and restoring the role of insurance to providing protection against major medical catastrophes.

The ideal way to do that would be to reverse past actions: repeal the tax exemption of employer-provided medical care; terminate Medicare and Medicaid; deregulate most insurance; and restrict the role of the government, preferably state and local rather than federal, to financing care for the hard cases. However, the vested interests that have grown up around the existing system, and the tyranny of the status quo, clearly make that solution not feasible politically. Yet it is worth stating the ideal as a guide to judging whether proposed incremental changes are in the right direction."

Friedman's last two sentences temper his idealism with pragmatism, something every effective politician must do.

>> ^Tofumar:
What? Ron Paul is the most ideological of all the candidates. It's not "logical" to want to entirely defund Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, despite their widespread popularity. In other words, he's running on a promise to do these things--and many more which are just as silly and destructive--in spite of the "true opposition to his policy."
So, explain to me how it is that everyone else just has their political blinders on, but RP is really the only "logical" one. Because, frankly, you seem to have it exactly backwards. I mean, even the Republicans, with their dastardly foreign policy and love of corporate welfare wouldn't think of proposing the elimination of Social Security. Do you know why? Because it's a good program with good effects that is very popular across ideological lines.


First of all, I can't believe someone just defended welfare and Social Security. Like, seriously, can't believe it. I just vomited in my own freaking lap.

Here we have a system of retirement whereby money is forcibly being taken out of your paycheck and promised to be given back to you in regular installments after you retire. The problems are numerous. In the event of a generational population bubble, the system will have to pay out more than it’s taking in, resulting in all-out collapse or all-out inflation. Most people paying into the system today will not receive their promised money when it is time to retire. It has zero potential for investment growth, and due to inflation, the money you get later has considerably less puchasing power than it did when it was appropriated from you. The congress can and does raid the fund to pay for other things. It also feels like a tax if you’re poor and would rather spend the money on a better life. And last of all, if you die before retirement, the money can be transferred only to your spouse and no further. It is truly an illogical system and one that is difficult to abolish because of the massive dependencies it creates. So what is the alternative? What is it that Ron Paul advocates? It’s simple: people keep the fruits of their own labor and take responsibility to invest or do with their compensation of labor as they see fit. Of course, the liberals then come out with "but what about all the poor?" not realizing that it is inflationary Keynsian fiat economics, overregulation of the free market, socialist welfare programs, and high taxes to fund wasteful government that work in tandum to create the problem of poverty in the first place.

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0501a.asp

Historical context of Social Security: passed in FDR's socialist New Deal programs. FDR and Hoover, of course, are widely criticized for turning what should have only been a recession into a depression. FDR also used an executive order to make ownership of gold illegal, a psychotic tyrannical order that was unconstitutional on two counts. The government was embarrassed and instead of blaming itself, blamed American citizens for "hoarding" and trying to protect their wealth with a non-inflationary asset. FDR is also the guy who refused to warn ships in Pearl Harbor of an impending Japanese attack so that he could use their deaths as a political device to rally Americans to go to war.

BansheeX - so what you're saying is that you're against social security largely because it is being mis-used and is horrifically broken? The fact that congress "can and does raid it" goes against the best interests of the social security system - if the money was kept in it and it was invested intelligently, it should at *least* keep pace with inflation. I honestly don't know if the rules allow for the SSA to invest any portion of the held funds, but if not I would think a small modification to the rules to allow for a partial diversification of funds would be beneficial.

The argument that a sudden population increase will bankrupt the system is ridiculous, as the rate of funding the program could be adjusted *well* in advance of the bubble actually hitting retirement age. You'll primarily be punishing the people within the generation having all those bubble-causing kids, and that seems fair to me. Additionally, population growth of that type is typically the product of a secure and prospering economy / populace, so they should be able to afford to put some extra funding into the program.

I agree with you that poor people are more heavily impacted by this tax than others, which is why it is generally considered a regressive tax. Personally I'd love to see it made more progressive, so that more of the funding is provided by income earned over the current $90-something thousand limit. Millionaires benefit more than any of us mere plebes from the strength of this society, so they should be equally obligated to contribute to it's members well-being.

That's really the whole point of social security - it isn't to benefit the lazy and the worthless that are such a plague upon us upstanding citizens, but to preserve some degree of dignity and humanity amongst our fellow countrymen who have, totally or at least largely through no fault of their own (none of us are perfect), become unable to adequately maintain themselves.

You might not like having some portion of your hard-earned income diverted to people who haven't earned it (which is, admittedly, nearly impossible to avoid), but the portion that goes to those who really need it, and who did nothing wrong to deserve misery, really is money well spent. Don't assume you'll never need it, because no matter how careful you may have been in life to assure your future well-being it is *not* guaranteed. Shit, as they say, happens.

In terms of your suggested alternative to the social security system: I'd love to see that be practicable. Unfortunately it is almost certainly too utopian to have a real chance. Until all corruption, greed, and prejudice is eliminated from our society there will *always* be people who are unfairly screwed over in life. There just will be. If you're honestly arguing that anyone who couldn't, for whatever reason, manage to be successful in life should just suck it up and accept their fate then I commend you on your victory in completely eliminating any semblance of a moral code from your personality. Kudos!

If anyone can point me to a source where Ron Paul espouses beliefs on the social welfare system comparable to BansheeX's, I'd love to see it. I like the man and would not have any problem with him as president, but I don't really think he's as Objectivist as Banshee was implying. I assume he would want any program like Social Security managed at a state-run level if the state chooses to have one, but does he really advocate the elimination of any such program?

So many words used above describing scenarios by which saving a dead squirrel in a happy box is more beneficial than using it for fertilizer.

Pauls of the machine are used as diversion-
It is the work that has to be appreciated-the work that it takes to keep up the grand ruse-more power to them, we are just as stupid as they think we are......

@moonsammy:
Ron Paul has said he is not going to just abolish it, you can't do that because of those who are currently dependent on it. But he does want to phase it out. There is a lot of misunderstanding about Social Security. A lot is from an ignorant optimism in our current economic situation, and also from the well-intentioned but flawed socialist ideologies you espouse. Right away, I can see you failed to catch the point about what causes mass poverty in the first place. Your concern is wholly placed in addressing the problem, assuming, erroneously, that poverty is the product of greedy rich people who will stop at nothing to collude and hoard all the wealth in the world, and not the result of government intervention in the free market through the federal reserve's inflationary control over the money supply, high taxes to fund do-good big government agencies and programs like SS, and government intervention via managed trade agreements and acts like Sarbanes Oxley.

Most wealthy people spend or invest their money, either through employing people, philanthropy, or consumption. A yacht or a car are both products produced by workers either in this country or another. It is more likely to be from this country if inflation, taxes, and government regulations are low, because then there will be no incentive for the producer or consumer to go overseas. Much of the time rich people spend their wealth on employing people for their business, buying products themselves, and it generally fuels the production means of the consumption ends. So in the free market system, the money is transferred naturally through production and consumption, which is good for everybody. In the socialist system, someone who has worked hard to earn wealth is getting their wealth stolen from them by the federal government to be redistributed to someone poorer which you claim is more fair. Money that would have ultimately gone towards someone else's income/productive effort is simply taken and transferred. On the most extreme hypothetical scale, everyone's wealth is redistributed to equality, removing most incentive to work harder and get more than the person next to you. So greed and wanting more fuels production and consumption, which inadvertently has the effect of helping everyone far more than stealing and redistributing would have. Social security and the income tax are both in the same destructive boat, because they are taxes on production, not on consumption. That isn't to say the free market is capable of eliminating poverty completely, or addressing the needs of a small percentage which is incapable of working. But in that scenario, you have voluntary stuff easily footing the bill through local churches and non-profit organizations.

That's really the whole point of social security - it isn't to benefit the lazy and the worthless that are such a plague upon us upstanding citizens, but to preserve some degree of dignity and humanity amongst our fellow countrymen who have, totally or at least largely through no fault of their own (none of us are perfect), become unable to adequately maintain themselves.

This shows me how little you actually researched before responding. Social Security is payed and received by everyone. It's a "retirement" program. Even Donald Trump can get an SS check when he retires. Don't pass this guilt trip garbage on people, this is what gets them trusting in the government in the first place.

In terms of your suggested alternative to the social security system: I'd love to see that be practicable. Unfortunately it is almost certainly too utopian to have a real chance.

Oh, you mean like all those years before it was implemented?

Until all corruption, greed, and prejudice is eliminated from our society there will *always* be people who are unfairly screwed over in life.

And politicians are incapable of these things, so we should entrust them to legislate the market in our best interest? We should trust them to spend money more wisely than the people who worked for it? That's stupid, that's exactly how we got in this position. Big business in bed with big government, legislating under the do-good pretense of taking care of people. Of course there are always going to be people getting screwed. But far more people get screwed with your system, making free market capitalism the better tradeoff. It's the same short-sighted argument from gun control advocates. Since gun violence exists, we should work to ban guns. Yet when these bans are implemented gun violence actually increases. The criminals get them on the black market and don't think twice against citizens they know are defenseless. Meanwhile, the gun-law advocates finally figure it out: guns actually prevented far more crime than they caused through coercion, and that didn't show up in the statistics. They took a knee-jerk reaction to media stories covering gun crimes in schools, and the immediate emotional outcry overpowered actual reason.

Here, you claim that SS isn't in trouble financially or a tax burden on the economy. Just do some research:

http://www.socialsecurity.org/quickfacts/

http://www.socialsecurity.org/reformandyou/faqs.html

@BansheeX: "in the free market system, the money is transferred naturally through production and consumption, which is good for everybody"

Everybody? Really? Is it safe to assume you're talking about a scenario in which all countries have perfectly managed democratic / capitalist governments and economic systems set up? Because if any country in the world is run by a corrupt government then the free market will inevitably lead to exploitation *somewhere*. I actually agree with you that in a perfect world the free market economy would be the ideal choice, but we're presently too far from that world to effectively implement such a plan. Unless or until we can cause companies within this country to behave as good corporate citizens there's going to be inequity somewhere in the world caused by the US.

Where are the incentives in an unregulated free market for companies to not pollute other countries or cause long-term damage for short-term profit? *Some* regulation is a good thing, and in many ways necessary (there's only so much broadcast spectrum, so someone needs to regulate it's use; non-renewable resources are sometimes in international / non-owned locations; many other examples), even in a perfect world.

I also do understand that social security goes to everyone - I don't necessarily agree that it should. The program is not perfect at present, but eliminating it wholesale seems a less advisable approach than reforming it to maintain solvency, lessen its aggregate tax burden, and be hardened to abuse or use by those who haven't earned it.

You stated "Don't pass this guilt trip garbage on people, this is what gets them trusting in the government in the first place" - I wasn't trying to 'guilt trip' people, I was making an argument regarding the societal benefits of this particular program. I think blindly trusting the government is a terrible idea, and many federal programs *should* go away. Like I said: I like Ron Paul. I want to see the military reduced (though not eliminated, as that would be insane), I want to see the income tax abolished (though not, obviously, the ssa tax), I want to see the drug war eliminated at a federal level, I don't believe in government legislation of morality, etc etc. SS is a safety net / insurance program / 'retirement program' (if you insist) that tangibly benefits a large number of deserving individuals.

As to all those years before social security's advent in this country somehow being preferable? Hardly. This and the other horrible social programs of the era are largely credited with allowing for the rise of a viable middle class in the US, and the arguments I've seen have been pretty convincing. I'll admit to not being a professional economic or historic analyst, but I'm pretty sure that being poor during the depression sucked massively, and that a social safety net would have been *really* useful back then. Wouldn't have been a panacea of course, but it would have helped.

Regarding your links: wow, you're surprised I didn't read a libertarian think tank's website about the current plight of a social programs? I try to get my information from non-partisan sources. The social security program *may* have to start dipping into the *interest* earned within the trust account starting in 2018. It won't be actually bankrupt until 2052 even if no modifications are made. If the cap is raised or eliminated it will be solvent essentially indefinitely. I'm using the Congressional Business Office's analysis from around the same time as the Cato institute item you linked.

You misrepresented what I said several times - please stop doing that. At no point did I say that "SS isn't in trouble financially or a tax burden on the economy" - quote where I said anything like either of those assertions. You can't. On the contrary, I opened my comment with "so what you're saying is that you're against social security largely because it is being mis-used and is horrifically broken" - this is a direct recognition of the fact that the program does have faults. I'm just surprised that you think the way to fix it is to eliminate it.

Social Security *is* mis-used and it *is* horrifically broken. It isn't, however, an unnecessary burden to this country - it does a lot of good and has allowed several people that I know personally to subsist without reverting to begging their community or family for money. Perhaps this makes me biased, but I don't care - I see a benefit to the social security program in this country, warts and all.

Wart removal would be appreciated by me though. A good first step would be removing the corrupting influence of business within government - if it would be possible to make our representatives in charge of the country completely subservient to the will of and collective good of the citizens of the country we'd be in much better shape, unfortunately I don't see that happening soon. The business / government mix you dislike (facism, by definition) is a terrible thing.

Oh, and on the issue of gun control? I like how Israel and Norway (? might be a different northern European country, I'm working off memory) do it - everyone owns and is trained in the proper use of a gun. Completely levels the playing field, which I assume really does do an excellent job of reducing violent crime.

This post has gone way beyond too long. I apologize to everyone for my rantiness. If the VS community would prefer that BansheeX and myself (or just myself, perhaps) shut the hell up about all this I'll gladly do so - I'm open to complaints

@moonsammy

Social Security *is* mis-used and it *is* horrifically broken. It isn't, however, an unnecessary burden to this country - it does a lot of good and has allowed several people that I know personally to subsist without reverting to begging their community or family for money. Perhaps this makes me biased, but I don't care - I see a benefit to the social security program in this country, warts and all.

You're seeing someone in need of money to sustain themselves, but you're not questioning the government's role in how they became that way, which is key to understanding this issue. If these people you know personally to have benefited from SS were to have retained that income throughout their life instead of having it taxed away from them, they likely would have been far better off financially and not in the situation you now use to justify Social Security in the first place. With a little self-responsibility, they could have invested that money in a personal 401k and benefited the economy and themselves far greater than if it had been taxed away from them. The minute you begin to use the argument that some people are not responsible enough to do this for themselves and need the government to step in and force all of us to do something for the "greater good," that's the moment you've forsaken liberty and entrusted a greaseball politician with your future and your children's futures. I don't trust someone else with my money to keep their promises. I don't make much money and would love to opt out of social security and take charge of my own money and retirement. But you know what, moonsammy, the government won't let me. It assumes that we are all children in need of taken care of from cradle to grave, and that we cannot spend our own money as well as they can, that we cannot choose teachers for our children as wisely as they can, that we cannot protect our property as well as they can, and they're wrong. It's an appealing concept to people, to go through life with a guardian angel called the government, but our forefathers distrusted men and government immensely because of the tyranny they had just defeated. The constitution limits the power of government explicitly. Come election season, the false promise works to greater effect than the truth. Obama will be elected, but it won't stop the greater depression of 2010 and China's subsequent rise to superpower status. Start buying your gold.

Regarding your links: wow, you're surprised I didn't read a libertarian think tank's website about the current plight of a social programs? I try to get my information from non-partisan sources.

They do cite sources underneath, you know.

I'll admit to not being a professional economic or historic analyst, but I'm pretty sure that being poor during the depression sucked massively, and that a social safety net would have been *really* useful back then.

Except you don't realize what caused the depression. It was the same government interference you trust to solve the problem. I'll also say that no it wouldn't have helped. SS would have collapsed. It would have been an incredible tax burden to those who managed to retain work. And the 25% who had no work had no income from which pay the SS tax. So many retired people wouldn't have gotten their checks, and the government would have had to borrow or inflate the money supply, debasing the purchasing power of the dollar. And remember as well that SS is a forced dependency, so no one would have had the savings that they had actually accrued in absence of SS after the depression hit. It would have decimated everyone.

I guess the thing that bothers me the most when people go around posting things about Ron Paul being idealistic, as though trusting a bunch of corporate-bought slickos to follow their own rules or genuinely care as much about you and your family as you do to be any less idealistic. Government is a necessary evil to protect people's rights, but it has no business in many of the affairs it is assuming today. The constitution held up fairly well, but time and human stupidity just proved too much. When we went from "only Gold and Silver" to central bank IOUs with nary an uprising, that was the end. The USA was the last stand on Earth. God help us all.

MGR,

You said: "Ron Paul doesn't want to straight-up abolish Social security. He wants to ween the nation off of it. Keep the people on it that are on it now, but don't make any new workers pay into it...."

To "ween us off" of social security is--as you say in your post--to slowly abolish it by not having new workers pay into the system. This removes both the source of future benefits and those workers' eligibility to receive them. Now, last time I checked, if you intend to slowly eliminate something, then you intend to eliminate it. Wacky logic there, no? Moreover, if you reread my post, you'll note that I made no claims at all about timeframes. That was just you putting words in my mouth so you could try to talk down to someone. In other words, you were engaging in the "strawman fallacy"--something that I suspect is bad form even in the Marine Corps.

Or couldn't you look that up on the internet?

You also said: "It's a failing system with a shrinking treasury, and the people that pay into it now won't see that money in the future."

All I can do here is refer you to Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot's excellent "Social Security: The Phony Crisis." I think you'll find your claims soundly refuted there. You'll notice it's published by that bastion of radical leftist thought, the University of Chicago.

In closing, I'd point out the irony--almost certainly unnoticed by you--of your post. I make a comment about Ron Paul's overtly ideological approach to policy; an approach which disregards widespread political concensus. You then respond in a way that is condescending, puts words in my mouth, and seems unable to recognize a simple truism based in the most elementary point of logic (If you want to do 'A' over the long term, then you want to do 'A'). In other words, your response bears the marks of the same ideological blinders I accuse the good doctor of wearing.

So, some condescension of my own in the form of advice: if you intend to argue with someone, try not to be a walking example of the problem they purport to point out.

BansheeX said: "First of all, I can't believe someone just defended welfare and Social Security. Like, seriously, can't believe it. I just vomited in my own freaking lap."

If you "can't believe someone would defend" our social programs, then you should probably put down your copy of Atlas Shrugged and get out more. Most people across the American political spectrum support the continued funding of these programs in one form or another, to greater and lesser extents.

So, I guess that means you'll need to take some Pepto Bismol with you. You should also take along a copy of Baker and Weisbrot's "Social Security: The Phony Crisis," but you'll have to stop wretching long enough to read it.

Tofumar: Let me make things a little more clear for you, because you seemed to not understand a single thing I said.

Definition of "striaght-up abolish":
To not abolish immediately.

>> ^Tofumar:
BansheeX said: "First of all, I can't believe someone just defended welfare and Social Security. Like, seriously, can't believe it. I just vomited in my own freaking lap."
If you "can't believe someone would defend" our social programs, then you should probably put down your copy of Atlas Shrugged and get out more. Most people across the American political spectrum support the continued funding of these programs in one form or another, to greater and lesser extents.
So, I guess that means you'll need to take some Pepto Bismol with you. You should also take along a copy of Baker and Weisbrot's "Social Security: The Phony Crisis," but you'll have to stop wretching long enough to read it.


Yeah, just reference a terrible book full of utopian expectations and a distorted view of our economic situation without addressing the numbers themselves, or any of the numerous logic and moral cruxes with the system itself, which I've explained to you in great detail above. That book hilariously assumed we have a trust fund. We don't. It wrongly assumes that our economy has been growing and will continue to grow, and that we can expect this growth to fund the system indefinitely. However, it hasn't grown. We've had a borrow and spend economy that is increasingly dependent on foreign creditors who are eventually going to pull the plug when they figure out that lending money to over-leveraged americans who won't be able to pay it back is a terrible investment. When the gold standard was abolished by Nixon in 1971, it gave the government the power to print money at will to fund whatever it wanted without having to follow a budget or propose tax increases in order to fund psychotic wars and deleterious socialist programs that the ignorant and manipulated populace is too dumb to oppose. People pay indirectly through inflation (an incremental misdirection that causes average folk to blame products themselves and not the fed) and eventually economic depression. The fed has been creating bubbles to avoid a recession for a long time and to create the illusion of steady economic growth. In reality, we've gone from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation, we've gone from a manufacturing based economy to a service based economy, we've gone from a trade surplus to a trade deficit, and when the US Dollar collapses, products that were once going to non-productive Americans with false prosperity based on debt will start going to the producers themselves, the Chinese of the world. But hey, as long as your pretty numbers are going up and your confidence in the system is retained by government and corporate propoganda, the unlimited credit card strategy of growth seems infinitely sustainable, right? Do yourself a favor and start listening to truly smart economists who aren't blinded by these things and whose predictions have actually come true.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rhJaVEWAG24
http://youtube.com/watch?v=emvMqjtcO7o
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ywLt1AebjMY

Greenspan converted the tech stock bubble losses into a bigger real estate bubble in the late 90s order to delay that recession (people WANT constant growth, so they elect people who stave off a recession without realizing that what they're doing is frosaking small immediate pain for larger future pain). The real estate bubble just started its collapse. The stimulus package is another political move in which the government is borrowing more money that ultimately does more harm than good Americans because it comes at the cost of more inflation and eroding international trust. It is attempting to solve over-spending with more over-spending.

The stock market "grows" nominally every year, but that's when it's priced in dollars and the value of the dollar is being debased with inflation which is also much higher than the fed is letting on with its fudged CPI measurements. So if you have 8% annual inflation and a 10% gain on the stock market, it's really only gained 2% legitimate growth over the year. If you price the stock markets in something which can't be debased, an asset like gold, the markets have been declining for the past decade. People need to wake up to this. This is how the system works, it's intentionally confusing so that the average person like yourself just thinks everything is okay.

Some problems with the "work hard" theory of how to "get ahead" or be financially secure in the future:

1. Somebody will always have to scrub the toilets. By that I mean "do demeaning work for insulting pay, no matter who else does what else." Do you imagine the free market would pay the BEST toilet-scrubbers who work the hardest any more than it pays an average scrubber? The goal for people who control assets is to distribute the minimum possible amount of those assets to the people who necessarily scrub their toilets. I watched this in action with my own mother's business, a maid-service. The pay was (in 1992) a "generous" 6.50/hour. Work hard (and I worked for her, it was damn hard work) and your reward was a pittance and the privilege of keeping the job. Every de-regulation and free-market ideal in the world won't eliminate the need for toilet-scrubbers or insure that my mother would pay those who worked for her a living wage. It will simply lay the blame at the scrubber's feet that they didn't become CEO's instead. After all, "of course" there is room and opportunity for EVERYONE to be a CEO and everyone is capable of it... but then who would scrub the toilets?

2. People like me get stricken with Multiple Sclerosis at age 22. Actuarial tables demonstrate that the life-time cost of having/treating MS is roughly three million dollars. "Working hard" is redefined for me as "getting out of bed in the morning." It doesn't exactly pay enough to live on, let alone the dream of investing anything for the future. Even "working smart", (a phrase privileged people use when they don't believe toilet-scrubbers should be paid a living wage, suggesting that it's the toilet-scrubbers' fault that they didn't become CEO's instead) isn't an option for me because of the cognitive problems MS causes in about 80% of patients, me included.

It's insulting to suggest that everyone who works hard gets ahead, that everyone not getting ahead ISN'T work hard enough, that everyone CAN work hard enough to get ahead, or that there will ever be enough opportunities for hard-working people to work their way up into. Conversely (and perversely), often those who work the hardest doing the worst, most back-breaking jobs are usually the ones paid the least, especially in an unregulated system. Ask the illegal immigrant Mexicans waiting outside Home Depot every morning...

@Solipsy

Once again, I have to respond to short-sighted intellect that is fixated on nominal values rather than values relative to other goods. Why don't you understand what I'm saying here? Low-paying jobs are painful not because they are "low-paying" and in your mind "trivial," but because the money you make from them is losing purchasing power and being taxed away at a rate greater than it ever has been in the history of this country. It is being devalued and taxed away by the very policies you claim are helping you. But you fail to see that government intervention and redistribution of wealth is actually making the poor poorer because they cause hyperinflation and rising costs of food and energy. Redistribution of wealth schemes benefit the rich far more than they benefit you. We've already covered how a truly free market brings far more people into prosperity than it doesn't, which increases donations to non-profit organizations, makes families richer, etc, to help the remaining people who truly need it. When you claim that it is in a company's best interest to underpay their employees, you simply don't understand how the free market works. If minimum wage didn't exist, McDonald's could not hire anyone for 2 cents a day. No one would do it. People are only willing to work jobs that generate income relative to their living expenses. The wages are then dictated by the market itself. You think janitors would just disappear in a free market system? That's a junk argument if there ever was one. If we suddenly had a society where everyone was brilliant and skilled and no one wanted to the dirty jobs, the demand for those dirty jobs would rise immensely and the wages would rise to reflect that need. And if that happened, you'd have plenty of people quitting their lower paying office jobs to go scrub toilets for more money, to hell with anyone's perceptions about the status of the work itself.

And it's bad for business to underpay. If 25% of people are unemployed in this country or making far less money than they should, businesses die because they are losing consumers to pay for their products and services. Then the people who were employed at those businesses lose THEIR jobs.

Technology advances often give us the illusion of a greater standard of living, but the standard of living has actually gone down considerably over the years as government has gotten bigger and more interventionist (a result of people believing and electing politicians who fool them into promising them more wealth with higher taxes, socialist programs, etc). Peter Schiff makes an excellent point in an old interview that his grandfather was a carpenter, raised seven kids on that income, and his wife didn't even have to work. Someone with that kind of job today cannot do that. So you may have nicer gadgets and cars than you did back then, but the cost of food, energy, education, medical care, has gone way, way up relative to average income. And it's because of the federal reserve devaluing our money and the government borrowing trillions of dollars it doesn't have to promise you better stuff and an easier life, which the vast majority is falling for hook, line, and sinker.

Once the long overdue second depression finally comes, you may finally realize that all of this stuff you espouse has led you into a situation where you are attempting to survive without a job or with wheelbarrows full of worthless fiat money. So good luck with that when it comes.

>> ^BansheeX:
@Solipsy
Once the long overdue second depression finally comes, you may finally realize that all of this stuff you espouse has led you into a situation where you are attempting to survive without a job or with wheelbarrows full of worthless fiat money. So good luck with that when it comes.


Did you miss the bit where the person you're talking to said they began suffering from debilitating MS at age 22? And isn't working because of that? "All this stuff" being espoused by Solipsy isn't what led to his/her current situation, rotten luck did. Or possibly environmental contamination caused by profit-driven free-market corporations without adequate regulation did - seems more likely than his/her political ideology at any rate.

If you're honestly arguing that social security be eliminated (and that's *ALL* I'm talking about - the federal reserve and the gold standard and all that other stuff you keep bringing up isn't the topic at hand), then do you want people in situations like Solipsy's - which are far too common - to simply die? Or should they go begging at a local church - another system a good objectivist would typically argue isn't worth supporting? Local charities maybe? Great idea as long as the local people can afford to give to charity.

Social security, aside from all other welfare programs or federal agencies or fiscal policy issues, is in my opinion (and that of MANY other intelligent, educated people) a good thing which should be maintained. It can be improved upon, but eliminating it would be a horrible idea until a more stable alternative (which everyone who needs it can use) is devised.

Oh, and if my holding this opinion causes you to vomit, fine. You need to stop reading commentary on the internet if you have such a weak constitution that opinions not your own (or ignorance, if you choose to see it that way) cause such a violent reaction.

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