What Realities do we Ceate in Society through Our Beliefs?
In an article at TCS Daily, Arnold King , economist and co-contributor for econLog
with Bryan Caplan, writes about Health Care Reform. Caplan, you may recall, is author of "Myth of the Rational Voter", a book skymutt had a diary about recently.
While the Health Care discussion is important, I got trapped and the beginning of the article with King's build up to the actual discussion and found it worthy of further discussion on its own. He writes:
I have argued, in North-like fashion, that prosperity depends on three ethics
. I describe these as a work ethic, a public service ethic, and a learning ethic.
Each of these ethics tends to be reinforcing. That is, if most people believe that the way to get ahead is to work hard, then most people will work hard, and more wealth will be created. On the other hand, if people believe that wealthy people should not have to work, then people will attempt to gain wealth without working, leading to a zero-sum economy. If most people expect public officials to be honest, then dishonest officials will be identified and punished. On the other hand, if people expect corruption, then corrupt officials will survive, and only a simple fool will be honest. Finally, if people value learning in all of its aspects, then everyone will be encouraged to learn. If people believe that learning threatens tradition, then learning will be suppressed.
Quite interesting. I think King is right about the three ethics. It's true. I think the part of about politics and corruption is particularly important. As a voter and political junky with a disdain for partisanship, King really hit a positive nerve with. Seeing how both parties do the country a severe disservice, I think loyal partisans who are quick to go thru the opposition with a fine tooth comb but who, for the most part, turn a blind eye to the actions of its own party, hurt themselves and everyone else. Neither party makes great effort to change and a constant cycle of dissatisfaction and finger pointing persists.
I feel the leaning ethic is also important. If we only welcome comfortable information and scoff at challenging information, we do ourselves an equally great disservice. It's one thing to not like what we hear, it's another to discount it with valid reason. But perhaps this is where King's colleague Caplan may be on to something with his book.
I wish I could write more but I'm short on time. I'll return later and welcome your thoughts.
- John's diary
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Comments :
Applying this to the public service ethic, I strongly believe...
...that in order to foster the public service ethic in the U.S., we need to get big money from specal interests out of political campaigns. Since, as the author points out, people's expectations tend to influence actual events, the mere existence of the powerful and potentially corrupting influence of special interest money in campaigns damages the public service ethic, because people expect that that money is used to buy influence.
My preferred solution is to go cold-turkey to a completely publicly financed campaign system that eliminates virtually all private money from campaigns. The Fair Campaigns Now Act
, a bill sponsored by Sen. Durbin and Sen. Specter, would be a big step in the right direction.
As the author of this article points out, it has been proven that growth and prosperity are not dependent on democracy itself-- so it is hard to argue that prosperity is dependent on the tiny subset of our democratic process represented by the freedom to raise huge amounts of money from private interests to purchase 30 second TV and radio commercials, robo-calling services, high-priced consultants, and slick direct mailings.
I enjoyed the article and generally agree with what the author had to say.
skymutt: accept no substitutes!
Keep in mind, skymutt,
that money will always influence elections. No matter what they do or how they do, those who wish to support candidates will do so one or another...be it thru groups like MoveOn, Focus on the Family, AARP or whoever....there are lots of 527s and PACs that fill that role....indeed, many such organizations have formed in response to tighter campaign laws.
One thing that people who support these measures should consider is that all this donating to campaigns and advocacy happens because the stakes are so high.
When government wields ever increasing control in the form of taxes, a greater scope of regulation and legislation and basically more say in more and more matters, what the government does matters more and more to more and more people....like mosquitos gathering around bright light, it attracts greater and greater attention.
Besides, all this activity is a form of free speech. aside from the fact that such laws are questionable in terms of their efficacy in creating the ideal you seek, it could be a constraint on people's freedoms to participate in the political process.
My most preferred plan
Would be to prohibit all the "issue ads" also. All mass-media political advertisement of any kind would be prohibited.
People's "freedoms" are constrained in many ways when it is to the greater benefit of society, and this would be another example of that.
I wouldn't mind if the federal government slimmed down in a few spots at the same time, but I think the cat's out of the bag there-- the federal government will always be big enough to attract the special interests. I just want to make it so that the only way a special interest can financially support a politician is thru an out-and-out bribe. Absent that, I want the special interests totally on the sidelines with nobody to accept their checks.
skymutt: accept no substitutes!
That knife cuts both ways...careful
prohibiting mass media political ads and "issue" ads is an infringement on free speech. Furthermore, that doesn't bother you, such methods are also an enemy to change and new ideas. It's hard for outsiders and their supporters to break thru with such constraints. Incumbents have the advantage and this makes it worse. I think if you follow thru on your thoughts to full conclusions, you'll see that the effects will be the opposite of what your trying to achieve.
As for such constraints being for "the greater benefit of society", I think that's a very subjective thing to say. What's the benefit? And does it really outweigh what we lose?
Special interests come in many shapes and sizes and support all sides of every issue. Careful what you wish for. Special interests are a form of activism in the form of PACS as well as certain interests that advocate their favored positions...be it for unions, small business, steel workers, farmers, minorities, women's rights, civil liberties and so on. Everybody supports candidates who support their cause with money and/or activism
And again, where there's smoke there's fire. So I think it's futile to blame activists for fighting for/against what the government does/doesn't do. As long as it wields so much influence, there will be advocacy to protect interests. You fight this dynamic. it's a natural consequence. People don't stop to pick up pennies and nickles. But they'll walk two blocks out of there way if they know there's someone $100 bills for $20.
What you say sounds nice but it won't work like you think when the rubber hits the road.
prohibiting mass media
I'll let the courts and the lawyers work oout the legal angle.
As opposed to how it is now? 30-second commercials have not driven any good ideas in my neck of the woods... most of them are negative, gotcha-style exercises in character assassination, many of them loose wih the facts.
Again, opposed to how it is now? It's very hard to break through now, incumbents win the vast majority of the races; and unless you're absolutely loaded and can self finance, you can bet that you've got a lot of favors to pay off after it's over, as your big campaign contributors come calling and the next election cycle begins with even the need for an even bigger warchest.
Incumbents have an advantage no matter what-- they are a known quantity. This will level the playing field; as it lies now, incumbents are able to outraise their opponents by a huge percentage on the expectation that they will be the victor and thus be in the position to pay off favors.
Any wholesale change of a system may have unintended consequences. But I just do not see how public campaign will make government less responsive, considering:
1. It will free up the vast amount of time that candidates spend making calls to raise funds for campaigns;
2. When special interests come calling, a politician will be able to evaluate the merits of the special interests' arguments without concern of gaining/losing campaign contributions.
Returning to your diary, this would vastly improve the public service ethic. As it is now, people expect that their representatives are bought and paid for. What is lost? You tell me, because I don't see much being lost. The detractors of public campaign financing say that it is an infringement of free speech, but to me, this is a lawyer's argument-- I've never heard a convincing argument as to how the man on the street loses a single thing.
And special interests will still be able to advocate for their cause. In fact, advocacy will grow in importance, because candidates will actually be freed up to consider new ideas rather than being locked up by the practical realities of being beholden to big donors. The system currently is stacked in favor of moneyed interests oven non-moneyed interests; certain special interests, such as the various industry lobbies, have a ready stream of money: in this case, the profits of the businesses in that industry. Meanwhile, a lobby for, say, homeless veterans, has no ready backing revenue stream-- the veterans themselves are destitute. As it is now, the lobbies with money are the ones that are heard, regardless of the merits of their arguments.
I've addressed this argument above. There's no blame placed on advocates. My proposed law does not target activism or advocacy-- in fact the law would encourage more activism and advocacy. Only the direct payments to campaigns and political parties will be affected, and the advocates will have to be more creative than running 30 second ads, which cannot possibly inform the public in a meaningful way.
skymutt: accept no substitutes!
Just to add support on much of this.
!. Arizona has had publicly financed elections for a while now, not all the results have been liberal, but they have been independent. The professed benefits of doing so have shown up and the dire warnings have not. The arguments are no longer without example.
2 As long as everyone is buying legislatures wholesale, I would just as soon that they be sold to the taxpayer to get the benefit, rather than someone else who would benefit instead of the taxpayer. If we did not get our moneys worth, why does everyone want to outbid us.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
I thought Arizona
publically financed elections depended on voluntary cooperation among the candidates.
I think the Supreme Court has already found that political contirubutions are free speech.
I understand your points
I see the perceived benefits of funding elections this way but I'll need to read more about before giving a real opinion.
I realized as I was reading you post that I was speaking more to McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform and not to actual public financing of elections.
I've seen a lot of that law that relates more to the post I wrote.
sorry.
Just something to while away a few seconds
Amid the sky is falling, it's never been worse mentality of any present, I fondly recall that a hundred years ago, a man might tell his first son to seek his fortune in a profession, his second son to seek his fortune in the business world, and his third son to seek his fortune in politics.
Today, it is fairly hard to make a fortune in politics. Then, graft and corruption were just perqs, a part of the politicians' pay that the taxpayer did not have to subsidize. Then, politicians were judged by the voter, those not voting straight tickets, by what services they provided to the voter.
Nowadays, we are shocked if a politician behaves like a politician, and seem to think that if only we had enough moral rectitude and indignant moral righteousness, we could get all politicians to be squeaky clean, and to behave more like angels.
My grandfather used to say, "politics is dirty business." And, of course, somebody has to do it.
The problem now is that we have taken much of partisan politics out of politics and replaced it with partisan ideology. We don't depend enough on old-fashioned political connections and infighting. Now we have ideological parties with "bases" which demand purity, and the dirty but necessary job of politics remains undone.
It is true that there is much less ongoing corruption now than good old Tamany Hall days. Heck, it seems that this Mayor Daly has a little bit cleaner regime in Chicago than the last. It almost makes one weep.
We'll not see the likes of a Democrat like Boss Tweed again, we'll not! Instead, we get white bread politicians who accomplish nothing. Instead of just stealing fromthe government like Tweed had to, they've written all the perqs they'll ever need right into the law! I'll bet old Tweed languishing to his death in a NYC jail wished he'd have thought of that!
For me, it was a sad day when James Traficant was tossed from the house.
Beam me up, Scotty!
So you are arguing FOR corruption?
I guess that would make this the finest administration ever, by your lights. Or is it the pro-corruption/anti-corruption aspect that you find distasteful.
Or was it Democrat Daley or Tweed's handing a living wage to somebody's idiot cousin, or Johnson doing so without giving them an office, but in a retail few grand a person per year, is better than somebody's idiot cousin handing out billions in shrink wrapped pallets, packed into giant cargo planes in a manner beyond wholesale much less the looting of what was already there.
The Chinese wrote of those three ethics before Europe had writing, but it was our own founding fathers that first laid out a method of achieving it. It is not an easy thing or managed by any "invisible hand", it is very hard and very tricky.
If we can ever manage to make honesty a political necessity again perhaps we can clean up a lot of things. The Internet is the first step and last hope of extensive, if not total, citizen participation, and information exchange, to make that possible.
Without that standard the others are impossible, as ignorance is the tool of dominion, and effort to no reward (as has been the case for most of history) will lead to minimum effort necessary, particularly among the most abused.
For the first time I have heard something I have advocated fr a long time that a public service ethic, bound to actual patriotism, should require that every person spend five years of their life in the government bureaucracy making sure that the needs of all the people were considered, and doing so at a uniform minimum wage, lowering the cost to all, no matter the responsibility.
With that work ethic and public service ethic, a much more honorable populace would evolve. Perhaps then the value of learning over superstition, and the public benefit of each person's learning for everyone else would become apparent, and then we could generate enough new wealth to pay for everyone's learning even beyond college to throughout life, which would generate more real wealth yet.
Maybe then one of those elusive Kilin, a sort of unicorn critter that the Chinese believed would show up only under the reign of an honest government, might actually make an appearance.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
I don't quite follow, Freedem.....
While I didn't gather that from MadS's post, actually, no offense to Mad, it didn't really get much any point, I didn't really follow what you said and if I did follow, I don't really agree.
This is where I hit a snag (and I would expect other dems to see my point here and hope they agree):
hmmm.
I'm not sure where you got that definition of public service ethic but it wasn't from the author I cited. The public service ethic has to do with corruption in terms of what we expect from government in the way of honesty and integrity. I think it's like an ethic espousing vigilance of the public sector and not tolerating dishonesty from anyone. It's not about patriotism per se, it's about demanding honesty and integrity in our best interest and keeping us from being overrun by self serving pols. We get what we expect and believe we are getting. That's the point there.
As for the rest, I find it a little creepy. No one should be forced to serve the state for 5 years in order to fully appreciate it and its bureaucracy or respect its purpose and potential to do good. Firstly, it's quite authoritarian. I don't live for the good of the state, its greater glory and its empowerment. The state exists to protect and maintain the system that allows us to pursue our own interests and happiness within the law, which protects others' rights to do the same. That's what the Founders intended. They hated big government. Their vision was a revolutionary turn in the opposite direction to put the individual first. The collective freedom of all citizens to lead their own lives and improve their lot is what makes us a freer and better country with an overall better lot in life for us as a whole.
The idea that all that is good stems from our "serving":
the government bureaucracy making sure that the needs of all the people were considered, and doing so at a uniform minimum wage, lowering the cost to all, no matter the responsibility.
is totally misguided on so many levels. That opinion isn't even standard Leftist thinking but rather a more authoritarian socialist subset that many a Dem would not ascribe to. It sounds quasi-communist.
The government does not and will never do a good job at handling those tasks and would have to greatly curtail so many freedoms and do an about-face on founding principles and constitution in order to even truly attempt it.
Governments don't lower costs, they increase them thereby nullifying any token "goodness" of a uniform minimum wage....whatever that is. And it never considers the needs of everyone and can't possibly either..because if it truly did, it would be much more prudent and reluctant to intervene on so many micro-levels because knowledge of unintended consequences, side effects and new outgrowth problems would make it slap its own hand and refrain from making matters worse. And real wealth is generated thru increased productivity...as an unsatisfying, dry and mundane as that sounds.
Governments don't create wealth. never believe they do nor should it be nor was it ever intended to be in terms of scope and stature. We are free people upheld by our laws, not state servants in any direct or indirect way. The learning ethic would be well served here.
Agreed it is a hard sell in the current climate
In a society that felt like we were all in this togeather and that the government was a "we" and not a "them" that each person would do their part to make life better for all, is not what we have, but the very act of service, of doing for your country, much less countrymen, would make a lot more sense than stupid yellow ribbons and chest thumping.
There is all that about "support the troops" because of their honor and, proving your patriotism by not questioning Der Leader, but actually putting your own A** on the line, even to push a pencil, much less get shot at, is somehow only for other people.
For many years we had a military draft, that each person was resolved to stand for sacrifice, as long as they were young and male. Warped though the system was, it did a lot to promote service to country as something other than a stupid move.
In all of your writing here you keep acting like a government is different from a business when each has goals and exercises power, sometimes the goals are about objects, but usually not, and never single purpose.
You keep saying that government is always corrupt and inefficient, and that business never is, when the opposite is far more often the case.
That is why the US health care system spends 30% on bureaucracy, and the Canadian system is better, cheaper, and spends less than 2% on bureaucracy. In both cases folk are intervening all over the place, but in one case it is to cause injury for private gain and the other it is not.
The "productivity" of getting the folk actually producing to do more work for less, is the very zero sum corrupt game the noted article talked about.
As for the learning ethic, I have always been voracious at it, often to my own cost, but your own dogmatism of
might stand a bit of that learning stuff.
If you memorized
Logical Fallacies
and
Recognizing Propaganda--Guide to Critical Thinking
and
The 14 points of Fascism
You would have a good start, though like 1984 they are cautionary writings, things to avoid, not road maps to be a more effective partisan.
A bit of what real authoritarians are about here
Patterns That Connect
and the use of propaganda here
Manufacturing_Consent
and a bit about
The war on middle class
and while you are at it there is always
My own blog,and check out basic information by others, and perhaps a read of my own writings.
The videos alone are the better part of a day, if you have the learning ethic to actually follow it. But a learning ethic takes more work than jingoist slogans, just as patriotism takes a lot more personal sacrifice than the price of a yellow magnet.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
my thoughts:
oops. I hit enter. remarks coming.
Obviously too soon to have read more
I would suggest at least listening to the videos
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
I reply as I read with the post in a different window
and I just lost my whole response. I'm pretty disgusted. I'll do it again later.
I recommend
writing in another program ('notepad' or 'word') then copying and pasting*. I've lost too much work to trust the SC programming.
Just an idea.
*Pasting in 'word' requires you to fix quote marks in links though.
We are all mediators, translators. - Derrida
http://signicide.blogspot.com/
Noticed a bad link
Patternsthat connect :: Rightwing Authoritarianism and Conservative Identity Politics (Pt 3 in the series) The whole series is worth a read
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
My thoughts:
And I'm going to be a bit more brief since I'm still deflated from losing my original answer.
paragraph #1:
I don't like chest thumping and yellow ribbons anymore than you do...and perhaps less. again, I have no problem with service as ideal. I just don't think that equates to service via and for the government. The government is by of and for the people. Anything that even subtly seeks to reverse "government and people" in that sentence...even with good or altruistic intentions...is dangerous. See your 14 steps to fascism and three 3 points of right wing authoritarianism.
Government has real power, business does not. Any power it does have is thru collusion by government. Since government will always be populated by the elite (going back milennia), this a natural result of overly powerful government. Again see your 14 steps.
No I do not make either assertion nor should you misread anything to imply that I'm implying it. But, all things relative, government is more corrupt than the private sector because government has real power.
No true. You're misreading that ethic. The author would never agree to your assessment. I read King a lot.
If what you say is true, the loss of many tedious jobs that are now automated, partly or near totally, would mean that we are worse off than we were 100 years ago in terms of wealth and and standard of living. And that's not true at all. Zero sum implies a fix wealth pie that can only be redistributed and not increased or expanded.
and for my quote you cited and then offered links to, you never responded to it.
The links you provide are all fine but I'm one of the most anti-fascist people you'll ever meet and do not support anything that directly or indirectly contributes to it.
Also, feel free to point out any logical fallacies or propaganda. Mind you, debasing the discussion with such implications doesn't help and I don't make those kinds of accusations...though I could. Why isn't what you're saying propaganda? Best to not go there.
I'm not right wing nor left. I'm anti-authoritarian at the core. My views are guided by an understanding of what brings about fascism and I'm very wary of how subtly comes about. You should view what you write and make sure you aren't inadvertently supporting things that would enable it indirectly but enable it nonetheless. Some of the things you write could loosely fit into some of those points.
Keep in mind that authoritarianism can come from the right or left. Don't be so vigilant to see one side of it and ignore the other. To me, right wing authoritarianism is simply more easy to spot because we are more conditioned to see it.
another thing, Freedem....
You know, I thought again about how your responses centered on fascism, corporatism and power.
I then took another look at my post and I'm even more perplexed at you response.
Summary of my post you answred:
paragraph #1-2:
Not tolerating corruption and overreach of government power or falling for the seduction of feel an obligation to "serve" the state keeping in line with the founders aversion to such ideals they saw undermining Europe.
paragraph 3-end
resisting the ideas that government can centrally control and manage an economy with increasing powers and taxing and how such actions lead to further dependency on it and hence exploitation.
I hardly see that as grounds for a warning of fascism in any sense...especially even by the standard of the links you cite. If anything, I'm running the other way.
Libertarianism and fascism often end up the same place
I'm sorry to have mistaken you for a run-of-the-mill fascist, they all claim libertarian economics, even Dominionists who would be the most extreme totalitarians, and yet even with the most obvious threat there, folks like Cato prefer their company to those who actually support the Bill of Rights.
You are saying that the business wields power as a creature of the rules they wrote in "collusion" with government, but there is not a part of that business, or any other that is not in such collusion. It is like saying that fish don't swim, it is only the water they are in collusion with, and cannot make any decisions on their own.
It it the ability to make decisions that is power, there is no other. It is the ability to make decisions about yourself that is freedom. There is no other. To make a decision others are obliged to follow curtails that freedom and those folks need to know that the decision is best and rain on the parade of the decision maker, if it isn't.
To work together to accomplish a goal people have to act together, and someone somehow has to organize the group and assign duties and benefits. To do that each person has to do as they have been asked and not decide to go fishing instead. If not nothing can be accomplished.
It is usually easy for the leader to hold the fisherman accountable for neglecting their work. What is usually more difficult is to hold that leader accountable if they are not fair in the assignment of duties and benefits, since the leader will usually make his own protection and benefit the first order of business.
Fortunately the leader cannot accomplish anything either without the cooperation of others, unfortunately they have to act together to do that, and that means another leader etc and the whole mess starts over again.
Notice that the exercise is free of both scale and labels in that the same facts are true of small businesses, large corporations small governments, large governments, even Glee clubs and sailboat crews. All organizations have the same issues, only the quality of the resolution of those issues matters, and that is also not name or ideology dependent.
It is the primary fallacy of Libertarian thinking (as noted in your quote) to divide Official government of into its own box, and insist that it alone wields power, and should not even be held accountable for the fair use of its power, but removed from power as much as possible.
By removing that power you also remove the power to hold the other abusers of power accountable, with the same predictable results, as anytime power is not held accountable.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Libertarianism leads to fascism? How in the world???
Sorry, but that makes no sense.
Fascism requires a great deal of state power with broad scope and reach. It also requires a mindset among the population to cede power to the government in the name of a higher good...be in the name of nationalism or collectivism. A most necessary tenet of such a reality is therefore antithetical to what libertarians stand for.
from there, let's see. I'm still rubbing my temples.
You kinda mangle my meaning here. I'm saying any that unfair power they may wield comes from government giving it to them. They do have that ability without recourse to government for favors. That's all I'm saying.
OK. Then why aren't you a libertarian?
To work together to accomplish a goal people have to act together, and someone somehow has to organize the group and assign duties and benefits. To do that each person has to do as they have been asked.
OK. But the distinction here is that you have more goal to oblige on other than do because your previous quote matters more to me than to you. I'm not being insulting. It's true. I have fewer "goals" in mind to oblige others to act on. Living within the law and protecting every citizens' rights is a good...creating too many goals that beyond that is where we get into trouble.
Not at all. First of all, that your idea Libertarian thinking, not the real one. Secondly, government should be held accountable for the fair use of its power and curtailed from using unneeded and/or unconstitutional power as much as possible. Take for I meant, there's little to dispute.
The real dispute is then what powers should be removed and weakened.
I am a libertarian (except without the logical fallacies)
Fascism is the concentration of power, joining state and economy. At one extreme It calls itself the state, as in Communism, and claims the CEO's do not exist, at the other it might well call itself Libertarian, and claim that the State did not exist.
In one case a tiny elite running the state would be running the economy, in the other a tiny elite running the economy would be running the state. Completely the opposite? I don't think so.
If the Government (or some other) does not stop them from wielding power, then it is "given" I guess, but that is like saying that any criminal gang is "given" power if nobody stops them. If the Criminal gang declares it, they become the government, if not they are just another "business". I don't see any sort of clear line other than official declaration.
The problem still remains one of logic. Living within the law means defining the laws, and somebody enforcing them.
If the law allows you to exploit others, then it is not protecting the citizens. If you think it ok for that law because it was the law, but object to the law that is a tax that restrains exploitation, then you are being illogical.
Likewise there are many necessary goals common to all folk who expect to live in the same area. Mostly they are organized as Governments, sometimes as other things as well.
Frankly I am in favor of spreading out those goals to many groups where possible, but the group will contain everyone affected, and the goals must attend everyone affected.
You cannot define yourself as the folks getting the benefit, or the paying the cost "not a goal", or those paying the real price as a separate group, because in fact all are the same group, and the accounts (money and other) must balance, whether the members wish it or not.
If you do any of those things, it is simple piracy, regardless of how complex you make it look.
Once you have come to this point then the issue is how to attend to all the needs in the best way possible. Then you get down to the actual work of keeping the goals effectively reached, and the costs effectively paid, and not just shoved off into another group or generation, and how to keep the leadership from stealing all the goodies.
You could have a variety of names and Enterprises, but all that would matter is how functional and happy the result.
Packing lots of little groups into one big one makes it more effective (powerful) but loses grain of differences in need. Making the groups smaller attends to that variety, but issues of borders, effectiveness, and accountability become much more thorny.
Laying out those kinds of organizations is very much more interesting than Infighting over power, unfortunately as Research shows in Altemeyer's Global game or Phillip Zembardo's studies, the Human condition makes this a lot harder than it aught to be.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Look, Freedem,
I see what you're saying but you're really making any discussion difficult when you basically claim that the opposite of your world view has "logical fallacies" or lacks logic.
You have biases whether you realize it or not that may not be all that logical.
My views are shaped by what I've read and learned. I used to have some views that you have and I no longer do because I came to understand the flaws in my thinking from reading sources that challenged by original view points and caused to rethink some of my opinions.
You're first two responses to quotes are totally off in my opinion. Are you being illogical? Perhaps. But I won't go there. What I will say is that exhibit biases that I simply no longer adhere to. Not to mention that you have to completely misrepresent libertarianism to equate with some kind of fascism.
The third? Well, let's just say that are giving the impression of challenging my views but are doing so by misrepresenting for the most part.
"Laws that allow to exploit others"....not something I support. Perhaps our ideas of exploitation are different.
"If you think it ok for that law because it was the law, but object to the law that is a tax that restrains exploitation, then you are being illogical."...
I have no idea what you're talking about.
The rest...I'm still rubbing my temples.
Libertarianism defined.....
Nice flash animation
explaining libertarianism. It's a good p[lace to start discussions.
You must have a flash player like shockwave, easily obtained for Firefox if you don't already have it.
Tell me what you think, please.
(btw, it goes slow, but is worth staying with.)
That was spectacular.
I really mean that.
Thank you.
Now, what is interesting
is to aks people who say they don't like libertarianism to watch it, and have them tell you just what they disagree with.
For those on the left, although it is hard to get them to admit it, it is the very first principle.
Its a fine flash movie.. but it isn't about Libertarianism
There are many philosophies of govnernance that follow those precepts that don't end at Libertarianism. They just have a different set of underlying assumptions.
My personal favorite description of the shortfalls of Libertarianism
However....
Way to follow your whole keep-an-open-mind-not-making-assumption thing..
Voice of experience
Although i should have said, "for many on the left...."
btw, it is absolutely about libertarianism. I do realize that those who think they don't like libertarianism like to define in some other way (often as anarcho-capitalism), but that was the real thing.
Your link only confirms the dishonesty.
It is a bit like saying that everyone left of center is a Bolshevik.
So, that was libertarianism, and now, what are your objections to it?
I don't have an objection to the flash video at a high level
And if those fine blue cutouts want to create a club, give it resources under the control of the leadership, create bylaws for accessing those resources they are free to do do (being free)
Thus a Democratic Republic is born.
I would have an objective to part of the underlying narrative (not specifically stated, but an inference I drew that I would object to) that people create their resources from nature and in individual exchanges with one another only. Much of this resource creation depends on resources created by that Democratic-Republic club that gives access to roads, defense, public/club land etc and that in return for said resources, you end up paying dues that the members of that club, through their elected leadership require of members/citizens and their guests (at a discounted rate) and non-members/citizens at an often inflated rate.
And no, what you should have said is "For many on the left, I BELIEVE it is the first" and then you could cite some examples just to show us it had a basis. Or you could acknowledge that it is just some conclusion you came to and it gives you closure. Or you could skip either one and have plenty of people roll their eyes. You are free to do any of the above (having liberty and all)
So what is the problem that people on Right have with these principles and why don't they vote Libertarian? (Personally, I'd have put the left's issues more in the property area and the right's in the self-ownership spot)
Notice how I made it through this without calling you dishonest. Give it a try.
OK, no dishonesty
And I never said you were dishonest. I did say that the writer in your link was, because he confused libertarianism (classical liberalism) with anarcho-capitalism, something I find disgusting. (That is, I find the deliberate conflating of the two disgusting.)
I'm not going to look for them, but in the short time since I started reading here at this board, I have already noted some people saying things like "individualism is the problem." The self-ownership principle is individualism.
mssliberties below hints at the same criticism. "Too much "me, and mine, not enough we" kind of criticisms. I am saying that this is what one commonly hears from the left. In fact, if you can't go to a leftist site and find this criticism of libertarianism, you aren't really looking.
This conclusion does not, so far as I know from being inside my mind, "give me closure." maybe the opposite.
So what is the problem that people on Right have with these principles and why don't they vote Libertarian?
Good question, and here is the answer, without argument (it would be too long)> Those on the right are often not libertarians (classical, founding fathers-type liberals), but (modern) JFK liberals (like the neocons) who are no longer welcome in the Democratic party because they adhere to the FDR-JFK notion that we should go anywhere, make any sacrifice, oppose any foe, help any friend, to bolster the cause of liberty, even if that means using military force. (These liberals were quasi forced out by the McGovern liberals, who still believe all of that, but think that the Vietnam War showed that the use of military force was not a good choice of means. They still believe in government as an agent of "doing good.") Others are so-called "social conservatives," who are often diametrically opposed to libertarianism, having , like, shall we say, many on the left, a vision of a moral society which they wish to impose on everyone, while a few others are old-fashioned conservatives, who think that what is good for America is what is good for business, and that the federal government should take as a first principle that business should be free and supported where necessary.
The remaining libertarians, or even libertarian-conservatives, are few and far between. But this should not be surprising, because classical liberals became few and far between long ago in America, replaced, mostly, with conservatives.
I put (some of) the left's on the first principle because of the ascension of "society" in their thinking. They often emphasize "we" over the individual, and insist that there is something called "the good of society" to which the individual must bow.
For instance, watch the debate on universal health care. To a libertarian, any argument for this must be based on constitutional principles (and I think one can be made). But the left, I predict, will invoke moral principles in the manner of the social conservatives. Not only that, I predict that these moralists on the left will call those who do not support universal,, government paid health care, "immoral," because they have no concept that one can be against moral action on the government level and still be moral and hold the same moral principle on the individual level.
Now, there is a split among libertarians on the use of nature. But I don't think that libertarians deny that people can vote to have their government create public access. In fact, government toll roads are a nice idea, since those who use them pay for their maintenance. Here in Oregon, the same end is sought by using gasoline taxes for road maintenance. However, this led to an absurd situation a few years ago when the state imposed a high tax on newly purchased vehicles that got high gas mileage! The reasoning was that those driving such vehicles would not be paying their fair share for road maintenance. Seems logical to me.
As for your little story, I found it dense, and dependent on assumptions about the evils of something, I'm not sure what. Perhaps you could redo it so that a dummy like me could understand it, and maybe use the word "government" instead of "club."
de Toqueville once remarked that the American experiment would fall as soon as the common person realized that they could vote themselves benefits. So far, cooler heads have prevailed to the extent that such benefits have not totally offset the wealth creation by the economy. But, as everyone knows, it will all be over by the time your grandchildren are paying taxes.
That flash video is pure libertarianism
that all libertarians of all stripes would agree to.
Just because you like what it said doesn't it make something else. Maybe your idea of libertarianism is inaccurate.
It is 100% libertarianism. Make no mistake.
Not what I said
What I said was that a non-libertarianistic perspective could still match it. One does not need to 'disagree' with a specific portion of it to come to a non-libertarianism view.
Kind of like Intelligent Design is really all about Christianity, but it can still lead to the Flying Spaghetti monster without any loss of consistency.
OK
example please.
How so?
What I said was that a non-libertarianistic perspective could still match it.
Not the whole thing. If you can watch that entire video and object to nothing in it, you are a libertarian 100%. If you disagree with a little of or want a little leeway, you're still a moderate libertarian with some differing views. If you have issues with major tenets of it, then you are not. You are probably a liberal or a conservative.
One tangentially related example
Not perfect, but should give you the gist of one aspect of my objection to Libertarianism
It is illegal to have glass containers on a lot of beaches. Likewise to have fires in certain forested areas (particulary during fire season), even properly tended fires.
Why? Because too many folks ditch their glasses in the sand and people step on them, getting nasty cuts on their feet. Now I wouldn't do that, so why can't I carry glass on the beach? The problem is that it is REALLY hard to catch those that leave their fires untended or ditch their glass because they'll make a quick look around, see that there are no cops and THEN commit their crime. The opportunity to catch the criminal is very low, the cost can be enormously high. So, in an effort to save a few thousand acres of forest and many injuries, the law was made easier to enforce by outlawing a precursor even though it in itself causes nobody any harm.
So I'm against legalizing prostitution because, almost universally, it leads to forced prostitution that has pretty much defied efforts to stop (the forced part). The only examples that come even close are when the goverment heavily regulates it, an arguably equally invasive control over the would-be voluntary prostitute's self-ownership and right to freely enter into a contract with her would be contractor.
glass on beaches, fires in forests
those rules are hardly unreasonable nor do they contradict libertarianism.
Forests and beaches are public property so rules to protect people from injury or forests from fires are perfectly fine.
Perhaps you can find some hard nugget examples in the realm of public policy and we can discuss those.
And on prostitution. It is illegal and I don't think it should be. I don't see how you come across saying that it leads to forced prostitution. Forced prostitution becomes an invasion of privacy and if you want to technical...a breech of a private contract.
Prostitution
A friend I had in grad school had a brother who was a pimp. According to him, he was opposed to legalized prostitution because it would make him unnecessary. Most of his job was helping prostitutes avoid the police, and bailing them out.
Obviously, the government should intervene in slavery, whether it is for prostitution, or anything else. But outlawing the ability of free people to contract for sexual services with someone willing to provide them for a price they are willing to pay is not the way to end prostitutional servitude. It actually promotes it.
Now, on to legalizing drugs. Heck, if drugs were legalized, instead of being beholden to a state-supported monopoly brought to us by the best union in the world, I could have gotten medicine over the last four years for my blood pressure.......(The medicines are cheap enough to pay for by gleaning; the prescription is not.)
I had a friend who was a plumber who used to say that the plumber's union should go for the same monopoly, such that anyone wishing to work on their own plumbing would have to have a professional plumber come in, assess their needs, and write them a prescription for the proper parts, which the self-helper would then take to the hardware store where a "plumbiscist" would fill his order from a storeroom inaccessible to the public, package his prescribed plumbing parts, and provide a little guidance for their usage, maybe with a few warnings on the label for common side effects of usage....
I have no issues with the tenants of it
But the details are quite another matter, mostly because it ignores them completely.
On the most obvious level, if you are born somewhere, you are there. You have automatically joined a wide range of groups with all kinds of rules that were created long before your arrival.
You can move elsewhere and find different rules and thus have some kind of choice, but you only changed the set, the situation is the same and you still have to take the whole package, and more importantly they may or may not choose you.
The wicket gets a lot stickier when someone "Voluntarily" accepts a bad choice because there are only bad choices, because another person has made choices that forced that situation. I could afford to pay you $20 an hour, but I will pay you $5 because I can, and you cannot afford to refuse.
If you get togeather with all the other possible hires and insist that none of you will work for less than $15, are you the one stealing from me? Who is the one holding the gun to who's head? Your little animation holds no clue.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Stealing?
There is no "stealing" anywhere in your post.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with paying someone $15/hr if that is the going rate. Even if it isn't. In fact, I've always endeavored to make less than that. In fact, even though I have worked at jobs where the going rate was more than that, I have always refused to take it. So, I got through life never making $15/hr.
A bit out of touch with the real people?
Just so you know, a voluntary association of workers for the purposes of getting a higher wage is perfectly consistent with libertarianism. In fact, it is entirely what libertarianism is all about!
On the most obvious level, if you are born somewhere, you are there. You have automatically joined a wide range of groups with all kinds of rules that were created long before your arrival.
The world contains realities out of one's control! How insightful!~
This is a fact no matter what political ideology you choose.
Out of touch with real people?
I have many friends that make minimum wage to $7-8 an hour, and often not making more than 30 hours a week because the management abuses them and would not allow more as they would have more rights over 35 hours a week.
I have friends that make $100 an hour, but will charge little or nothing to friends or those who have trouble affording their normal prices.
My own wages are very market driven and range from $15 to $35 an hour depending on the market, though I also often help out for free where appropriate. Before computers I was often in the low wage crowd however.
But I have never known anyone not doing charity work, or trying to save his boss from bankruptcy, or retired, that would turn down $15 an hour to take $12 or less.
The point here is that by being born, you join groups that have needs/goals that you "volunteered" into with abundant laws, rules, and benefits. And that many would keep the benefits but opt out of the laws and rules, even to the point of not paying taxes etc. Libertarian Ideology is often cited as the reason for this.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Huh?
The point here is that by being born, you join groups that have needs/goals that you "volunteered" into with abundant laws, rules, and benefits. And that many would keep the benefits but opt out of the laws and rules, even to the point of not paying taxes etc. Libertarian Ideology is often cited as the reason for this.
Do you just make tis stuff up?
There is a problem with being made a party to contracts when you don't have a choice.
Obviously, libertarianism would not support opting out of the costs of a "membership" but keeping the benefits. That would be what is called in the animation, "theft."
Sometimesd it seems to me that you think that Livbertarianism is nothing but theft. Nice.
But I have never known anyone not doing charity work, or trying to save his boss from bankruptcy, or retired, that would turn down $15 an hour to take $12 or less.
I have a personal ethic, which I wish to impolse on no one. In fact, I don't even recommend it.
I have, all my life, followed a rule that I would not make any more in any one year than one and a half times the federal poverty level for that year. To accomplish that, I have used various methods to keep from making what my actual salary was supposed to be, including, where it was allowed, simply taking a reduction in pay. Interestingly, such a thing is often illegal. I've had to resort to taking a leave of absence, where I continued the same work as a "volunteer." Twice, I accidentally went over, and had to take a year off to average out below my limit.
Note: I put my money, literally, where my mouth was. I didn't try to make my personal morality into a grand theory of government in order to force others to put their money where my mouth was. People are free to adopt their own morality and act on it. They should not claim the right to take over government and enforce their morality on everyone else.
One of the reasons I've done that is that i worked for the government in mental health most of the time, and I just can't see getting rich on the backs of indigent populations (and the taxpayer). I also disgusted my coworkers by consistently refusing to sign their petitions for pay raises. We were making enough. The only time i was tempted, really, was when I took the old Federal Entrance test, and was offered a management position in the Federal Government at exactly four times what i was actually making at the time.
thing is, although I know intellectually that the economy is not a zero-point game, I feel that way. So, really, when you are working with people depending on SSI payments, all but $10/month is taken by their placement, it is hard to complain about making even minimum wage.
As for the 7-8 dollars an hour, and no more than 32 hours a week thing, that's called "retail." Been there, done that.
You are free to open your own retail store and ignore the realities. Note that if benefits were not required, more workers would get 40 hours. I think that if one thinks that benefits should be required, they should convince everyone else, and have the government provide them.
Agree!
The constitution strats with We the People! Not "I me mine"
I'm only half stupid
Sorry, but
you have just justified what I said above about "many on the left."
The Constitution starts with "We, the people..." in the sense of, "We, those individuals who live here, " not, We, das Volk as mere parts of a society..."
The Constitution, you see, was written by classical liberals, who would now be called, "libertarians."
Nice club.
You belong too. The superior liberals..... or the classics. Is that from the Hoover Institute of ideological superiority?
You have just proved that you would rather change the constitution to mean 'Only what matters to me'. At some point you have to be able to play nicely with others. It is called society.
I'm only half stupid
I guess the notion
is just too difficult for you.
The constitution is fine. The important theing is that 'we' means "us me's."
"We the People" is not something over and above all the individuals in it.
Well not quite...
I mean, those classic liberals/libertarians DID support slavery
And that was wrong of them
But their imperfections or weaknesses hardly undermine the ideals they were striving for....which were very libertarian.
knocienz
that was really cheap. Do you think that slavery is a chief tenent of libertarianism? How about Christianity? The essence of the Democratic Party? Members of all these groups supported slavery.
Madscientist
No, I don't think slavery is a tenet of libertarianism, nor of Christianity nor the (modern) Democratic party.
You have it backwards. I'm saying that the Founding Fathers were NOT libertarian as they were certainly violating the absolute, most central facets of that flash video that I've been told is a great description of libertarianism.
I think they were libertarian
but also products of their times. We usually fail when we attempt to put modern values into ancient heads.
After all, the writer of "all men are created equal" certainly meant "men" and not "people," and somehow managed to keep slaves. What they did was to enscribe the ideals of libertarianism, almost, while at the same time recognizing the realities of the times. I am sure that there were some who would have liked to exclude slavery, but recognized that without allowing it at the time, there would have been no United States.
What makes our founding documents great is that they put down philosophical ideals as goals toward which to move, based on people like John Locke. As Madison said to the people of New York, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite."
Madison also was aware of the difference between the ideals underlying the founding documents, and the government that grew out of them, He told the Constitutional Convention in 1787, "We have seen the mere distinction of colour made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man." He was certainly aware of the difference between the ideals of saints and the practice of men. I believe that he was also aware that a government cannot make imperfect men into saints by fiat.
In the most ultra simplistic terms
The history of our country is interwoven with slavery (or cheap labor).
All men are created equal except slaves. We the people, except slaves. We the people, except individuals. We the people, except I don't want to pay the price for that (black) man's schools. We the people, meaning business only the economic backbone of the lowly masses.
The battle lines drawn today are the same as those of yesteryear. Corporations, industries, plantations looking for cheap labor and the tension it creates.
Business always looks for the cheapest possible labor. Now they have figured out how to play amazing word games to keep labor at bay. The ultra rich are threatened when the help gets uppity. Now the help doesn't stand a chance. Immigration and outsourcing ensure there will be no collective bargaining, unless we the people speak out for ethics in trade and business. We can you know. Free trade (free markets seeking the cheapest possible labor) did not come down from Moses on a tablet. It is not carved in stone.
If you follow the history of cotton and plantation owners, the hatmakers, or the bakers who toiled long hours in the early part of this century and the Supreme Ct that always astonishingly ruled in favor of big business. (Which is what FDR was balking at with his partisan appointees).
You are looking at our history from one perspective. If you read black history, the unrevised versions, there is a rich text of class division that the upper class is always trying to maintain.
The 'help' in the presence of our founding fathers got an earful listening to their lofty ideals.They listened carefull and it was the beginning of the black rebellion and uprising. That uppity help, asking what about me.
The founders couldn't exclude slavery because the economy depended on it. It is the untold story of our history. The black man's history is the story of the white man's history.
I'm only half stupid
You chant the doctrine
very well.
Surely you will be taken in by the sheeple.
Strangely, after hearing this stuff for 50 years or more, it tends to put me to sleep.
btw, you forgot the evil consumer, who always seemed to want the cheapest possible goods. Evil bastards.
Thise are my views on libertarianism in a nutshell
Worthwhile as philosophical goald, but needs to be tempered by the realities of the time (and human nature)
knocienz
Let's take this statement:
Worthwhile as philosophical goal, but needs to be tempered by the realities of the time (and human nature)
Can you think of one idealistic or ideological political philosophy for which this statement would not be true?
Don't you think that it is of the nature of political philosophies to be untempered by reality?
My favourite political philosophy is that of liberalism, stated quite eloquently by that great political philosopher, Rodney King:
Can't we all just get along?
That possibly and...
that it's too simplistic and ignores life's complexities.
Of course, many of life's complexities are brought about by doing what the video says not to do.
Life's complexities are going to happen though
Any philosophy that depends on everyone following it is pretty much doomed. (That's my whole problem with pacifism. It'd be great if everyone did it, but as Dogbert said when he wished for world peace, 'It'd be great because I could conquer the whole world with a butter knife")
Of course
Libertarianism doesn't assume that everyone will follow it, nor does it require it.
As you can see from the animation, it assumes that there will be governments, and even tells you some of the reasons that governments are needed. People murder, steal, and enslave each other.
that little snip of info about government' role
always gets overlooked when people try to debase libertarianism.
Distinguishing libertarians and anarchists
I thought you might appreciate this right here.
I have kind of gone over the main fallacy ad nauseum
No person is an Island. In order to accomplish anything folk have to work together. To do that somebody has to lead. As soon as somebody leads they decide for everybody at least to some quanta. As soon as that happens Power is created.
As soon as being in the group (enterprise) is better than not being in the group you have coercion. From that point the leader can exploit his position, and he can threaten any member with expulsion if they don't play along. The significance of the expulsion might vary, but whether the group is a club, a business, or a government matters not at all to the reality of the power.
Your Flash exercise might well provide an insight to judge how each member of the enterprise might feel, but likely only not feeling the group pinch, would indicate dysfunction.
If you agree that type1 Libertarians are fallacious or disingenuous about that reality of power, that negotiation is a balance of Coercion, that may be unbalanced, and dysfunctional, and illegitimate exploitation if it is.
That property illegitimately obtained remains illegitimate to the Nth generation.
That property that involves groups is subject to the rules of the group (Pollution or animal cruelty are easy examples here) that your absolute power over that property is subject to accountability, as all power is subject to accountability to the group involved.
To put the rights of one individual above the group in this instance, puts the rights of that one individual over the rights of all the other individuals in that group, and not allowed.
Beyond that there is plenty of room to quibble, but it does not offend your Flash animation.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
No, no, no
You have set up and attacked your strawman ad nauseum.
boring.
You lay on us such daunting realizations that "people have to work together" and "power corrupts." I am just overwhelmed by your genius. Why didn't someone think of that before?
I don't buy your strawman "type 1, type 2" thing in the first place.
From that point the leader can exploit his position, and he can threaten any member with expulsion if they don't play along.
Here is your fallacy, if you will.
No person is an Island. In order to accomplish anything folk have to work together.
I know a monk who has lived without talking to others for years. But here is the reality, one to which libertarians subscribe: to accomplish certain goals, one must work with other people. (I once accomplished sinking 90 out of 100 free throws all alone on a court.) Anyway, that would be a libertarian principle. In the course of working with other people, one's rights may and do come into conflict. The general libertarian principle is "My rights end where your nose begins, and vice versa."
To adjudicate conflicts between the rights of men is part of the reason for the necessity of government.
Right here, libertarians part with anarchists. Libertarians believe that goverbnment is best when it is limited, close to the people, and we vigilently watch over it, because libertarians are realists, and know that governments tend to accumulate power and overrun individual's rights.
Liberals, as one can glean from your writings, but much more, don't care about individual rights (except when so saying is politically convenient), and are glad that governments overrun individual rights, which they regard with disdain.
Why do liberals regard individual rights with disdain? Because liberals naturally, it seems, think that they have a better idea, and that they should take over the most centralized powerful government available to force their idea on others whether they agree with it or not. Liberalism is simply Stalinism writ small. (Note that this is not an equation: the differences are significant--and inconvenient.)
this, of course, is a fundamental insight of libertarianism, and the reason that libertarians favour government with limited powers and checks and balances. They don't believe in blindly trusting the government as most non-libertarians do.
On another board, a very intelligent woman (a physician, in fact) told me that as a liberal, she believed that the common person could not have a voice unless there was a powerful central government! I was absolutely speechless.
To put the rights of one individual above the group in this instance, puts the rights of that one individual over the rights of all the other individuals in that group, and not allowed.
This is more directly and honestly put like this: no individual can put his rights above any other individual's rights.
To a libertarian, "groups" by any name are collections of individuals, not separate ontological entities in themselves.
In fact, this ontological distinction is what exactly separates collectivist political philosophies, like Communism, socialism, or "liberalsim," from individualist political philosophies like Lockean political philosophy, or "classical liberalism." Remember, liberalism arose to counter the divine rights of kings and Church power, which stated that individual rights and property did not exist outside the power of a government to grant them, and that they could be revoked at any time by that government. FDR liberalism is a retreat toward (<--note this word) that anti-liberal position. it asserts the supposed "rights of the group" over the rights of individuals.
There is a reason that FDR introduced what was known even by its proponents as "confiscatory taxation." They were exercising the old divine right of kings. And they were doing it because they saw the reality of groups over and above that of individual human beings, and thought that the government could exercise the supposed "rights" of that group over individuals.
You have identified no "fallacy." You have simply erected the same straw man to knock over repeatedly.
Thank you
I appreciate your taking the time to do this. I just really lose the desire to talk when discussion degenerates with the ploys you are trying to knock down and knocking down very well.
I just can't have these petty conversations.
It's a not an ideological thing. I can talk to anyone about virtually anything in a good natured and honest way. But this dull exchange just bored me and I took my leave.
That "Strawman" is your natural logic, and the facts
But the group exists as individuals, if you assert rights over the group you assert rights over my piece, and thus over me.
FDR (and everyone else by that time) saw that everyone got benefits from the helping out of individuals in cases like education, health, police, even helping the elderly. The wealthy got much more benefit than the poor, and passed much greater costs to society.
In addition power/money concentrated itself, and left to itself would injure every individual in society, and put an end to any freedom.
To restrain Piracy, but allow honest business, and more accurately asses real costs, the Progressive income tax, (and other "liberal" policies) created the largest real income expansion since the one created from stealing all the land from the Indians, that was not even matched by the productivity gains of the computer revolution.
A more unfettered version made an even bigger impact in Europe, where the post WW2 era gave those Technocrats a freer reign than in the US.
To compare such social responsibility, to the State planned economies of Russia and China, much less the terrorist police tactics is stupid beyond reason.
With folk bopping across country borders with 5 week vacations, getting/quitting jobs as they wished, having a higher standard of living than we have in America, better education, health, life etc, and saying it is anything similar to Russia/ East Germany/ Poland /China in politics/wealth/ economics or any other way is the Standard Canard from the Right but does not hold up to even a minimal investigation any more.
Perhaps you should have actually read what she said. I don't even need to read it myself to see the double translation. You even made the point yourself. Only a country more powerful than the many powers within it, can hold them accountable, and guard the individual rights they would trample.
If those other powers grow bigger than the Government they can "Drown it in the bath tub". Sadly that appears to be close to happening, and the result will have no connection to your flash movie, except be the opposite of it.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Says it all
I don't even need to read it myself to see the double translation.
Yep, you don't have to listen to what libertrians say, you can bring up all the junk arguments you want (the progressive income tax caused....My God man, do you think everyone is a total idiot?), you can completely shut down your mind.
have at it.
Don't forget to genuflect when you say, "FDR."
When you throw off the mental chains of religion, let me know.
I've seenthis production before, many times.
Let me note, though, that you can honestly make your argument for Social Democracy without the usual lies about libertarians or "the right>" Without being so cught up in and behoden to a book that you have to repeat its terms with Capital Letters, like Piracy. You can be free.
A friend from Germany explained it to me like this:
Our system is designed to do two things:
1) Make it extremely difficult for anyone to become rich;
2) To make it no particular advantage to be rich if someone does become rich.
One might call this the "politics of envy."
A year after he told me that, he also explained some of the problems with the Social Democracy system.
It seems to me that both are models, and which you choose depends on your own predilections. We afre a nation of pioneers and individualists, and we tolerate things that the effete Europeans do not. they tolerate things we do not. (For instance, we once discussed free speech, and he said he was just as happy that the German government can clamp down on speech because, he said, some speech (like Nazi speech) should not be uttered, and he trusted the government not to abuse its power.
I will say this: I haven't got a clue. I don't have everything figured out down to the last mythological detail that you have. To me, life is more complicated than our models, so none are likely to be adequate, and I think they act as poor lenses for cherrypicking facts and shaping them to fit what we believe. You obviously have everything figured out, and have manged to tame the facts to suit yourself. You are sort of the liberal Ken Ham. You will accept no fact that doesn't accord with your belief. You afre a true fundamentalist. For instance:
If those other powers grow bigger than the Government they can "Drown it in the bath tub". Sadly that appears to be close to happening,
What in tarnation could you possibly be talking about? The present administration and Congress has presided over one of the biggest expansions of government in all of our history. Get your eyes out of your bible and take a look around you.
Only a country more powerful than the many powers within it, can hold them accountable, and guard the rights they would trample.
There, I have caught you, fascist! Such thoughts could easily have come from the one who shall not be named. it is totalitarianism pure and simple.
We here in America had another idea. We sought a government that rules by the consent of the people. We sought to make the most powerful thing the people.
By that we did NOT mean government by those who illigitamately pretend to speak in the name of the people.
I truly am sorry when totalitarian government is offered up as a better alternative.
Oddly, I am afraid that the threat of totalitarian government is much closer than any threat that government will be reduced like Grover wants.
Now:
See Jill run.
Care to tell me the double translation in that one?
Geesh!
Care to back this up with an example or two?
I hit the Cato website often on my reading rounds-- I agree sometimes and disagree sometimes, but I must say that they are darn consistent on 1) reducing government power, and 2) keeping religion out of government (example
). So I'm more than a little perplexed as to why you think that Cato favors Dominionists over the Bill of Rights.
skymutt: accept no substitutes!
It's nice to see Dems give Cato props
Nobody said that everyone left of center should adhere to everything Cato and like minded groups say. But for pete's sake, let's not make them and other out to be something they are not.
If this country ever slipped toward fascism, the libertarians would be the second to last people on the blame-list after the outright anarchists.
I speak from direct Email conversation
A couple of computers back (and therefore cannot find prove or even remember the name), I had an extensive email discussion with and after an official of Cato had said that what the Liberals needed to do was to become Libertarians. (the net was smaller then, and even then I was impressed that he kept the conversation going, I would not expect such a conversation now.)
We finally agreed that there were two types of Libertarians, one that primarily opposed only official Government (type 1), and one that opposed all concentration of power be it Corporate or Government(type 2). He did say that most of the membership of the organization was type 2, but it was clear that he and the leadership of Cato were type 1.
Since then at every place where there was a type 1/type 2 split between Democrats and Republicans Cato has been on the (type 1) Republican side and the Democrats on the Type 2. It has only been when both types were threatened by the Republicans that Cato has joined the already heavy Democratic opposition, and then in the crowd but not at the lead.
As I have argued ad nauseum, on this site and many others, excess power corrupts, no matter where it is concentrated, but can only be held in check by a greater power, and managing that paradox, or not doing so, is the History of Humanity.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Understood, freedem
though I think it's subjective to say Cato is "type 1" as you describe. I see it that way at times but in general I do not.
What I think you mistake as "type 1" but is really a very subtle "type 2" is when libertarians speak about how government power, whether intended or not, works to the advantage of what YOU and other liberals oppose. Sometimes it's not obvious. Sometimes, you have to connect the dots from a series of events but it does happen.
I addressed this above
It can be very nice to define your group or your goals to exclude paying the costs, it can make it pleasant, and all wrapped up so you can ignore this. Unfortunately the unfortunates who are actually members of your group, just don't see it that way.
Dustups in Southern Africa, and the Eastern Mediterranean are largely about the errors of that kind of thinking.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
I have no idea what you're talking about
I really, really don't. Sorry.
Here is a clue
Orcinus: eliminationism A different slant on the issue, but lots of good detail. How folk can start with your Flash video and end up here. It is just a matter of the details.
The Self Made Man is just not admitting where he got all the parts.
Actually
Although I am amazed at your powers to seek out and find people to say just what you want them to say, classical liberals (=libertarians) are fine with what are often called "night watchmen" functions of government, and consider them necessary. Others would actually go beyond those basic functions.
You love to confuse libertarians with various nutcake ideas that have little to do with it. It leads one to ask what your pathological reason for having to do this are.
You do know that libertarians and anarchists are different, don't you?
btw
interesting idea, eliminationism. Unwillingness to dialogue and the need to dominate.
perfectly describes your style and total deflection of rational thought when it comes to your eliminating libertarianism out of pure prejudice, don't you think?
Sure you do!
Folks can start off all kinds of places and
end up there.
More productive to discuss what folks here believe, and where they are and wish to end up.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson