Give Me Liberty or Give Me Social Justice
Americans on both left and right are unhappy with the current health care reform bills.
The left is upset because neither the House nor Senate version goes far enough towards putting government firmly in control of our medical decisions, with the goal of providing equal coverage for all no matter what the price. The right is upset because we see the bills’ provisions as unwarranted intrusions on our liberty that create a “right” where none existed before. We believe that reform would be better handled by fostering competition in the private sector rather than increasing government intervention in vital decisions that should remain between doctor and patient.
And those objections, powerful though they are, don’t even begin to address the ugly process of passage — which has featured haste and secrecy, ignored the opinion of the American public, and involved some of the most flagrant vote-purchasing in congressional history, capped by the cynicism of a Harry Reid dissing those senators who failed to get in line for their share of pork. And then there’s the denied but enormous and probably unsustainable cost of the current plans, the stress on small businesses, and a myriad of other unresolved issues such as whether abortion will be covered with public funds.
That’s a lot of very tough meat to chew on. But embedded in the second paragraph of this article is the most basic division between left and right, embodied in the phrases “providing equal coverage for all” and “unwarranted intrusion on our liberty.”
The first expresses the left’s push for equality of outcome, while the second speaks to the right’s concern with safeguarding liberty while providing equality of opportunity. Even if it were possible to put aside for a moment all the highly valid concerns about the way this bill has been advanced against the will of the American public — the lack of transparency, the fiscal fudging, the vote-buying, and the lies — this deep and primary philosophical difference between left and right would still remain.
It’s an old story. In the book The Survival of Culture by Hilton Kramer and Roger Kimball, there is a piece entitled “Burke and Political Liberty,” in which Martin Greenberg writes that the French Revolution occasioned a “deep shift, anticipated by Rousseau, of moral feeling away from concern for liberty to concern for social justice.” We are feeling the reverberations of the left’s attempt to effect or exploit a similar shift in today’s United States in the form of these health care bills.
But the U.S. is not France. Our Declaration of Independence states that our God-given and inalienable rights are to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Note the emphasis on liberty, as well as the equal opportunity for all to seek happiness but not necessarily to find it. The idea is that government should exercise restraint and not impede these inherent human impulses and freedoms.
Contrast this to the French Revolution slogan of just a few years later: “liberté, égalité, fraternité.” It has a nice ring to it, to be sure. But it contains an inherent and irreconcilable contradiction, because liberty and equality (of outcome, which is the way the phrase came to be interpreted) are mutually exclusive, with the latter inevitably requiring government intervention that inhibits the former.
The stated slogan driving so much of leftist thought and action is the ideal of “social justice” — in other words, equality of outcome and the leveling of resources through redistribution of wealth (except, of course, for those in charge, who somehow always manage to keep their perks; a good example of this would be Congress’s exemption of its own members from the hazards of ObamaCare). The fact that such equality is a fake “justice” and that all efforts towards achieving it end up profoundly compromising liberty is ignored or minimized by its champions.
We have increasingly seen this principle in action during the Obama administration, both in the executive and legislative branches of government. Obama plays on it intentionally; notice how often he uses the phrase “social justice” or “justice,” and how seldom the word “liberty” escapes his lips? This is no accident.
Years ago — for example, during FDR’s Depression terms — most liberal/left “solutions” were relatively new, and the idealism behind them had yet to be repeatedly contradicted by reality. But it is much more difficult now, after seeing what has gone on in the frankly Communist countries around the world as well as the softer socialist ones of Europe, to remain idealistic about the results of legislation that furthers the growth of government in leftist causes and its concomitant restraints on liberty. Idealism on the American left has increasingly been replaced by a thirst for power and ever more power.
That was the path of the French Revolution, as well, when the drive for power and “social justice” (that “égalité” part) led in that case to a bloodbath.
Now that Reid has used taxpayer money to successfully buy the last of his sixty votes for cloture, a great deal of sorrow and outrage is being expressed on the right: Is this the beginning of the end of the republic? Have the lights gone out for the shining city on the hill?
This country was founded and then fostered by people who valued liberty highly: immigrant generations and their immediate children. As time has passed, Americans have become more removed from that overwhelming concern. The majority of earlier generations (or their parents) had direct personal experience of what lack of liberty felt like, and therefore were willing to defend liberty at almost any cost.
Perhaps too many Americans today have grown accustomed to the blessings of liberty, and do not feel it to be threatened. Perhaps there is no way to transmit that original fierce love of liberty to succeeding generations who have not personally felt the pain of its absence. Such Americans appear very susceptible to the idea that a vast country such as ours has the moral responsibility to guarantee health care to all its citizens as an additional inalienable right — whether they can pay or not, whether the country as a whole can afford it or not, whether it will cause substandard care for the majority or not, and whether it will end our ability to make our own medical decisions or not — and that only government is equipped to do this, even if it means taking from each according to his ability, and giving to each according to his needs, and even if the entire endeavor is impossible to carry off.
Have Americans decided that liberty is passé, and that equality and fraternity — or the pretense of both — are far more important? To paraphrase Churchill’s famous statement about Munich, in which he is purported to have said that “the government had to choose between war and shame. They chose shame. They will get war, too.”
Our government has had to choose between liberty and social justice. They chose social justice. They will get neither.
Here is something I have been thinking about, which relates to Neo’s article. I’d really like to hear others’ opinions on it.
Prediction:
While the welfare state will swell dramatically, in the end it will collapse under its own weight. Thus, while those in favor of smaller government are rightfully afraid about what is happening in Washington, what the left is putting in place will not be permanent, simply because the country will not be able to pay for it.
I present my reasoning for the above, in a series of Questions & Answers:
Question: Can we afford what the left wants?
Answer: No. Keeping in mind the coming collapse of Social Security and Medicare, we cannot afford any of the health-care “reform” bills currently being pushed through Congress.
Question: Will what the left wants ultimately bankrupt the country?
Answer: I don’t know for sure, but let’s examine the situation using common sense.
If the government keeps spending more money than it can ever take in via taxation, and continues to borrow and print money to fund welfare programs the country cannot afford, how could such behavior NOT lead to bankruptcy?
Question: If the USA nears or actually falls into bankruptcy, what exactly will that mean in practical terms?
Answer: Our credit rating will be shot, so even if anyone will lend us money, the vig will be suicidally high; and, of course, we will have an enormous existing debt that is only growing with interest, that can no longer be ignored.
And that will be the ballgame.
In effect, the left will have Cloward-Pivened the country so badly that only two possibilities appear logical:
1) Chaos — a bankrupt nightmare state, which bears no resemblance to the United States as we have known it, that will be poor, dangerous, and evilly-governed.
2) Austerity — a bankrupt state that realizes that if it is to survive with the Constitution as its charter, it must get its fiscal house in order. The latter will require all but the total elimination of the welfare state.
To wit, if we don’t have any more money, if we are absolutely forced to pay down the debt, all but the basics will be unaffordable *luxuries*. From HUD to the Dept. of Education, to *anything* resembling Social Security and Medicare (let alone a nationalized health-care system) — they will all have to go, because *we will not be able to afford them*.
Conclusion:
All responsible Americans should do everything in our power to fight this insane spending and growth of government, to slow it down or, if we are lucky, stop it entirely. Regardless of what we accomplish via such efforts, however, the spending and growth of government we are witnessing cannot go on forever.
Although it is often and correctly noted that no government program ever disappears, we seem to be approaching a new place in our American journey.
In a word, these are not your father’s welfare-state programs.
While it may be a long, winding road to get there, fiscal conservatism is our inevitable destination, for the simple reason that all broke people or entities that wish to survive must become fiscal conservatives.
Thoughts?
Yes, & it is even more a shame that former Communist police states such as Bulgaria, where I live, have come to the point that they nearly have more freedom than in the US. Even they know that socialism failed.
The fools in our Congress & Supreme Court have proven that our Constitution is a worthless scrap of paper that can & does mean anything that what it actually says. They have also proven that greedy blood sucking politicians sell their votes to the highest bidder & then lie about what is in the bill or simply refuse to let the public read it.
It is enough to make a person into a anarcho-fascist or something. No wonder we have the saying, “as crooked as a politician.”
Just where is Augustus Caesar when we need him?
The Democrat/liberal/left/socialist contingency has successfully perpetrated this lie: The American health care system is broken and government can fix it. Our health care system is the best in the world, bringing a high level of care with great innovations that have saved countless lives. We have better cure rates for cancer than countries like England and Canada that are burdened by universal health coverage, and people from all parts of the world routinely come to the U.S. for better care than they could get at home. The real problem is that, as with many things, the best care is also the most expensive care, and some people are unable to share the full blessings of liberty because they have no insurance coverage and inadequate funds. Rather than addressing the problems of the poor, Congress has chosen to rework the entire system, with a “fix” for everyone. The flaws in this “solution” include the fact that it will stifle innovation, lead to rationed care for all, and will carry an unsustainable price tag. But none of those things matter to the ideologues; they are concerned only with “social justice,” making the system “fairer” and “more equal,” rather than better. Unfortunately, we will all have to live with their mistakes.
Right on. Great perspective, Thanks.
It takes a certain certainty, for one’s reasoning to overcome a lack of experience… it could also be called a faith I suppose. A faith in consequence.
Surely we all have to touch a hot grill, at least a first time, to know it’s bite. But as we gain experience in consequence we should be able to apply this principle liberally. We should all learn from what history has presented to us; to not is to be blind.
[We all stand on the shoulder's of giants.]
Barrack Hussein Obama could care less about social justice. Raised during his early years as an Islamic Muslim, then for the rest of his life in the church of Black Liberation Theology, payback and revenge are the only two action verbs that mean anything to Mr. Obama.
The Healthcare Reform legislation bill is nothing more than welfare on a massive scale for the hordes of blacks and illegal Hispanics that feel society owes them in return for the millenniums of suffering caused to their races by America, Caucasians and Jews. I am not saying that all blacks and Hispanics think that way, just enough of them to make the Democrat leadership drool, hunt and slobber like packs of hunger driven wolves.
Government controlled healthcare guarantees huge numbers of Democrat voters indefinitely. It is unique in that its effectiveness increases exponentially with hard times; which gives even more reason for the Democrat leaders to wreck as much chaos, havoc, pain and suffering onto the nation as possible.
Call the entire process ugly if you like, but the truth of the matter requires specifics that leave no doubt.
We have a nation where over half of the voters are dirt stupid being manipulated by politicians that think nothing is wrong with stealing pennies off of their dead grand mothers eyes.
“Ugly” isn’t the word; nor is, “I’m sorry, we didn’t realize that he was whatever..”
With amnesty for illegal Hispanics, high taxes, super high inflation, cap and trade, high unemployment, home foreclosures, extremist Islamic terrorism, nuclear Iran versus the little giant Israel and “24 / 7 of let me be clear about how great that I am” set to bring in the new year we will see if next year at this time people still want to ho-hum what is going on as an “Ugly Process.”
“This week our government chose social justice over liberty. We will get neither.”
Liberty is something you can have. Social justice is not possible. Believing in the impossible and denying human nature is a prerequisite to being a liberal, as is denying the laws of economics.
The equality part of this will also never happen. Some people will always live within a stones throw of the world’s finest specialists, while others may have to drive a long distance to reach a well-equipped hospital. Some will be able to fly cross country to avail themselves of the one medical center using a brand new technique; others will have to wait till the training and equipment makes its way through the whole medical system. There will always be some patients who have difficulty giving their medical history and who receive sub-optimal care because they didn’t tell the doctor something important.
The liberty part also means flexibility. Not every patient is the same. Not every medical center sees the same type of patients. There is simply not one size for all, but liberals think they will be able to serve the people with a catalogue of petites. The good ideas that come from treating real people will dry up.
The last attribute, fraternity, is often overlooked. It too is important. Think of all the people who put their change in the boxes for Ronald McDonald houses. Think of the neighbors who babysit while a mother is seeing a doctor or visiting someone hospitalized. Think of relatives who stay with a sick family member so the primary caregiver can have a fews hours out of the house or church members who bring dinner to a family during a crisis. No bureaucrat can replace these people. Families, neighborhoods, communities are not given their due by the world savers.
Back in FDR’s day, the “liberals” were calling themselves “progressives”, a term they discarded in favor of “liberal” about 1934-35 after they had made “progressive” a by-word and a hissing, as E.E. “Doc” Smith would say.
This was about the same time that they were quietly folding their tents on the subject of “eugenics theory”, that had been their previous “initiative” on public health.
Today, they want to be called “progressives” again, having spent the years from the end of World War Two to the end of Bill Clinton’s reign making the term “liberal” stink on ice.
And they are trying to practice the same sort of “selective” care of the lame, halt, etc., as they did under “eugenics”, with the excuse this time being “the government knows best who deserves what care”. With the corollary that if you disagree, they can fine or jail you for not toeing the mark.
No matter what they call themselves, “liberal” or “progressive”, they are anything but. And ultimately, all their “policy initiatives” have one goal in mind.
Giving them the ultimate power over everyone else. The power to decide who lives, and who dies.
As to why they want it, I leave that as an exercise for the reader.
clear ether
eon
“Have Americans decided that liberty is passé, and that equality and fraternity — or the pretense of both — are far more important?”
The kind of “equality” advertised by the Obamaites does not lead to fraternity, and indeed cannot coexist with it.
Antoine de St-Expuery: “If you would have them be brothers, have them build a tower. But if you would have them hate each other, throw them corn”
The truly tragic part of this health care debacle is the dearth of common sense in Washington. Instead of merely creating a small pilot program to cover the estimated 31 million Americans without health insurance, we get a massive (and massively unpopular and unecessarily expensive) effort to cover everyone.
Someone has to start saying to the left, “Life isn’t fair. Stop wasting our money trying to make it fair, it can’t work.” and keep saying it until it sinks in.
Here is the result of my first attempting to post.
“1. Tom Perkins:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
“This week our government chose social justice over liberty. We will get neither.”
Liberty is something you can have. Social justice is not possible. Believing in the impossible and denying human nature is a prerequisite to being a liberal, as is denying the laws of economics.
Dec 26, 2009 – 5:21 am”
I hit submit exactly once, and it said I tried to do it twice. And not the post is gone. WTF?
Nevermind, I give up. Maybe if I clear the cache, things will stop acting screwing…
…@!~#$%^…
posts coming and going w/o rhyme or reason.
All we are saaying is
give us our piece of the pie
or you will die;
See line four of
the French version.
It is not that TPTB
_want_ to crash the system;
They think it is going to happen,
and after the bottom layers of
the Tower of Power are ground off
against the pavement, they will still
be perched on the peak; Silly them.
Dear Neo Neocon,
Thank you for your article but there is a major flaw in your position; you actually believe (correct me if I’m wrong) in libertarianism. Which doesn’t work. Just as communism/socialism have been proven to be failures (by countries like the USSR, China, and India), libertarianism has also been proven to be a failure by Mexico. That countries’ regulation of business is mostly a joke and where it isn’t, it can easily be bought off. So if libertarianism actually worked Mexico should be a growing economy and have very little poverty. Well it is a growing economy but most of it’s citizens (that don’t illegally immigrate here) are poor. So much for libertarianism being the answer.
To bring my post back to health care I have a question for you. If you really want the government out of health care as much as possible, are you in favor of disbanding Medicare and repealing universal access to emergency room care?
It is astounding that the seemingly trivial differences between the emblems of American and French revolution created such utterly divergent outcomes. Because of their statist mindset, Revolutionary France launched in a bloodbath of terror designed to exterminate those corrupting non-fraternal non-equal aspects of their civilization. But one elite was simply seizing power from another, the dysfunctionality of one supplanting that of the other. This cemented their trajectory toward the slag heap of history.
Obama’s poisonous homily about everyman America “clinging to their guns and bibles” showed his (Frenchlike) historic contempt for the peasants in whom our Founder’s placed all their aspirations. The French too never trusted their peasantry, and have reaped centuries of decay and decline from First Nation to Whoe of Babylon. This what our Modern Aristocrats are forging today (both Left and Right) as they ignore the Will of everyman America from illegal immigrants, exploding deficits, cap and trade, globalization, Islamic Jihad, and healthcare.
At this year’s end I fervently wish to see the American Everyman reassert his Rightful Place of Primacy over those who would pose as Citizens but rule as tyrants. America will renew her pact and become new again or follow France into twilight under the New Regime.
A few weeks back I had the opportunity to visit a truly Socialist Community, and as the left has pointed out the leadership had truly provided for the residents needs, to include health care, environmental needs, a diet fitting the groups needs, transportation, residential, and a host of other amenities. However due to approaching nightfall, visitors where asked to leave, lights where turned off, security began patrols, and ZOO staff left.
Very good sir, your clarification of the division of political polarities today may well be the result of too much peace and abundance. I have particularly enjoyed the debate as to weither health care is a right or a priviledge.
It would seem that if our elected officials were truely interested in the health and productivity of its citizens, they would issue gym memberships and food police. It would cost less than breaking the insurance companies. “Justice” seems to be the means to rig political power under the flag of property redistribution.
Any wingnutette or wingnut who wants to do business under a monniker like “Neo-Neocon” ought, I should think, to pay a little attention to character of that Juggernaut which she has finally decided to hop aboard.
To the best of my recollection, Kristol Major and the other Venerable Framers of neoselfservatism (a.k.a the Hate-’68 Movement) were not interested in “social justice” one way or the other. Naturally they had to stop bein’ positively for SJ the way they used used to be while servin’ with the Fourth International, but they did not seem to feel any strong urge to prevent SJ from breakin’ out either. It was, after all, the distinctly palaeo Buckley Minor who proposed to interpose his body between the holy Homeland™ and Ms. Clio run amok. (Or somethin’ like that — IQFM.)
At the very top of the slippery slope, before the new factionette had degenerated even in the slightest, there was not even much noise about Liberty in the abstract, except _vis-à-vis_ _Weltbolschewismus_, a topic which the neoneocomrade’s above exuberances scarcely address. The flavour of snake oil that she relishes was available in 1970, but those who craved it did not often go to _The Public Interest_ or to _CommonTerror_ magazine (as it now is), to get their fix.
And even today, with change and decay and weeds and pond scum to be seen in every direction as one looks down steeply from the pinnacles of Castle Podhóretz, I can’t help wondering if this seeker would not find it more congenial in the long run to become a Dilbertarian[*] or Catoholic[**] instead of a neoselfservatrix.
(_Mais que scay-je_?)
Healthy days.
___
[*] http://www.lp.org/
[**] http://www.cato.org/
OOOOOKKKKKKK,
Choosing to health care reform and choosing to allow more Americans to access health care is somehow going to cost us all our freedom?
I think some people have alot more powder fall on their lives this christmas than legally allowed, including the author. Now, where did I put my shovel? … Happy Holidays.
Ask any ten random people if they agree with the notion of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” and a majority will say yes, they agree. This is not a generalization. I have done it many times. The results are no longer shocking. These are largely the same people who when asked cannot tell you the names of the vice president, the speaker of the house, or the secretary of state. But ask them who hosts American Idol, and they are right on top of it. They are products of government schools. Is it any wonder they haven’t a clue as to the concept and value of liberty?
Charity at gunpoint, isn’t.
“libertarianism has also been proven to be a failure by Mexico. That countries’ regulation of business is mostly a joke and where it isn’t, it can easily be bought off.”
If you have to pay off corrupt officials, then it isn’t libertarianism in the slightest…
Something happened. I don’t like it. Our way of life is being destroyed. We’re all gonna die. So we need to elect all conservatives. That way WE can do exactly what THEY are doing now (and what WE did before)! It’s the American Way!
Oh Hosannah . . . sindy liny asala poktoo . . . hozzy baba nondalay doomta
Hail Rush, Go Sarah!
@19 Poor Citizen
“Choosing to health care reform and choosing to allow more Americans to access health care is somehow going to cost us all our freedom?”
It will cost us 1/6 of our economic freedom at a stroke, and the evil precedent admits of no limit. It is totalitarian in outlook, unneeded, ill done in this specific bill, and alternative approaches exist to the problem which might actually be effective and more preserving of liberty.
But they don’t give the Democrats/government more power, or politicians more opportunity to profit politically.
JR Dogman,
As always thank you for your post. In answer to your question, no we cannot afford what the left wants (a completely socialized health care system). But also we cannot afford what the right wants (the status quo or just ‘tort reform’).
You’ve stated that you believe that we live in a welfare state. I disagreed. So lets take a moment to look precisely at what the federal government spends our money on. In 2010 the federal government will spend the following portion of the federal budget on three programs. Medicare/Medicaid 23%, Social Security 21%, and Defense 21%. http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2010/assets/hist.pdf
http://www.gao.gov/cghome/d08446cg.pdf
Collectively that’s 2/3 of the federal budget. Within 20 years (if nothing changes) those numbers rise to 3/4 of the federal budget. I’m sorry but there is no cradle to grave entitlements there. Over 80% of everyone who can work, does. And almost 90% of those who don’t work lost their jobs in the Great Recession.
But for the sake of argument lets say that Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security constitute a welfare state; there are two strategies to remedy those problems. Fix the problems with the systems (mandate universal coverage, insure universal competition, and allow the federal government to negotiate prices for it’s purchases / increase the SS tax 1.5 percent and increase the retirement age 2 years) or disband Medicare and Social Security. The second option is what you’re implying you prefer (correct me if I’m wrong) but your party can’t endorse that position because almost all senior citizens support those programs and 75% of your party are senior citizens (or soon will be).
One point you are absolutely correct about is that if nothing is done our country will go bankrupt.
P.S. I responded to your questions in the last article we debated on.
Thank You
If it isn’t too much to ask, I would like to wake up one morning and not find some fresh assault on my property, liberty and health by an out of control, increasingly tyrannical government, using my own tax dollars to beat me over the head with the latest cause de jour, while exempting themselves from the same. If they could cut that back to something like every other day, then I can maybe suppress the occasional murderous impulse for a bit longer.
“libertarianism has also been proven to be a failure by Mexico. That countries’ regulation of business is mostly a joke and where it isn’t, it can easily be bought off.”
If you have to pay off corrupt officials, then it isn’t libertarianism in the slightest…”
Mexico is not even close to being a libertarian country. A free market economy cannot exist unless the rule of law is in place. It is inherently impossible. We are also in danger of getting to that point. Leftist justices merely pay lip service to the law and often decide cases on the desired outcome they wish to reach.
The Republican message for the elections of 2010 should be this: we cannot continue to steal from each other and survive as a nation. God help the nation when many of its citizens believe they are morally justified in demanding unearned goodies from their legislators.
I have to agree (rarely) with Mr Independent (to numbers 24 and 25 respectively.
Even some of the most remote right wingers (t party exception) admit that the environment and health care..are two issues to be addressed. After all, it took so many of the old right soldiers twenty years to accept medicare and social security…including kikin and screaming…and change..(no pun intended).
And as for number 24 (specifically). What we have spent in the last year in tax credits, war and in the Bush originated TARP (stimulus) and foreign aid…has almost quadrupled what this congress has authorised for health care…FOR OUR OWN CITIZENS..for the next year…
think about that ok?..
Wake up severe right, support something… Wake up Left… we cannot afford another war.. unless its a war against our own suffering…
Bless You all and Bless the United States of America
Look where poltically-correct “social justice” policies get us:
“Hopes Wane as Zimbabwe Farm Mayhem Spreads,” by AP, NYT, 25 DEC 09
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/25/world/AP-AF-Zimbabwe-Bleak-Land.html
God help us all– left/liberal Democrats are content to rule over a squalid tyranny just because THEY are in charge.
‘Twas always thus:
“It is socialism. It moves the country in a direction which is not good for anyone, whether they be young or old. It charts a course from which there will be no turning back.”
—Senator Carl Curtis (R-NE), in 1965, opposing Medicare
“The doctor begins to lose freedoms; it’s like telling a lie, and one leads to another. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren’t equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can’t live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.”
—Ronald Reagan, in 1961, arguing against the creation of Medicare
It’s not that libertarianism doesn’t work in general, but that libertarianism doesn’t work when people are unwilling to govern themselves. If you don’t want others to tell you how to live your life, you must make sure your free actions do not harm their persons or property, else they will restrain you by whatever means appropriate.
For that matter, communism works just fine when participation is voluntary and the commune lives by the principle, “He who will not work, let him not eat.” As long as the people retain freedom of movement and freedom of speech, the community will either survive as a group of willing members, or else it will dissolve. This is why the Christian Communes of Rome worked, and why secular communism doesn’t.
#28 Poor Fulk say: “After all, it took so many of the old right soldiers twenty years to accept medicare and social security…”
They should have stuck to their guns. Both of these ponzi schemes are going broke. These programs need to be ended by substituting better programs. But since so many have already paid so much into them they need to be phased out gradually. Perhaps some form of tax-free endowment of investments might do a better job. Naturally those with their greedy little paws out to the so-called government (now a wannabe charity) would oppose such a change.
“Social Justice” is the attempt to achieve a just society apart from God’s definition of justice that is based on the Ten Commandments. Specifically, the Commandments forbid lies, coveting and theft. Therefore a socialist economy is directly contrary to those Commandments.
It is common to claim, “no justice, no peace”. Yet the very people who seek peace through justice, are happy to seek it by seizing the property of those whose wealth they don’t approve of, and to justify such a seizure by telling the rest of of lies about the right to property as well as how beneficially the loot will be used.
Lev 19:11 You shall not steal, nor lie, nor be deceitful to one another.
Lev 19:15 You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment. You shall not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty; but you shall judge your neighbor in righteousness.
The left is quick to complain about businessmen who lie and cheat, yet they find it easy to achieve their secular Utopia through the same means. They cannot find peace and there is no justice in the world they seek to create.
David Thomson,
Re: post #27, you don’t know what your writing about. The Webster’s dictionary defines libertarianism as “the maximization of individual liberty and the minimization or even abolition of the state”. In economic terms that mean the only good regulation is no regulation. Excluding energy, that’s Mexico’s economy. Their government’s regulation of business is mostly non-existent. And contrary to what you may think, corruption acts as a regulation eliminator. So Mexico should be a REB paradise with a fast growing economy and very little poverty but instead most of it’s citizens are very poor. Sorry but libertarianism doesn’t work. BTW the Heritage Foundation lists Mexico as the 3rd most libertarian country in Latin America.
http://www.heritage.org/Index/country/Mexico
On your assertion that “A free market economy cannot exist unless the rule of law is in place” how then do you explain China? The rule of law in China is not subject to any constitution but to the ruling party. Capitalism is working there.
The REB message in 2010 should be to expand your tent beyond white, male, seniors. Not because there’s anything wrong with those people (there isn’t) but because that is not a demographic that a national party can exist on. Unless you want the REBs to go the way of the Whigs.
Finally, I noticed you didn’t answer my question from my post that you commented on. Are you in favor of disbanding Medicare and denying universal access to emergency room care?
myth buster,
Thank you for you post. I have a few questions. Can you name any modern communist/socialist country that has not been a failure? If not then doesn’t that history suggest that C/S doesn’t work. Also, can you name any modern libertarian country that has not been a failure. And if not, then doesn’t that history suggest that libertarianism doesn’t work?
Poor Citizen,
Thank you for your post. I mostly agree with what you wrote but I disagree with one comment. While war is ultimately a failure of diplomacy, sometimes war is necessary. Yes the Iraq war is a TRILLION dollar (and counting) mistake but the war in Afghanistan is necessary. Our country found out the hard way what happens when your party and the REBs ignored Afghanistan in the 80‘s and 90‘s.
Neo:
Nice work! Same goes for most of the rest. We have hope when men will stand for the truth and deal in righteousness with each other. The greatest adherent to free will and liberty has always been the Heavenly Father Himself having always said to man from the beginning ‘you must choose between right and wrong, good and evil’. Our destinies depend upon our personal choices.
Now more than ever we have governments of men willing to make choices for us. These same men unable to even control their own appetites and lusts yet never the less seek to control others. This is a fool’s errand to be sure. Worse is their visible corruption and worse yet the thought that they are somehow immune to the consequences of their actions. It is said “come out of her my people that you may not be partakers of her sins and receive not of her plagues” Judgement is coming quickly for the fools(get away from the point of impact as soon as possible). Have they not been warned? Have they not seen it? Their blood will be on their own heads not those who have tried to warn them. Their destruction is coming from the Most High Judge and no one can prevent it unless they choose to change in the way He has prescribed from the beginning.
Free to choose life or death as it has been for all time.
Choice has consequences. The evidence is all around us.
What morality or “social justice” is at issue because of J.K. Rowling’s wealth that came from her unique talents, talents that have earned her about $1 billion. Her wealth has nothing to do with how poor anyone else is. Or wealthy for that matter. The difference in levels of wealth, a factor that so many love to amplify as if the ratio indicates something evil is at work in the economy, is nonsense.
The answer I get when I test this question in various ways with friends who fret about income inequality, is to say, well, er, um, I wasn’t really talking about people like Rowling
But people who are fixated on the issue of “income disparity” or “inequality” are happy to give people like Rowling a pass. Likewise, they will give actor Brad Pitt, the members of the Rolling Stones rock group (whose Big Bang Tour that ran from 2005-2007 grossed $558 million), media tycoon Oprah (whose net worth is estimated at $1.4 billion), or basketball star Michael Jordan (who earned an estimated $37 million in 2007 alone) passes as well. Who then is the target of such worries about “disparity” and “inequality” and how is their worry expressed?
In his article, Meet the Wealth Gap, published in the June 30, 2008 edition of the Nation1, author Gabriel Thompson wrote of “Perez”, an illegal Mexican working as a bicycle food delivery worker for a deli on the East Side of Manhattan. He makes cash income of $20 per day plus tips. The article contrasted his income with the extraordinary levels of wealth of the executives of the financial firms located in the glass skyscrapers he was making deliveries to.
That same issue published a web article, Extreme Inequality: A Nation Guide, More information about our extremely unequal world–and to help advance the struggle for a more equal future.
By default, the only people who are not given a pass on the issue of disparity or inequality are those in business, and in particular those at the very top, such as Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). Again, in the department of handing out passes, we don’t see any worry being expressed about how little any of the stage crew, the gaffers, painters, carpenters and other craftsmen who work on the set of a Brad Pitt movie are paid, and we don’t every hear of anyone complaining about the ratio of pay between those unloading the band equipment from the truck and how much Mick Jagger will make for his performance. But strangely instead we do see such ratios frequently being cited in the case of private businesses.
It is not that I don’t want people who presently work as janitors to be able to make as much as Brad Pitt, or Oprah, or Michael Jordan. I myself worked as a janitor once in my life. But I know that basic economic forces are what determines the value of everyone’s work. The author of the article in The Nation went on to suggest how to fix it:
“One simple step to mitigate income inequality would be to raise the earnings of workers like Perez”
He then goes on to talk about the idea of a “living wage”. If the labor market is flooded by hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of illegal immigrants like Perez, how will employers choose which one to hire when government forces them to pay that one new employee a far higher wage? But wait! The very reason that Perez and his millions of fellow Mexicans came to the US, and are earning a pitiful wage, is exactly because of government’s failure to enforce national borders. Yet those who lament their plight will surely call upon government to enforce a new law about a higher wage. Had the border law been enforced, Perez would not be in Manhattan and those who sympathize with his plight would not be coveting the wealth of the business people Perez delivers lunch to. But basic economics tells us that Perez thinks his present circumstances, as pitiful as they are, are better than where he came from, or else he would be trying very hard to return.
But, let us not get bogged down in Perez’s specific problems. The broader issue in the minds of many is the disparity in incomes. They imply such disparity is a moral issue that must be addressed, as if the rich only gained wealth at the expense of the poor. And when suggestions are made to make things right, they always somehow involve coveting the income of others, seizing it and redistributing it, always by using government’s power to force people to comply.
We often hear the lament, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, as if this was only a bad thing. When a person is so poor they get enough to buy a meal by picking up soft drink can along the side of the road, and when such people sleep under bridges, how can you get any “poorer”. So, clearly there is a bottom to poverty, that being no income, no job, no possessions. Are those who sleep under bridges getting poorer? That would be hard to do. Conversely are the rich getting richer? When a good vocalist could only wow one theater full at a time, he could only make so much money. With the advent of recordings, he could wow everyone who bought his recordings. If that were not enough, with the advent of radio and television, he can now wow everyone on earth and earn a gazillion dollars. This is exactly how people like Mick Jagger “get richer”. But we give people like Madonna, Oprah and Mick a pass, so who are the people who “get richer” and it is considered to be a bad thing?
Those who lament disparity in income are, I think, attempting to enable denial of some basic, God-given facts about the human condition. The most important is the fact that people are born with different talents, abilities, strengths and weaknesses. Some people are born with attributes that, at a given time, are worth a lot in the marketplace. Some people are born with no such abilities, or even are born with disabilities that prevent them from having any economic worth. It is my opinion that when we see lamenting about income disparity, we are seeing a confusing of economic worth with human worth. This is bolstered, again in my opinion, when the idea is advanced that the poor are somehow more noble than those who aren’t poor. This confusion would not be so bad, except the remedy for it will always involve either taking from highly productive people or even destroying the incentives to be highly productive. Worse, the remedy is just a futile denial of the facts of being human.
Jesus warned us that we would always have poor people (Matthew 26:11). But not a single thing He said justified stealing from those who lawfully attained wealth in an attempt to elevate the poor. Indeed, in other scriptures, having wealth was considered to be a blessing from God.
Do such well-meaning people know what damage they will do to our future prosperity and even to our safety and health should their schemes to redistribute incomes be allowed to go into effect? It appears that some of them are so fixated and almost ashamed that some people can make a lot of money while others can’t they are willing to destroy our economy to repair it.
The simple truth is that you cannot make a poor person rich by making a rich person poor.
(from the draft of book on economics for Christians)
Mr. Independant,
Re your post to the author, #14, “there is a major flaw in your position; you actually believe (correct me if I’m wrong) in libertarianism. … If you really want the government out of health care as much as possible, are you in favor of disbanding Medicare and repealing universal access to emergency room care?” I think you are setting up a straw man. Here is why:
Belief in smaller government does not mean belief in *no* government; it simply means belief in a smaller FEDERAL government, in favor of more responsible STATE and LOCAL governments.
In short, those in favor of limited government favor federalism. They do so because history and logic support their conviction that the more local government is, the more responsive it is to its constituents’ needs (not least of which is that their elected officials be prudent with their tax dollars).
As for Medicare, I am sure Neoneocon, and most others of her political bent, shares my view (or holds a similar view) of the matter, which can be summarized as follows:
1) Medicare is going bankrupt and so does not function as it is presently organized; YET
2) Medicare took a great many people’s money and so doing made those people a promise to provide them care when they reached a certain age; THEREFORE,
3) To the best of our ability as a nation, we must fund Medicare to honor its (and thus our) obligations to our senior citizens who paid into the program in the belief that its benefits would be theirs when they most needed them; HOWEVER,
4) Point (1) still stands, thus Medicare *as presently configured* MUST be dismantled and restructured so that it works, i.e., so that it can cover the cost of the services it provides without going deeper and deeper into the red.
Also, re “libertarianism has also been proven to be a failure by Mexico”, that statistic you posted re the libertarian character of Mexico was corrected the other day by another poster. Mexico does *not* represent a failed experiment with libertarianism; Mexico represents, and clearly is, a failure due to corruption and lawlessness.
Support for libertarian principles of limited government — i.e., for more local government as aforesaid — does not entail contempt for the rule of law. In fact, just the opposite is true. To illustrate, I leave you a quote from the world’s (known) tallest female economist, Megan McArdle, who puts it as well as I ever possibly could:
“Libertarians are process people, something that our political opponents find impossible to believe can be real, rather than disingenuous. So when I say that I think Lawrence v. Texas might be the right result morally but the wrong result legally, it must be that I secretly want sodomy to be illegal, or at the very least don’t care. Or when I am troubled by government intervening in the Chrysler bankruptcy process, it’s because I hate unions. And of course, when I am against post-hoc legal judgments against bankers or their bonuses, it’s just because I’m an apologist for rich people.
But to a libertarian, process matters. Having a good process is better than getting a good outcome, because a good process is one that maximizes your chances of getting good outcomes over time.”
Link to her full post, which (like most of her posts) is worth reading in its entirety:
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/the_process_of_passing_health.php
“To bring my post back to health care I have a question for you. If you really want the government out of health care as much as possible, are you in favor of disbanding Medicare and repealing universal access to emergency room care?”
Not a good argument: Everyone on medicare pays $100.00 – $185.00 a month plus 20% of their bills. Under this bill 75 – 100 million people will pay nothing.
No Govt panel should get between you and your Doctor in making decisions about treatment. The term death panels is not a joke, it’s dead serious.
“the maximization of individual liberty and the minimization or even abolition of the state”
Libertarians are not anarchists. Von Mises, Hayek, Friedman, and countless others believe in the minimal state able to handle its severely restricted duties. A free market is simply incapable without the rule of law—and the fact you might find an occasional so-called libertarian who thinks otherwise does not change anything.
China is not a per se capitalist country. It adheres to a corporatist model that allows only a certain degree of economic freedom. This country has far more in common with Mussolini’s Italy than Reagan style capitalist America. I also doubt very much if any businessperson can survive in China without paying out enormous bribes. The very poor also have a difficult time to improve their lives because a thriving economic system requires more political freedom than the government will presently allow.
“Are you in favor of disbanding Medicare and denying universal access to emergency room care?”
It will take decades to wean people away from Medicare. The damage has already occurred and many Americans are stuck in this relationship whether they like it or not. A decent society must allow free access to emergency health care. Who says anything to the contrary? You seemingly have a very bad habit of a finding some whack job and using this rare individual to buttress your case against Libertarians.
“Finally, I noticed you didn’t answer my question from my post that you commented on. Are you in favor of disbanding Medicare and denying universal access to emergency room care”
I’ll answer: yes on disbanding Medicare, but gradually, and in conjunction with a transition to an expanded and freer private insurance system; hospitals should be free to treat whomever they wish and should expect to get paid for treatment they provide–patients without insurance can work out payment plans and/or apply for loans for medical treatment and, with a privatized insurance market with no mandates, real competition, and high deductibles, catastrophic health insurance should be within everyone’s reach. If there are very few who still can’t afford it, we can speak about government subsidies for them. Plus a lot of other changes that can make health care more affordable–more doctors, more health care providers other than doctors, etc.
@ Mr. Independant #34-36
Mexico is not libertarian in any sense, as in order to be free, government officials need plomo y plumbo. If you don’t know what that means, I suggest you have no idea what you are talking about, as is largely already in evidence. Mexico, for example, leaves out “the maximization of individual liberty”, and in no sense is the state absent.
I suspect instead it merely doesn’t have or enforce either regulations of which you do not approve, but which we have; or which you feel–in true globalist totalitarian fashion–are regulations by which everyone should be made to live, in order to “level the playing field”.
I’m not certain yet what your flavor of thinking is, but you certainly do not know what libertarian is in any sense, if you think Mexico meets the definition.
The problem is the adjective. Social justice, racial justice, economic justice and the like have nothing to do with justice and everything to do with using government power to advance a political position. Those urging racial justice don’t want a post racial society, they want a society based on advancing the cause of certain “victim” groups that must eventually institutionalize racism, although in a different direction. The fans of economic justice aren’t interested in justice but in endlessly trying to distribute wealth in a “fair” manner. And the people who want social justice don’t want justice at all, they want the equitable distribution of injustice so all may suffer fairly.
Mr Independant,
Mexico, libertarian? Please. Third most libertarian in Latin America? That is about equivalent to the third most libertarian country in the Warsaw Pact. When compared to Castro’s Cuba or Chavez’ Venezuela, China could be considered libertarian. And wannabes like Bolivia, Ecuador and Brazil aren’t any better. Mexico has an all pervasive government which limits private ownership of land, totally controls the energy sector and has extensive national police power. The only thing that is libertarian about Mexico is governmental gridlock caused by the collapse of the PRI. With the extreme left PRD, the lefty PRI and the centrist PAN all about equally represented in Congress, there is a disagreement on which citizen to oppress but little doubt that oppression is a valid governmental policy.
ok I got a winner here no. 32 Freddie Baloot or somethin…
Fred, lets get this one correct ok. Me, working man,ok? Medicare and more importantly social security were not ponzi schemes, they, (unlike your company most likely) have been vital to 90+ percent of you our young and older people getting the medical care they need. Obviously, you have no worry, cuz you… sir, have a mental excemtion from everything due to your thinking. Anyway, make no mistake, these health care reforms are necessary and vital, no matter what the left or the right say. Stick with history son… get some belief… cuz we dont need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows.. Happy New Year !!
Perhaps too many Americans today have grown accustomed to the blessings of liberty, and do not feel it to be threatened.
More likely, it is domestic tranquility, rather (or at least more so) than the blessings of liberty that we have grown too accustomed to. It is possible to dislodge the creeping tyranny, but perhaps only at such terrible cost in lives, property, economic ruin, social disruption and other attendant hardship that many reasonable folks will decide it’s just not worth it. If that’s the case, the Left’s ultimate triumph will have been in successfully making itself “too big to fail”.
Perhaps there is no way to transmit that original fierce love of liberty to succeeding generations who have not personally felt the pain of its absence.
This has occurred to me too. As cruelly ironic (not to mention counter-intuitive) as it sounds, maybe the only way to keep alive the wisdom of the Founding Fathers is to bid goodbye to the Founding Fathers themselves. As wise as they were, at the end of the day they still lived in our distant past, which, as Shakespeare (IIRC) once put it, might as well be a foreign country. Maybe each generation really does have to discover these ideas for themselves de novo, within the context of their own lives and times, (almost) as though the Founding Fathers never even existed.
Neo Neocon
you must have got it right since you have a troll plague thing happening.
to the others stop trying to reason with trolls, they are morally bankrupt and will be your future jailers.
“Have You Given Up On Freedom”, or a similar question I ask on my Freedom Corners’ signs. Americans will yell at their TVs, but few are willing to get off their couches and do something on a routine basis. We at the Patriots Corner Club are trying to engage Americans from our busy street corners to take back our nation.
Liberty was taking a death of 1000 cuts, but Obama’s tsunami of freedom limiting legislation may eventually awaken most Americans, but will it be too late as with Venezuela. Remember “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”. Many good men and women are doing nothing and for that we all will suffer.
No. 1. JR Dogman:
We don’t have to wonder what happens when a government spends three generations spending more and more to solve the problem of supporting a voracious public sector that finally drives the private sector that supports it out of business. The answer was “Libertie, Egalitie, Fraternity,” which was the middle class’s answer to being squeezed into bankruptcy by the Bourbons who spiralled their way into public bankruptcy. When they chopped the head off the Sun King’s great grand son, and that of his Austrian Bride, M. Antoinette, the fiction that the Bourbons would ever repay their bets ended. The same thing happened when the Romanovs went down. Each revolution and debt repudiation was followed by a generation of war. I do not know what happened to the Stuarts debts when Charles I tasted the ax, but I doubt Oliver Cromwell honored his debts. Did Charles II make them good?
Bottom line is the historical model is repudiation followed by a generation’s worth of war, or more. This is what the proponents of a false social justice are serving up for us. It is small consolation to know that the greedy, guilty proponents of societal bankrupcty, mostly because they hate the poor and minorities, will be the first to pay the ultimate price for their evil.
Those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it.
neo good article.
“Perhaps there is no way to transmit that original fierce love of liberty to succeeding generations who have not personally felt the pain of its absence”
you are right,this current soft crop will be beaten into shape by the intrusion of reality.
1.dogman:”thoughts”
my thought is:if the situation looks too dire we all pull a ‘cloward piven’ and bring this beast down.only to be used as the “nuclear option” of course.
18.jhm:ah..sure buddy.
14.mr. independent:i gotta know how you came up with that gem.
42.adam:amen.
45.poor moron:”Medicare and more importantly social security were not ponzi schemes,”
http://www.sec.gov/answers/ponzi.htm
“the Ponzi scheme continues to work on the “rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul” principle, as money from new investors is used to pay off earlier investors until the whole scheme collapses. ”
you’re welcome.
JR Dogman,
Thank you for your response. Actually I’m not setting up a straw man. Many writers and posters on this website have stated a desire to completely dismantle Medicare. If you believe in libertarianism (specifically, what business is it of the government to be involved in health care) then I think it’s reasonable to ask if you think Medicare should be dismantled. Yes I understand that less government does not mean no government. But it’s disingenuous to say “I want government out of my health care and BTW leave my Medicare alone”. If you want government out of Healthcare, if you want your taxes to go down, you should be in favor of dismantling Medicare and government mandates on emergency room care. But your party doesn’t advocate that. I think because the REB leadership knows how popular Medicare is with seniors and seniors make up 75% of the REB party.
Now you’ve stated that you agree with me that Medicare is going bankrupt and it must be reformed; do you agree or disagree with my solutions (insuring universal coverage, universal competition, and legalizing the governments ability to negotiate for prices on it’s purchases) for reforming Medicare? Also I’m against a “public option” for non-minors and non-retirees.
Regarding my comment about Mexico, actually I made a typographical error which I corrected. The Heritage Foundation does list Mexico as the third most libertarian country in Latin America. http://www.heritage.org/Index/country/Mexico
Additionally Mexico is not a failure just because of corruption and lawlessness, otherwise it wouldn’t be the 10th or 11th largest economy in the world. It’s an excellent example of how libertarianism does not work. It’s economy has been growing by leaps and bounds but most of it’s citizens are very poor. The ideas that our the embodiment of economic libertarianism exist in practice if not on paper in Mexico. What I mean by that is officially Mexico has very little regulation of business (excluding the energy sector) and where it does regulate business, that regulation is a joke. Corruption acts as a regulation eliminator. Ask yourself, does it make sense for someone to bride a government official to regulate them more?
Anyway I’m very much interested in your responses. Also I responded to the last comments you made in the last article we debated on, I’m interested to those responses as well.
Thank You
Excuse me, all you intellectuals, when the French originally said Equality they meant just that, equality under the law which didn’t exist in a feudal class structured society. They were not advocating Communism. Nor were our founding fathers conservatives, the cons then were the Tories. Finally, our FFs were not fighting against big government, the government of England was so sparse in the colonies up to the actual war, that it hardly numbered over a 1000 English bureaucrats.
The Founding Fathers have become the right’s favorite sock puppet.
to the others stop trying to reason with George S, he is morally bankrupt and is prolly a jailer by trade.
Mr.Independent…
You wrote that Mexico is a libertarian state, and its failure means that libertarian ideas don’t work. Mexico is #49 in Heritage list on Economic Freedom (you’ve been using this list yourself some days ago), and nearly all countries on the list above Mexico have higher living standards than Mexico. If libertarian phylosophy were wrong, that would not have have happened, right? Which means your main argument is wrong.
David Thomson,
Thank you for your response. I know most libertarians are not anarchists; I was simply stating how Webster’s dictionary defines libertarianism. Now you made an interesting comment, “A free market is simply incapable without the rule of law”. OK but then the question is, what can best enforcer for the rule of law? Unlike what your probably think, I am not in favor of socialism or any form of that ideology. I do not want the government managing business (like Chrysler) but the government must regulate businesses. You see one of the few things that government can do well is police work. That work has many forms: law-enforcement, national defense, intelligence, and economic regulation. Regulation not management. I happen to believe that the decentralization of power is essential to a working democracy. Multiple branches of government, multiple political parties, private ownership of business, and organized (non-governmental) labor. Business cannot regulate themselves. Government cannot run business. So private enterprise must be privately owned and the government must regulate business. Libertarianism in practice and in theory can’t do that.
On China you’re half right. China is transforming into the model of Mussolini’s Italy but what you don’t (seem) to understand, is that capitalism is completely separate from democracy. Capitalism can exist in the absence of democracy just like democracy can exist in the absence of capitalism.
On Medicare I don’t understand your position. If you want the government out of health care, one of the easiest ways to accomplish that is to dismantle Medicare. If you (and your party, if you’re a REB) don’t want to do that, isn’t that disingenuous and hypocritical? On emergency room care what you also (seem) to not understand, is that the uninsured are responsible for health care inflation because of their access to the emergency room. Here’s how it goes: someone without health insurance doesn’t seek medical care for a small medical problem (like diabetes) and that small problem becomes a big problem and that big problem goes to the emergency room and racks up $100,000 in medical bills. The person without health insurance can’t pay that bill and so you and I and everyone else with health insurance does. There are at least 37 million Americans (and 6-12 million illegals) who are using our health care system this way and if not fixed will bankrupt all of us. So either we all have to contribute or universal access to emergency room care must end. I’m in favor universal coverage.
I think it was Winston Churchill who said that the word “social,” when used as an adjective, meant that it negated the noun that it modified. As in, “social worker” meant people who did no work.
He was right.
As an intellectual exercise, apply that lesson to the term “social justice.”
Mr.Independent:
“Regarding my comment about Mexico, actually I made a typographical error which I corrected.”
Actually, I remember it was me who corrected your error – and it ws easy to do, since I knew your post could not be right on Mexico. So, please, don’t forget the facts so quickly.
And as for Latin America – would you care to name a single country in Latin America which is more free than Mexico, and yet has lower living conditions? Can you? If not, please speculate on why not.
To 14. Mr. Independant
What planet do you live on to believe mexico is even remotely “libertarian”… mexico is a text book picture of a failed socialist state. Its now trying to rebuild itself and get back into power.
Mexico has alot of regulations… you even admit this by the statement
“That countries’ regulation of business is mostly a joke and where it isn’t, it can easily be bought off.”
and
“Their government’s regulation of business is mostly non-existent. And contrary to what you may think, corruption acts as a regulation eliminator.”
The problem is you don’t understand the difference between enforcement and regulation. Corruption can act as a regulation ENFORCEMENT eliminator not as a regulation eliminator…
Enforcement of regulations is hugely different then regulations themselves. One of the hallmarks of a socialist state is large amounts of regulations without or selective enforcement of regulations(ie need to pay bribes to run a business).
Other hallmark clues that mexico is a socialist country are
1. A complete ban on weapons.(socialist/collectivist countries don’t want the individual to have any power or threaten the state)
2. Heavily limited freedoms such as speech.
3. Massive state run programs…
4. Defined group of “elites” which control most everything.
Do you really know anything about mexico or mexico’s history or are you just reposting some talking points?
A simple and easy way to explain libertarianism is thats what the US had for about the first 50 years the country was formed…
adam,
Thank you for your post. Re: post #42, believe it or not I’m in agreement with you in theory on Medicare. Unfortunately, reality tells me that the overwhelming majority of seniors (which is 75% of the REB party) are very supportive of Medicare. Seniors are the most powerful voting block in this country. Very little can be done in this country that’s contrary to their wishes.
Now on your answer about emergency room care I’d like to point out that hospitals and patients are already free to work out payment plans and/or apply for loans for medical treatment. If the uninsured cannot afford to spend a few hundred dollars a month for health insurance what makes you think they can afford a $100,000 emergency room bill?
Competition will only work if everyone is contributing. There will already be 6-12 million illegals not doing so. No Americans should be allowed to add to that burden. And then there’s the problem with the government (i.e. the tax payer) overpaying for health care purchases. With everyone (or at least all Americans) insured and with universal competition (with no “public option“) health care inflation should stop and eventually reverse. The question is, can the federal budget wait for the outside marketplace without receiving the same discounts that Aetna, BlueCross, and Human receive.
35. Of course modern communist societies always fail, because they set up the state as a god. It is this blasphemy, and the lack of respect for individual integrity, that becomes their undoing. An Israeli kibbutz, on the other hand, may or may not be prosperous, but its inhabitants are content, or else they leave. I cannot speak to libertarianism for want of examples.
Tom Perkins,
Re: post #43, actually Mexico is very much economically libertarian (except their energy sector). Again the Mexican government’s regulation of business is largely non-existent or a joke. In post #34 I wrote “The Webster’s dictionary defines libertarianism as “the maximization of individual liberty and the minimization or even abolition of the state”. In economic terms that means the only good regulation is no regulation.” If Mexico’s economy isn’t largely libertarian, then why is it’s economy the 10th or 11th largest in the world and the vast majority of it’s citizens so poor? I think that proves libertarianism doesn’t work. Just like the former USSR proved that communism doesn’t work.
BTW, I think the Spanish term you were looking for is plata y plomo? (not plumbo) It means silver and lead. La próxima vez que intente realmente el aprendizaje del español.
Ken Hahn,
Re: post #44, on paper my comment is accurate and I’m using the Heritage Foundation as sourcing for that comment. But for the sake of argument, lets say the Heritage Foundation’s assessment of Mexico is wrong; why then is Mexico’s economy the 10th or 11th largest economy in the world and the majority of it’s citizens so poor?
Our political culture has been so stewed in the juices of Marxism, that it cannot imagine any other definition of Social Justice, other than the forceable redistribution of wealth.
It’s interesting to note how the Catechism of the Catholic Church defines it, though:
1928: Society ensures social justice when it provides the conditions that allow associations or individuals to obtain what is their due, according to their nature and their vocation. Social justice is linked to the common good and the exercise of authority.
Note the conspicuous lack of any talk about redistribution. Only an appeal for a level playing field, so that people, singly or in associations, can obtain what they are due (which, for most, is what they work for.)
“I was simply stating how Webster’s dictionary defines libertarianism.”
I simply don’t give a damn that a few likely left-wingers associated with the Webster Dictionary project interpret mainstream libertarianism in such a bizarre matter. Human beings put together a dictionary. It is not a divinely inspired work.
I also have no problem with modest governmental regulation of businesses—but that’s not what we often have today. The leftists desire to micromanage the typical free enterprise entity to the point of absurdity. There is a sharp distinction to be made between modest and draconian regulations. You appear to be unable to appreciate this harsh fact.
“one of the easiest ways to accomplish that is to dismantle Medicare.”
That simply cannot be done overnight. Too many people are trapped in the present system. It will take a minimum of twenty years to undo the damage of Medicare. This is why one should never want such a wasteful program to ever begin. It does matter if they are downright awful. They are similar to snow running down the side of a mountain that turns into an avalanche.
“So either we all have to contribute or universal access to emergency room care must end. I’m in favor universal coverage.”
It is far more preferable to provide free emergency healthcare—and then deal appropriately with the user. Why is the illegal immigrant still in the country? It might behoove us to return this person back to their own country.
Universal health care will inevitably and exponentially increase the cost. It is similar to throwing gasoline on a small fire. “Free” does not exist. Human beings are innately selfish. It only takes a few who exploit the system to bring it down its knees. Ad they always do.
“Competition will only work if everyone is contributing.”
Insurance companies are not allowed to compete across state lines. It is also illegal for them to offer you a truly personalized policy. Each and every state has mandates that jack up the price. We present have a situation where the health providers compete with one hand tied behind their back.
Why aren’t you enraged by the lawyers who fight against tort reform? Are you oblivious to the damage caused by the legal profession? The Democrats are doing nothing whatsoever to resolve this issue.
Last but not least, Americans should expect to pay high deductibles for their health care. Do auto insurers pay for our oil changes and care washes? Your health provider should never pay for your eyeglasses and ordinary office visits.
Hyphenated American,
Re: post #54, actually I have not been using that list in my posts. The article that I referenced states the following: “Mexico is ranked 3rd out of three countries in the North America region, but its score remains well above the world average and the third highest in Latin America.”
http://www.heritage.org/Index/country/Mexico
You’ll notice that the above article is not the index that you’ve been quoting and that you wrote that I have. Since your misquoting me your question seems inherently dishonest but for the sake of the argument my answer is no. Most of the countries listed by the HF above Mexico are not growing at the rate that Mexico is and do not have it’s associated poverty. If libertarianism really worked then shouldn’t the world’s 10th or 11th largest economy be able to have most of it’s citizens live out of poverty? Doesn’t that prove that your counter-argument (the part that you weren’t being dishonest about) is wrong?
Re: post #57, actually I did correct my error. It seems you seem to forget the facts very quickly. Can I expect a correction for the misquotes you made about my comments?
On your question about Latin America, you don’t (seem) to understand basic economic concepts. Your question is not viable for determining the effectiveness of economic libertarianism. The issue is not just legal policies but their outcomes. A better question for you ask would have been: are there any countries in Latin America that have libertarian economic policies, with a larger economy, and less poverty? The answer is no.
“Competition will only work if everyone is contributing.”
False binary.
Competition works to the extent everyone is contributing within rules, and to the extent that the rules do not constrain honest dealing.
Start using Leviathan against your neighbor and you will destroy competition. Also, dignity.
Give good men their liberty and they will secure enough justice. Take from good men their liberty and they will secure revenge.
Judging by how deeply unpopular the administration, this congress, and the healthcare bill is, I think that saying “Have Americans decided that liberty is passé…” is entirely missing the point.
I don’t think Americans have decided anything, except that their political class is lost in self-delusion.
Judging by how deeply unpopular the administration, this congress, and the healthcare bill is, I think that saying “Have Americans decided that liberty is passé…” is entirely missing the point.
I don’t think Americans have decided anything, except that their political class is lost in self-delusion.
I don’t think JHM has much of an idea as to what neoconservatism is, as evidenced by his apparent belief that it’s a movement or something like that. Kristol refers to it as a persuasion. I think it was he who said that any sentence beginning “Neoconservatives believe…” is almost certain to be wrong. But it’s a nice stick to beat opponents with, isn’t it?
As to what’s going on with health “reform,” a lot becomes clear when you realize that there are more forms of power than money. This program is going to put control over a substantial chunk of the economy in what I still think can fruitfully be called the New Class, the politicians and bureaucrats who will be running it.
I’m no libertarian but you can at least say for libertarians that whatever they’re seeking, it’s not the aggrandizement of power. The health reform bill should put paid to any notion that the organized progressives in this country are seeking anything else but. Note that an incremental set of reforms was not even contemplated. The goal is not health care for all as such, it is control of health care for all.
robotech master,
Re: post #58 The Heritage Foundation lists Mexico as the third most libertarian country in Latin America. http://www.heritage.org/Index/country/Mexico
And if Mexico is a failed socialist state why then is it the 10th or 11th largest economy in the world?
On your comparison of economic regulation versus enforcement in Mexico I made that distinction in that quote you referenced. The Mexican government’s regulation of business (in a legal sense and in practice) is minimal as evidenced by it’s economic growth. But the fact that Mexico is the 10th or the 11th largest economy in the world and the majority of it’s citizens are very poor prove that economic libertarianism does not work.
On your further assertions that Mexico is a socialist state (which is contradiction to your own comments) I have the following rebuttals:
1) A complete ban on weapons – Hong Kong has a complete ban on weapons and Hong Kong (which is a part of China) is not a socialist country. It’s fascist BTW.
2) Heavily limited freedoms such as speech – the limits on free speech in Mexico are from the Narco-Terrorists or their allies in the government not it’s laws.
3) Massive state run programs – If massive state run programs where a characteristic of a socialist country then the US under Ronald Regan could be considered the most socialist country is history; that’s absurd.
4) Defined group of “elites” which control most everything – All monarchies have a “Defined group of elites” and their not all socialist countries (i.e. the UAE).
Finally, no I’m not reposting someone else’s talking points. I’m making an analysis based on history.
Democrats and their union allies are eager to turn all nurses and hospital staff – and, eventually, doctors – into dues-paying government employees. That is the endgame here, make no mistake. There is a reason the SEIU president has visited Comrade Obama more than anyone else.
Interesting set of arguments. I especially like the Mexico thread. Its funny how the failure of a socialist state that has descended into anarchy is somehow being used as a example of the failures of libertarianism.
To put it another way, this statement:
“Mexico is very much economically libertarian”
Equals this statement:
“A failed state by default becomes economically libertarian”
Fire trucks respond to a fire, they are not the cause of the fire.
David Thomson,
Re: post #64, I’m still confused by your last comment. You (seem) to agree with me that our government should not manage business but must regulate it; so then what is it that you don’t understand?
On your position on Medicare you suggested (correct me if I’m wrong) that you want to dismantle that system over the next twenty years. Ok, I give you a gold star for being honest. I thought it was incredibly disingenuous and hypocritical during the summer when REBs were screaming at the top of their lungs “I want government out of the business of health care and BTW get your hands off of my Medicare”. I hope you realize that senior citizens make up 75% of your party and Medicare is wildly popular with those voters. Oh well, all things come to an end and I’m sure the Whigs could use some company.
But to get back on topic, ok dismantling Medicare will ‘solve’ one the biggest problems with the federal deficit. On your ’solution’ for emergency room care, I’m surprised you don’t know that providing free emergency healthcare and then dealing appropriately with the user, is what exists today. And that is one of the three main causes for health care inflation. As I stated in post #55 without universal health care insurance (not a single payer system) “someone without health insurance doesn’t seek medical care for a small medical problem (like diabetes) and that small problem becomes a big problem and that big problem goes to the emergency room and racks up $100,000 in medical bills. The person without health insurance can’t pay that bill and so you and I and everyone else with health insurance does. There are at least 37 million Americans (and 6-12 million illegals) who are using our health care system this way and if not fixed will bankrupt all of us”. I agree with you on illegal immigrants which is why there can be no more American freeloaders. Everyone has to contribute
Universal health care (not a single payer system) should decrease the cost to all consumers. If it doesn’t how do you explain Japan’s health care system. Almost everyone who works in Japan has private health insurance and Japan spends a fraction of what we do on health care. They also have better outcomes. Japanese citizens have a lower infant mortality rate and a higher longevity rate than U.S. citizens. Your beliefs do not stand up to simple scrutiny.
Re: post #65, as I’ve stated in previous post and articles, universal competition is essential to stop health care inflation. So we agree on that point.
However tort reform is a red herring. Most estimates I’ve seen suggest that frivolous medical lawsuits cost the industry only about 15 billion dollars a year. But for the sake of argument, lets say that’s it actually 150 billion; that’s less then ten percent of the industry. On a smaller scale consider this; the average doctor makes about $150,000 per year and pays less than $18,000 per year for malpractice insurance. That’s only twelve percent. That less than the 17 percent most businesses pay for workmen’s comp. Tort reform in my opinion is not a real issue but just a distraction.
On your suggestion that a high deductible is the answer to health care reform, I’m curious as to why you believe that. Please elaborate on that idea.
Thank You
#51, Mr. Independant,
Re “it’s disingenuous to say “I want government out of my health care and BTW leave my Medicare alone””, in fact it isn’t disingenuous at all. Here is why.
Plenty of senior citizens in this country have long disagreed with the way Medicare is structured and run — and it turns out they were right in their criticisms. Nevertheless, the situation is what it is, and these people, whether they love Medicare or hate it, paid into the system for years because that was the law, and the government, by taking their money, made them a very serious promise.
Only now the Democrats are trying to nationalize health care, and to fund this foolish scheme they are set to take a huge bite out of the Medicare budget — in other words, to loot an already financially-troubled program that millions of people are depending on *because they paid into it for years*.
That the government has mismanaged Medicare so utterly is a perfect illustration of why Washington should do less, not more, but it doesn’t in any way, shape, or form nullify the obligations the government made to our parents and grandparents.
Thus, for seniors to declare “keep the government out of my Medicare” only appears contradictory at first glance; a moment’s closer examination reveals their words aren’t contradictory at all, but descriptive of the messy reality of the situation.
#49, E. Burke,
Re “Bottom line is the historical model is repudiation followed by a generation’s worth of war, or more. This is what the proponents of a false social justice are serving up for us”, I don’t know. I’m not so sure a generation’s worth of war will happen here — Europe, OK, I can see that, but us? Who will we be warring against? China? We’re both nuclear-armed.
Myself, more than ever I am not convinced that Mark Steyn is right in saying we’re just going to turn into Europe and that’ll be the end of it. We’ll need a lot of money to turn ourselves into Europe, and where’s it going to come from? Already we’re strapped, and why should what works nowhere else on earth work here? None of the European countries or Canada can afford the welfare states they’ve got going, even though they all but completely rely on the US for military protection.
As I see it, at the end of the day reality will trump: we’re going to have to pay for this somehow, and I don’t see how that’s going to be possible. If and when we go broke, the country will shift into survival mode, and that will mean cutting every single expenditure that isn’t absolutely necessary.
In short, I predict nationalized health care will be the death of nationalized health care.
the Heritage Foundation lists Mexico as the 3rd most libertarian country in Latin America.
That’s probably a correct assessment. But it’s like being the third tallest man in pygmy land. You’re still rather height impaired. Libertarianism has its flaws, but you have not mentioned them and don’t seem to understand them.
As I stated in post #55 without universal health care insurance (not a single payer system) “someone without health insurance doesn’t seek medical care for a small medical problem (like diabetes) and that small problem becomes a big problem and that big problem goes to the emergency room and racks up $100,000 in medical bills.
You have a mistaken understanding of why healthcare costs so much. End of life treatment is where the big bucks go, and will continue to go regardless of any “preventative care” measures. Because every person has an end-of-life, and there is nothing Government can do about that.
You know what’s really cheap? People like the one you described. They die fairly cheaply and quickly.
The following is WRONG:
“The left is upset because neither the House nor Senate version goes far enough towards putting government firmly in control of our medical decisions, with the goal of providing equal coverage for all no matter what the price.”
If by Left you mean Rawlsian-type liberal democrats, who are in fact the ones who are POed with Obama, then you simply don’t understand the field of public opinion. Liberal democrats don’t want the government to control medical decisions. This assertion is patently absurd mainly b/c its antithetic to liberal principles (any literate person can only agree).
What liberal democrats want is total ownership of their health care by putting private insurance companies in check with either strong public or nonprofit plans. Such plans would ideally eliminate the profit motive of insurance companies which presently limits – i.e. CONTROLS – the quality, choice, affordability, and accessibility of health care to ALL Americans.
“Social Justice” is a weasel term. Hayek noted that the introduction of the adjective ‘social’ in front of a noun inverted its meaning.
This is all very well. Readers here can see the peril. I think we are probably in the twilit era of liberty, as predicted by, inter alia, Tocqueville and Lord Acton. We can escape. But revolutions are appalling for all involved, and they don’t seem to last.
It helps to understand that the french were ruled by kings. And, their established aristocracy had no use for the multitude of peasants. AND, the french peasants had not revolted for 400 years! In other words, in 1380, the french peasantry revolted. The king, fearing for the loss of his dynasty, mounted his horse, and went out to the peasants. And, promised them ‘equality.’ They stopped their rebellion cold. He returned to the palace. And, they were CRUSHED.
400 years later, where stealing bread got you killed, and opposing the king got you sent to the dungeons, there was another rebellion. To get rid of their aristocracy they took out the guillotine, and people bathed in its blood. “Heads rolled.”
In our system, where rebellion is built into free speech, those who get elected have been turned over more than once. Like tilling the soil for better crop development.
What we have now is about as far as ‘affirmative action’ can go. What the senators lost, however, was the cultivated respect.
Shakespeare pointed out you have nothing if you lose your good name. Women will be marched back out of politics. And, Mormons won’t reach the upper rungs, either.
Mr.Independent Man,
I find your post quite surprising, and I am forced to question your motives…
>Re: post #54, actually I have not been using that list >in my posts. The article that I referenced states the >following: “Mexico is ranked 3rd out of three countries >in the North America region, but its score remains well >above the world average and the third highest in Latin >America.”
>http://www.heritage.org/Index/country/Mexico
>You’ll notice that the above article is not the index >that you’ve been quoting and that you wrote that I have.
Actually, the website you are quoting confirms what I said – Mexico is #49 freest in the world. Here is the relevant passage in the page you quoted yourself:
“Mexico’s economic freedom score is 65.8, making its economy the 49th freest in the 2009 Index.”
In other words, my challenge to you to point out which countries out of 48 above Mexico in the economic liberty rating have lower living standards than Mexico is very fair. Indeed, if economic freedom was not relevant to living standards, then you would have no problem finding those countries. Now, what is stopping you?
>Since your misquoting me your question seems inherently >dishonest but for the sake of the argument my answer is >no.
It’s very difficult to see how exactly I am misquoting you. I use same website as you, use same information, and I ask you a pointed question. What’s dishonest in that? Is it only the fact that you cannot answer my question?
>Most of the countries listed by the HF above Mexico are >not growing at the rate that Mexico is and do not have >it’s associated poverty.
In short, the more libertarian the countries are, the higher the living standards. You just proved that your entire line of reasoning is faulty.
>If libertarianism really worked then shouldn’t the >world’s 10th or 11th largest economy be able to have >most of it’s citizens live out of poverty?
1.It does not matter what the size of the economy is – since it depends on the population, not just the living standards.
2. “Poverty” is a very fluid term, and it can mean whatever you want.
3. What is known is that more economic freedom means better living conditions for most people. Which is why most countries above Mexico in economic freedom have better off citizens, while most countries below Mexico in economic freedom have worse off citizens. Libertatianism does not mean that all people will be wealthy immediately – it just means the chances for citizens go up.
These ideas are fairly simple to understand, but I am surprised you have such insurmontable difficulty to achieve it.
>Doesn’t that prove that your counter-argument (the part >that you weren’t being dishonest about) is wrong?
Here again you use the word “dishonest”, when I simply used same information you used – except I actually read the website more carefully. Indeed it’s difficult to see why the obvious correlation between living standards and economic fredom would disprove the value of economic freedom. Why indeed?
>Re: post #57, actually I did correct my error.
Technically speaking I, not you, corrected your error. Your initial post claimed that Mexico was #3 in the whole American continent, and I took my time writing a post which listed ALL countries in the continent which were above Mexico, and there were far more than 2 countries. It is undeniable that my post came far sooner than your “correction”, which I attribute to the fact that you read my correction. Indeed, if you were honest, you would have noted that it was not you who corrected the error – but this is too much to ask on a political forum.
>It seems you seem to forget the facts very quickly. Can >I expect a correction for the misquotes you made about >my comments?
I would love to do so, once you actually explain which quotes of your I wronged. Since you provided nothing of a kind, I am forced to announce your claims groundless, and the work of a feeble and dishonest mind.
>On your question about Latin America, you don’t (seem) >to understand basic economic concepts. Your question is >not viable for determining the effectiveness of economic >libertarianism. The issue is not just legal policies but >their outcomes. A better question for you ask would have >been: are there any countries in Latin America that have >libertarian economic policies, with a larger economy, >and less poverty? The answer is no.
Again, you seem to be limited by the constraints of your ignorance. Mexico may have more economic liberty than Cuba, but still, it is a corrupt Latin American country, which rates only 49 on the list of economic freedom for the world. In short, nothing to write your mother about. Nearly every country above it on the liberty ladder is above it in riches, while those below it are also poorer. It’s quite surprising that you ignore this obvious connection.
For Mr.Independent Man:
Dear Sir,
Assuming you have some decency, I am giving you another opportunity to correct your error and apologize for calling me dishonest.
Here is the link to our discussion…
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/history-or-travesty-health-care-reform-becoming-a-reality/
At 11:25am you claimed that Mexico is #3 in Western Hemisphere in economic freedom according to Heritage foundation.
At 1:44pm I went through the pain of checking the Heritage list, and found that Mexico was #11 in the Western Hemisphere, and I posted that.
At 2:14pm, nearly an hour later you acknowledged that you made a mistake, but conveniently “forgot” to mention who found it.
Isn’t it time to be a decent human being and stop calling other people liars – when, well, it is you who is challenged in this area?
To 71. Mr. Independant
I really don’t even know where to start with your complete lack of knowledge about the world, history or facts.
“And if Mexico is a failed socialist state why then is it the 10th or 11th largest economy in the world?”
Mexico is a very large country with huge amounts of natural resources… it could easily be rank 4th or 5th highest economy in the world if they got they’re act together. Also lets look at history… you every heard of the USSR? They were(key word) ranked real high in economy size as well…(and still are ranked reasonably high)… are you arguing that because they have a large economy that they have a free economy?(which is what you seem to be arguing)
“But the fact that Mexico is the 10th or the 11th largest economy in the world and the majority of it’s citizens are very poor prove that economic libertarianism does not work.”
Once again Mexico is not libertarian I don’t know what planet your on but mexico is socialist.
“1) A complete ban on weapons – Hong Kong has a complete ban on weapons and Hong Kong (which is a part of China) is not a socialist country. It’s fascist BTW.”
Yes it does and thats why its not libertarian… and btw fascism IS A FORM OF SOCIALISM.
“2) Heavily limited freedoms such as speech – the limits on free speech in Mexico are from the Narco-Terrorists or their allies in the government not it’s laws.”
Once again you display a complete lack of knowledge about mexico… I would highly suggest you read some laws about mexico…
“3) Massive state run programs – If massive state run programs where a characteristic of a socialist country then the US under Ronald Regan could be considered the most socialist country is history; that’s absurd.”
Depends on the programs but I can see your completely ignorant of history because next to US leaders(like I don’t know that lead during say the “great society”) regan was pretty centrist…
Counter to popular belief regan was pretty centrist and do to the limits that congress has even if you argue he was right of center or even right wing he did not/was not able to enforce those policies…. once again do to congress.
“4) Defined group of “elites” which control most everything – All monarchies have a “Defined group of elites” and their not all socialist countries (i.e. the UAE).”
While the UAE isn’t heavily socialist they really aren’t anywhere near capitalist either… also monarchies aren’t the only group that has a defined groups of elites in charge. One can look throughout europe and many other places and see groups of elite that have near permanent control over section of the government or property.
“I’m making an analysis based on history.”
I’d like to know what history you read because its clearly not much having to do with how socialism/communism/leftism work.
To 79. vinny
I’m sorry vinny but you don’t understand what leftwingers want… they want control… period. Useful idiots provide good cover for gaining that control and like every other leftwinger leader/movement they claim a whole lot but are still classic leftists… stalin didn’t want to take over healthcare either but you know the private sector was such a failure and so corrupt he just “had” to do it…
“Social justice” is a modern oxymoron spawned by leftists and liberals to evade the fact that justice is precisely what they hate and dread.
In the realm of economics, justice is the granting of the earned and the witholding of the unearned. But leftist/liberal politics is all about confiscating the earnings of one man for purposes of granting the unearned to another — it is nothing more than legalized looting and plunder of what one man has produced to give it to the man who did NOT produce it.
Lust for the unearned — lust for an obliteration of justice — is the beginning and end of all leftist/liberal politics. It is thoroughly disgusting and immoral and, depending on how consistently it is practiced, will ultimately achieve nothing but mass death and impoverishment
There will always be one difference between health insurance and other varieties, like life, home and auto–car crashes, home fires and burglaries, and sudden death at age 40 will always be relatively rare and easily to calculate. Most of us will have fairly costly illnesses as we get older and, as medical care improves through innovation, more and more of us will have to spend more and more (instead of “have to,” you can say the available treatments will exist, and it will seem inhumane that everyone doesn’t have access to them). On the deepest level, this seems to me the source of the problem–no insurance will be able to cover or even anticipate all the possible treatments. There will always be new innovative treatments that a majority can’t afford, and so it’s tempting to say, let’s let the government just cover everyone. This will lead, of course, to fewer innovations, because arbitrary price controls will dampen innovation by making it unprofitable. What we need is the kind of culture that accepts that the “privileges” of the minority soon enough become universally accessible, as has happened with every new technology. But do we have such a culture? A hundred years ago, would we have insisted on “universal telephone service,” with leading politicians grandstanding about how the new telephoned elite exacerbated inequality, etc. thereby strangling the telephone industry in its cradle? If so, then, as the article says in its title, we will get neither liberty nor justice (of any kind).
One can easily argue the benefits of the Republic by the sheer complacency it has created in the few generations who have been the beneficiaries of the American Revolution. Man is an animal who greatly dislikes change; security is everything and when one has never known anything but peaceful opportunity and the assurance that someone will take care of them when they fall down, then there is little, if any, real understanding of what it takes to safeguard the liberties that allow for such a thing.
The progressives began to play upon this need for security in earnest in the early 1900s, and one can trace their greed and avarice right back to the creation of the Constitution. Madison clearly called them out back then for their deliberate ignoring of the obvious and one can see the same tactics being used today. The difference is that the people do not feel the same sense of urgency where their rights are concerned and it behooves conservatives to teach the most basic understanding of what was intended by inalienable rights and the separation of powers. There will always be drama queens and those of entitlement mentality-derangement syndrome but overall, Americans are a responsible and kind lot, and far more intelligent than the affirmatively-graduated Ivy League types would give them credit.
In the end, I believe common sense can trump bubble-headed theory but it cannot be done with a gun in one hand and a Bible in the other. The American people need to hear the clear voice of reason. I would dare say they hunger for it and most would be willing to properly dismantle the myriad bureaucrat-wrapped entitlement pograms for the opportunity to once again control their own destiny, unhampered by alleged do-gooders who only want to line their own pockets at the people’s expense.
Liberty constitutes the only effective form of social justice.
To no. 50 Grimes…
If you dont know the difference between social security and a ponzi scheme, I cannot help you. And because you called me a moron, I refuse to.
So there, your stuck in ignorantville for the rest of your cyber life.
Happy New Year.. oh, and by the way, some great debate here amongst the tribes. ..good stuff…we are actually getting smarter !!
“Social justice” is a modern oxymoron spawned by leftists and liberals to evade the fact that justice is precisely what they hate and dread.”
Sometimes we live in a just universe. Harvard University is a leader in pushing this social justice nonsense. The ghost of John Rawls still haunts the corridors of the campus. Harvard has recently lost literally billions of dollars in its investment portfolio. It appears that the Rawls mindset had much to do with this sharp decline. The Harvard leftist community was upset with the high pay of its best brokers. They forced these professionals out the door—and the remaining investors were comprised of those possessing second-rate talents. Needless to add, Harvard soon thereafter experienced major financial losses.
If ‘Health Care’ (scare quotes intentional) is a right, does it derive from the place as “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”? When first penned,the latter meant the pursuit of virtue and wisdom. It still does, though wildly,(yes, wildly, not widely) unnoticed and mostly submerged by the “Yeah, but whatta bout me man?” econarcissis systems) If ‘Health Care’ does not come from that place whose NAME we do not mention, then from where? Ask you congress weasel that question. Take pictures. As the signs in the auto repair shops, and other say, “Dumb looks are still free.”
The right to life does not mean the right to remain alive at your neighbor’s expense — it means the right to remain alive at your OWN expense, i.e. it means the right to engage in productive work in support of your own existence, free from the initiation of physical force (or threat thereof) by anyone else, including the government. It means your life belongs to you — and that no one can take it.
“Healthcare” is a collection of economic goods and services produced by human labor. There can be no such thing as a right to healthcare, because there is no such thing as a right to another man’s labor. No one has a right to ANY amount of involuntary servitude imposed on others to provide the goods or services in question.
Simply put, forcing one man to pay another man’s doctor bills is every bit as wrong as forcing one man to pick another man’s cotton — no matter how badly one needs the doctor bill paid or the cotton picked.
Some very Liberal family members are getting into their mid 80’s, and although they are in remarkably good shape for their ages, one has major health problems, and, right now, after Medicare has paid, they pay quite a bit of additional money, out of pocket, for their additional private, expensive, comprehensive, competent and very timely health care—many doctor visits, specialists, hospital visits and surgeries, preventative care and medications.
Yet, I would be willing to bet that, as worshipers at the shrine of Obama—(I kid you not, there is a shrine like place in their house–which I am sure they do not recognize, or think of as such–featuring an idealized, propaganda poster picture of Obama and an autopen signed letter from “the One,” thanking them for their donations (substantial, I would bet) and their support, as the central focus—they would adamantly declare that Obamacare is a vital, justified, necessary, long-overdue step in the right direction towards “social justice,” little realizing what is about to happen to older citizens in their situation–and not wanting to hear any contradictory, disturbing information about what a “quality of life years” approach might portend for them a few years down the road, them, the recipients of the most expensive, comprehensive, competent, and quickest of medical care—if Obamacare becomes a reality.
These are basically kindly (except if you are on the Right, in which case you are a rabid, ignorant hater), educated and very cultured and traveled people, both veterans of the Great Depression, and one is a veteran of WWII, and “they’ve been around the block a few times,” yet, they have been totally indoctrinated by the MSM and their social, political, cultural circle, and are blind, in straight jackets, locked on course by what they perceive to be “doing good” and “fairness”—“social justice,” and a lifetime of leftist ideology. I suspect that, besides Blacks—who care not for anything except Obama’s supposed blackness, Obama’s irreducible core of supporters contains many such as them.
Amos D Wright,
Re: post #76, I wrote earlier that “Competition will only work if everyone is contributing.” You wrote that my position is a false binary. Yet you also wrote “Competition works to the extent everyone is contributing within rules, and to the extent that the rules do not constrain honest dealing”. If what I wrote is a false binary, why did you basically repeat my position?
John,
Re: post #73, if Mexico is a failed socialist state why then does the government not own the means of production, distribution, and finance? Except for it’s energy sector the Mexican economy is very libertarian.
89.overly sensitive citizen:”If you dont know the difference between social security and a ponzi scheme, I cannot help you. And because you called me a moron, I refuse to.”
that’s too bad….i was hoping to get in a few more chuckles at your expense.
JR Dogman,
Once again thank you for your response. I’m a little confused by your post #75. How are seniors (which is 75% of your party) not being disingenuous and hypocritical to be for government supported health care for themselves but not everyone else? I personally don’t want a single payer health care system but if you want the government out of health care, that should also include everyone’s health care.
Now I think you’re right about the DEMs wanting to nationalize heath care but they won’t be able to do so. They don’t have the votes now and they probably will lose congressional seats in the next two or three election cycles. I’m 95% sure that there will not be a British-like health care system in our country anytime soon.
However, our health care system must be reformed. Your proposals won’t work. Universal competition will not reverse health care inflation unless there is universal coverage. And tort reform will have little or no impact. My proposals have been proven to work in Japan and Switzerland. With a some tweaking those systems can work here.
Finally, below is a link to a previous article with a discussion that I’d like to continue:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/history-or-travesty-health-care-reform-becoming-a-reality/
Thank You
Hyphenated American,
Re; post #82, yes I understand that more economic freedom means a better standard of living but the point that I was making, is that economic libertarianism does not. Economic libertarian policies are very simple; the best regulation of business is no regulation of business. You seem to believe (correct me if I’m wrong) that. You’ve also suggested that a countries’ standard of living will increase if libertarian economic polices are adopted. OK, that’s been the REB party line for decades. I point to Mexico to illustrate that their experiment with libertarianism has not worked. Yes their economy (except their energy sector) has been steadily growing and it is now the 10th or 11th largest economy in the world but it’s citizens’ standard of living has not improved. You implied that my description of poverty in Mexico is “a very fluid term, and it can mean whatever you want”. That’s absurd. Poverty is a person’s inability to provide for their basic needs. If you are suggesting that most Mexicans are not poor, then why then do so many illegally immigrate to this country? And why do so many American business move operations to Mexico? Yes economic libertarianism can allow economic growth (provided they don’t wreck an economy like with the Great Depression/Recession) but Mexico proves that those same policies will not improve the standards of living for most citizens. The key is balance. When government stops trying to manage business but properly regulates those business an economy and the citizens can benefit. A great example of that is Canada.
Re: post #83, I wasn’t quoting that index but a specific article which I referenced.
http://www.heritage.org/Index/country/Mexico
You stated in post #54 “you’ve been using this list yourself some days ago” only I haven’t. The list you’re referring to: http://www.heritage.org/Index/Ranking.aspx
is not the article that I was referencing. I wasn’t comparing Mexico to the entire world. My references have been about Latin America and Mexico. That was a lie on your part. You also stated that I wrote “Mexico was #3 in the whole American continent” only I didn’t write that. My actual quote was “The Heritage Foundation lists Mexico as the third most libertarian country in the western hemisphere”. You lied, again. Granted, what I should have written (and did correct) is that the HF lists Mexico as the 3rd most libertarian economy in North and Latin America. Finally in post #96 from the article below:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/history-or-travesty-health-care-reform-becoming-a-reality/
you wrote “Mexico is #3 in North America, not the Western Hemisphere”. So you obviously read the article from the HF that I referenced but choose to only quote part of the article’s analysis. Mexico’s ranking in that article is the third most libertarian country in both North and Latin America. Not just North America.
You’ve cut and pasted quotes of mine, why didn’t you do that with the articles that I’ve referenced above. You’re not just lying about what I’ve written but now you’re trying to lie about what you’ve written as well and I’ve proven that using your own posts. I have given you an opportunity to correct those errors, why haven’t you?
Steve,
Re: post #77, actually no. When economists like the late Milton Friedman or Robert Reich talk about the most important developing economies in the world, they both refer to China, India, Brazil and Mexico. Brazil and Mexico are in Latin America. The main flaw of Libertarianism (in economics) is that it seeks to eliminate the proper role of government in a similar fashion that socialism seeks to eliminate the proper role of business. Business must be owned and operated privately but those business must be regulated by the government. And I have mentioned these flaws (read post #55). I think the problem you’re having is that you don’t (seem) to understand what the concept of libertarianism means?
Re: post #78, it is you who do not understand why health care cost so much. End of life care accounts for less the ¼ of all health care costs. The driving force behind health care inflation is the uninsured. They either have to begin contributing to the system or denied access to emergency room care. I’m in favor of universal coverage.
robotech master,
Re: post #84, I think the problem that you have is that you do not (seem) to understand the concepts that I’m discussing. In economics socialism is when the government controls the means of production, distribution, and finance. That is not the case in Mexico (except for their energy sector). Economic libertarianism exists when the government has little or no regulation of business. That is the environment in Mexico. No I’m not agreeing that just because Mexico has a large economy that means they have a libertarian economy. The former USSR had the second largest economy but was not libertarian because it was a centrally managed economy. The Mexican government’s regulation of business is either non-existent or a joke. What I am arguing, is that libertarianism will not raise the standards of living for a country. Mexico proves that. It’s economy has been growing by leaps and bounds and yet the vast majority of it’s citizens are very poor. Just as the former USSR proved that communism won’t work, Mexico proves that libertarianism doesn’t work either.
Finally, I noticed that you stated the “fascism IS A FORM OF SOCIALISM”. I think that statement is a perfect example of why you shouldn’t use the Wikipedia as a ‘source’ of information. Fascism is an social-economic system in which an authoritarian government presides over a capitalist economy. A present day example is China. Do you really think that China’s economy is a form of France’s?
To 95. Mr. Independant
Once again you confusing enforcement with wants…
Mexico is a failed socialist state… they have no control over anything. So yes they have little control over business not because they CHOOSE to have little control but because they can’t ENFORCE any of their failed socialist policies…
Theirs a huge difference between having zero control because your country is in the state of civil war where drug lords and local thugs setup small fiefdoms and having a libertarian government.
To 99. Mr. Independant
“Re: post #78, it is you who do not understand why health care cost so much. End of life care accounts for less the ¼ of all health care costs. The driving force behind health care inflation is the uninsured. They either have to begin contributing to the system or denied access to emergency room care. I’m in favor of universal coverage.”
I’m sorry but you have no clue what your talking about. Insurance has nothing to do with the costs of healthcare as a whole unless the government ties prices to insurance rates(which they do in the US currently).
If we banned insurance then we would see health care cost go down by a huge amount. Universal coverage can only increase the cost of both insurance and healthcare. I don’t understand where you get this complete insane ideas that insurance will lower health care costs…
THE ARE WAGING WAR ON AMERICANS!
LET’S GIVE THEMN W-A-R!
robotech master,
Re: post #101, you are really to much. I mean seriously, your posts are very funny. It’s not just that you don’t know what you’re writing about but you actually seem to think you know what you’re writing about. For example, if Mexico is a failed socialist state, why do they have the 10th or 11th largest economy in the world? Their economy is very much libertarian, which is why so many of Mexico’s citizens are poor.
On your comment about insurance, once again you don’t know what your writing about. It’s not that insurance raises the cost of health care per se but that 37 million Americans and 6-12 illigals who are UNINSURED, are using the health care system and not paying for those services. Those of us who have insurance are paying for those who don’t. So there are two solutions, everyone has to contribute (by buying health insurance) or universal access to emergency room care must end. I support universal coverage. But just out of curiosity why do you think that if insurance was banned, health care costs would go down? Can you cite any examples of where that’s occurred? Is it perhaps in the same place where fascism is a form of socialism?
Actually, “Mr. Independent” (apoparenhtly not, however, independent of Daddy and Mommy State) libertarianism works all the time. Everytime people choose to interact with people on a voluntary, non-coercive basis, it’s working.
To 103. Mr. Independant
Really I have no clue where you get your completely non-logical non-fact based arguments but they are a complete contradiction of reality.
“For example, if Mexico is a failed socialist state, why do they have the 10th or 11th largest economy in the world? Their economy is very much libertarian, which is why so many of Mexico’s citizens are poor.”
You do understand that russia, china and a host of other failed socialist states had huge economies… mexico has a pitifully small economy when matched against many of the more free countries above them… your understand of basic economics, population, resources and world trade is frankly zero.
“It’s not that insurance raises the cost of health care per se but that 37 million Americans and 6-12 illigals who are UNINSURED, are using the health care system and not paying for those services.”
This is insanely wrong. Insurance has nothing to do with cost of health care. If a doctors visit with a script for drugs costs 120 dollars IT COSTS 120 DOLLARS PERIOD insurance or not. The only thing insurance does is spread that cost around or reduce the upfront fee the holder has.
Those 37 million americans(most of which don’t use health care services) and the 20 million illegals WILL COST THE SAME WITH OR WITHOUT INSURANCE. The reason why diluted ill-educated people believe insurance will “fix” this problem is because they believe that companies/the government have unlimited money. I hate to break it to you BUT THEY DON’T.
Insurance however often drives up the cost of both healthcare and out of pocket costs to the US.
Lets take some basic law here. A healthcare provider can not charge less for someone without insurance… this means that most hospitals and other healthcare centers charge everyone the same rate… which is the medicare/medicaid rate… medicare/medicaid only reimburse doctors/hospitals/etc about 20% the rate normal insurance does… this means that most doctors/hospitals/etc charge roughly 5x the price to medicare to get a proper reimbursement… that also means that they charge most everyone at roughly this rate as well…
If we were to get rid of things like this law and things like medicare/medicaid you would see a drop in costs…
Lets also go into the fact that insurance piles on massive amounts of paperwork… who does that paperwork… well the doctor maybe able to handle it for a small number of ppl however once you start getting into normal practice size they must hire someone to handle the paper… guess what that costs MONEY. The cost is part of the cost of healthcare…. and it is often not a small cost. So by getting rid of insurance you cut right off the top of the healthcare costs both huge amounts of money and man hours directed solely to do bs paperwork.
Once again the bottom line is ppl like you don’t understand the difference between cost and out of pocket payment. You also have no clue how to deal with either.
I would also suggest that you look up fascism and then match it against socialism… a brief sum up for you. Socialism: The goal of having the government control or own the means of production…
Fascism: The goal of having the government control or own the means of production…
Hmmm seems pretty much the same to me…
Bilwick,
Re: post #104, you’re either not paying attention to what is being discussed or simply do not understand the concepts that are being discussed. As my handle suggests and more importantly, as my posts show, I’m not in favor of a so called “nanny state”. What is being discussed here is if economic libertarianism works or not. Mexico proves that is doesn’t. Perhaps in the future if you wish to contribute to a discussion you should take some time to learn what is being discussed and what has actually been written.
robotech master,
You really are the gift of humor that keeps on giving.
Re: post #105, yes I understand that the former USSR and China WERE communist countries and that they had huge economies. My point is, if Mexico is a failed socialist state (like you’ve stated) why doesn’t the Mexican government own the means of production, distribution, and finance like the former USSR did? That’s the point, Mexico is not a socialist country. Aside from it’s energy sector, what business does the Mexican government own. That is what is required for socialism to exist. But you don’t seem to understand that simple fact. Additionally my reference to the size of Mexico’s economy is relevant only to demonstrate that while economic libertarianism can grow an economy (if it doesn‘t destroy it) but it will not do so for the benefit of most citizens. Which is why most Mexicans are poor and why libertarianism is proven a failure.
Back to health care. So you now believe that health insurance has nothing to do with the cost of health care. But you stated in post #101 “If we banned insurance then we would see health care cost go down by a huge amount”. You’re contradicting yourself. You also stated in that same post that “Universal coverage can only increase the cost of both insurance and healthcare”. Can you name any advanced country that has universal health care that has higher costs that ours? Not only do your positions not stand up to simple scrutiny they contradict each other.
Finally, I see you’re still using the Wikipedia for your ‘sources’ of information. Try this instead, go find yourself a Webster’s dictionary and look up the terms socialism and fascism. You’ll find there not the same. If not, I’ll always enjoy the entertainment value of your posts believing otherwise.
76. JR Dogman: #49, E. Burke, What War ?
An economic decline which reaches the point
of repudiation of debt will first bleed the
US military dry, leaving the US unable to
project power, particularly in the Pacific.
China will confiscate US holdings there as
a way of recouping its losses: Taiwan,
Hawaii, maybe Alaska, and deny the US the
right to trade in the area. The US will
_not_ respond with a nuclear attack, and
will launch what it knows will be a losing
conventional war as a way of shifting the blame.
There will also be problems along our southern
border.
and you, dear reader, will be too busy trying
to put food on the table to indulge in the
somewhat dangerous practice of protesting
the actions of our authoritarian State.
Happy New Year.
P.S. This year, 2010, and the next couple of
years leading up to the 2012 election, are
all the time you have left to save the day;
After that, it will be Beans and Bullets,
not ballots.
To 107. Mr. Independant
What part of FAILED socialist state didn’t you read…? When the USSR fell apart/end of the falling apart process they were very much like mexico is now… don’t you read any history?
“So you now believe that health insurance has nothing to do with the cost of health care. But you stated in post #101 “If we banned insurance then we would see health care cost go down by a huge amount”. You’re contradicting yourself.”
Not a contradiction since health insurance has nothing to do with the cost of health care unless you start mandating it and regulating it… all of which add cost…
As to a list try Canada, france, UK, pretty much all of europe… ussr… I mean the list is long depending on what you consider “advanced”.
“Finally, I see you’re still using the Wikipedia for your ‘sources’ of information. Try this instead, go find yourself a Webster’s dictionary and look up the terms socialism and fascism. You’ll find there not the same. If not, I’ll always enjoy the entertainment value of your posts believing otherwise.”
Funny how your arguing the wikipedia opinion… and then try to insult me by claiming that I who am arguing directly counter to wikipedia is somehow using it as a “source”. As for what websters say frankly a dictionary in a joke when dealing with complex topics…
Plus maybe you should maybe try reading it since…
Socialism 1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
“Can you name any advanced country that has universal health care that has higher costs that ours?”
Fascism 1: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
Even websters agrees they are the same.
109. robotech master
@ 107. Mr. Independant: USSR vs Mexico
Back in the day of the USSR, the US
intelligence community overestimated
Soviet Society and economy, perhaps
deliberately, to make the USSR a
more frightening enemy; The Minority
Opinion at that time was that:
“The USSR is Mexico with missiles.”
Mr. Independant, #97,
They’re not being disingenuous, because for them it’s Medicare or nothing. I don’t see how this is difficult to follow. FDR created Medicare, which is the equivalent of a promise based on a quid pro quo arrangement: people gave money to the government, believing they were giving it to fund *that* program, so when they got old and were living on fixed incomes they wouldn’t have to worry about escalating health care costs.
It doesn’t *matter* that Medicare is government run, what matters is that they were promised its benefits, and now the government is playing games that *guarantee* those benefits will greatly reduced. In a nutshell, the government cannot keep itself from hamstringing its own program, whose terms equal an agreement, for the sake of objectives that have nothing to do with said program.
It’s like making a financial agreement today, and a year later attempting to change the terms of the agreement when you want some of the funds from the first transaction to finance a new one. Only in the never-never-land of government could something like this even be *proposed*, because the government routinely breaks the most basic rules of fair play and common sense.
There is nothing disingenuous, nor any contradiction in what these people are saying. They are not advocating “government health care for me, not for thee”, they are simply protesting the government’s plan to welch on a deal.
If Medicare was privately run, and those who ran it were trying to welch on the deal, they’d be fighting just as they are now. To wit, call the government Party A and the seniors Party B, and that tells you all you need to know: between these two parties a deal was made, and now Party A is taking actions that will threaten their ability to make good on their end of that deal.
That we have to take Medicare apart and put something that won’t bankrupt us in its place is a separate issue, one forced by economic reality. It has *nothing* to do with our obligation to honor the original agreement made with our senior citizens.
Re “However, our health care system must be reformed. Your proposals won’t work. Universal competition will not reverse health care inflation unless there is universal coverage. And tort reform will have little or no impact. My proposals have been proven to work in Japan and Switzerland. With some tweaking those systems can work here”, you don’t *know* that they won’t work, just I don’t *know* that they will.
What we do know, however, is that my proposals (which aren’t really mine, but which I support) won’t cost a taxpayer dime — all they will do is relax laws that prohibit insurance companies from offering a menu of plans and competing across state lines, and address the issue of tort reform. As for the latter, talk to as many doctors as you can, and ask them if they practice defensive medicine for fear of lawsuits, and how much this costs them and the insurance companies they accept. I, myself, have several doctors in my family, and I have asked all of them these questions, and they have all responded in the same way: yes, they do, and it costs tons of money.
So I say let’s do these things before we try anything else: let’s try reducing government intervention, which costs nothing, before we up government involvement in health care, which clearly is going to cost an arm and a leg.
Lastly, re what works in Japan and Switzerland, I don’t believe that matters at all. These are extremely homogeneous cultures, nothing at all like the US. In such countries, people all play by the same rules, as they tend to view each other as members of a single large family. For example, in Japan the subways have upholstered seating that stays clean and in good condition, though thousands of commuters pass through their transit system every day. In contrast, no one with any familiarity with New York City would ever propose we put in upholstered seating in our subways and buses, because they’d be knifed and stained and written on in a matter of days. Such is the price of living in a heterogeneous society and city: we have a wealth of different people, with different norms and attitudes regarding the level of politesse and deference that should be extended to strangers, civic duty, etc.
If I hear one more person say, “But it works in Japan or Switzerland” regarding health care or anything else, smoke is going to come out of my ears. People in Japan aren’t allowed to own guns, and they accept that, so maybe that’ll fly here, right? Actually, no — it won’t fly here, not in a million years. Just as Americans aren’t about to start eating with chopsticks, or emulate the healthy dietary habits of the Japanese, or start being so wonderfully polite as the Japanese are — none of those things is going to happen, because that’s not who we are, because *we* are incredibly diverse compared to Japan. Ditto Switzerland, which has a smaller total population than New York City. In fact, if anything, the latter tidbit of information bolsters the argument for smaller, more local government: if Switzerland, with 7.7 million people, can create its own sovereign health-care system, then New York City or State should be able to design a system for itself without Washington getting involved. Indeed, New Yorkers, culturally diverse though we may be, would probably be able to do that, and in any event we would do a much better job of taking command of our own health care needs than Washington will ever be able to do for the entire nation with its population of 300 million and cultural diversity out the wazoo.
108. If America had a President with some balls, yes we would launch a nuclear attack in that scenario. Bankrupt, we would not be able to fight a conventional war against China, but in a nuclear war we’d kick China’s ass. Two SSBN’s can take out China’s nuclear arsenal, and ICBM’s would take out their manufacturing centers. China would be reduced to a third world country again. And what would we lose in that scenario? Maybe LA and San Fransisco and a few other strategic assets on the West coast, if China managed to get any nuclear weapons off the ground before our Tridents vaporize them.
#108 M. Report,
God, I hope you’re wrong. That said, the question has occurred to me before: If the US cannot pay its debts, what will its creditors take in lieu of cash?
Land and natural resources, I suppose, beginning with the two states separated from the lower 48.
That said, the above assumes the financial well-being of China, about which I have very large doubts. And with the collapse of its number-one market…
113. States have a Constitutional obligation to defend each other with their National Guard units, even if the regular military can’t help due to bankruptcy. Territories, on the other hand, are at the mercy of our regular military’s ability to defend them. That said, America’s creditors will not attempt an invasion that could spark a nuclear war. Japan, our second biggest creditor, will likely write off a large portion of its holdings as the price of being a US protectorate. As for China, they’ll be satisfied with coal and uranium mines. They might also demand payment in weapons and food. We do have a lot of food stockpiled.
Another massive reserve of precious metals is tied up in the kilotons upon kilotons of nuclear waste- millions of ounces of rubidium, palladium, ruthenium and silver, along with plenty of recoverable rare earths and fissile isotopes, all extractable via nuclear reprocessing.
Replace rubidium with rhodium in the above post. Point stands.
JR Dogman,
Re: post #111, thanks again for your response. Now I just want to be clear about your position on Medicare. You feel that taking the government out of health care should exclude Medicare, I partially agree. You feel that if you’ve paid into the Medicare system that you should receive those benefits. I agree. And you feel that our government should honor it’s financial commitments. I completely agree. So by that reasoning you should feel that everyone who has paid into the Medicare system (including 18 year olds) should receive those benefits. If you agree with that statement, then so far we are almost in complete agreement. However you feel that when seniors advocate against government run health care for non-seniors and at the same time demand that their government run health care be protected, that they are doing so for purposes of fairness and not dishonesty, I disagree. I understand that position and coming from you I can even respect it but I still disagree. So lets move on.
On health care reform, your point about my assertion that I know what might work is correct. What I should have written is that the empirical evidence suggests that my proposals for health care reform will work here. For instance we both agree that insurance companies must be able to universally compete with each other. I believe that is true because American economic history has consistently shown that competition lowers product inflation. Almost every instance in American history were a monopoly has been forced to compete has resulted in lower prices for the average consumer. However, you don’t seem to accept (correct me if I’m wrong) that universal coverage is essential for universal coverage to function. Ask yourself this, can you think of any instance in modern American economic history when 45+ million individuals (or that equivalent portion of the population) were able to basically steal the products and services of an industry and those consumers who were actually paying for those products and services didn’t have to pay higher prices for those products and services? I can’t think of a single instance. So there either needs to be universal coverage or an end to universal access to emergency room care. I want universal coverage.
I believe that you are also correct that the reforms that you support won’t directly cost the tax payers a dime. However, without universal coverage the proposals you support will indirectly bankrupt the country because they will not stop health care inflation. And as I’ve discussed earlier ’tort reform’ will have little to no impact on health care inflation. I know this because medical malpractice lawsuits only add about 1% to the cost of health care. Even if that stat is wrong and it’s actually 10%, that’s still insignificant. Ask yourself, if you lost your rent money at a casino and you tell your landlord that you don’t have the $1,000 for the rent but you do have $100, what do you think will happen? I doubt your landlord is going to say “ok you’ve got 10% of the rent I know you can’t pay anymore but I’m not going to evict you”. ’Tort reform’ is not a solution and when someone is harmed, they should be able to seek financial redress.
On your question concerning defensive medicine, yes I have talked with many medical professionals about this subject. They have partially confirmed my stats about malpractice insurance. However defensive medicine should normally bring down the cost of health care. Ask yourself, do you know of any instance in modern American economic history when the increased consumption of a product or service (excluding those that are finite) has not lowered the cost of that product or service. Defensive medicine does not raise the cost of health care, the uninsured do. The only way to insure that that tend stops and eventually reverses is to have universal coverage (not a single payer) or to end universal access to emergency room care.
On your comments about Japan and Switzerland, I disagree. Their solutions to problems are relevant because those solution have been proven to work. With that line of reasoning then I would be incorrect to state that the former USSR proves that communism doesn’t work. I believe that history of the USSR does in fact prove that communism doesn’t work. Likewise, I also believe that history also demonstrates that universal health care lowers costs. While I think your observations about the Japanese and Swiss are astute, I also think that they are irrelevant. I’m not suggesting that we reform our culture and mold it on someone else’s but that we must reform our health care system.
Finally, I’m in agreement with you on the decentralization of power. However if you want that principle to be an effective tool in lowering the cost of health care, then that must include stopping the intervention of government in Medicare (which means it must be disbanded) and ending universal access to emergency room care. That might work. But (take a deep breath) if Japan and Switzerland can lower health care costs by allowing universal competition, mandating universal coverage, and allowing the government to negotiate for it’s medical purchases then we can too.
As always, it’s a pleasure to debate with you in an intelligent and civil manner.
To 110. M. Report
Not arguing the finer details… Frankly total GDP is meaningless in the way that mr independant is trying to apply it. His whole argument is that having a big GDP somehow equals having a libertarian form of government….
robotech master,
Thank you for the laughs this morning. Now on to your last post:
Actually no I’m not. What makes a country libertarian (economically) is if their government has limited regulation of business. That is what exists in Mexico (except for their energy sector). What I am arguing is that libertarianism is a failure because while libertarianism can allow an economy to grow (if it doesn’t destroy it), that won’t automatically raise a citizens’ standard of living. If fact, libertarianism can increase GDP and stagnate a citizens’ standard of living. That is what has happened in Mexico. For the past two decades Mexico’s economy has been constantly growing. But the standard of living for it’s citizens has not. One of the core REB ideas has always been that the best regulation of business is no regulation of business. The REBs have always claimed that if this country adopted libertarian economic policies everyone’s economic prospects would increase. Mexico tired that, it didn’t work.
If you used something other than the Wikipedia for a ‘source’ of information you would know that. BTW, the definition of fascism and socialism that you used, shows a clear distinction between the two. Socialism advocates collective ownership fascism does not. So do you still think fascism is a form of socialism?
Spot on, Neo! A good, thoughtful read.
116. What happens if you don’t pay your credit card bills? The bank sues you and gets your wages garnished. The same thing should happen with emergency room bills. Don’t have insurance? You pay cash. Don’t have cash? We’ll set up a payment plan. Default on the payment plan? You get sued for wage garnishment.
To 118. Mr. Independant
I’m sorry mr independant but I find your posts just more proof of a failed education system and your complete lack of research into history or present events/ideology/facts.
“What makes a country libertarian (economically) is if their government has limited regulation of business.”
No… what makes a country libertarian is limited government… however its not just the lack of government but the belief in limited government. You confuse capitalism which is “unregulated” business with libertarianism which is limited government. Capitalism is a component of libertarianism much like socialism is a component of fascism. The problem is that in mexico its not really capitalism. You see because you are completely ignorant of whats going on in mexico you don’t understand that their are really about 30+ governments currently running mexico… to include drug cartels, “elected officials”, unelected “officials” and a host of other groups. Thats not limited government… once again you confuse enforcement with belief. The “official” Mexican has near zero power to enforce much of its laws… however that doesn’t make it libertarian or capitalist because if it had the power it would enforce socialism much as it has in the past.
“For the past two decades Mexico’s economy has been constantly growing. But the standard of living for it’s citizens has not.”
You think? Its called socialism look it up.
“If you used something other than the Wikipedia for a ‘source’ of information you would know that.”
Once again why are you only using wikipedia as your sources? Wikipedia is a joke YOU NEED TO STOP USING IT.
” the definition of fascism and socialism that you used, shows a clear distinction between the two. Socialism advocates collective ownership fascism does not. So do you still think fascism is a form of socialism?”
Are you completely retarded or do you just pretend to be? What part of
Socialism 1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
Fascism 1: a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government severe economic regulation.
Fascism is a collectivist ideology on what retarded planet to you see individualism grouped with fascism expect in the fantasy world of wiki idiots…?
What part of
Socialism 1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or GOVERNMENTAL OWNERSHIP and ADMINISTRATION of the means of PRODUCTION and distribution of goods
Fascism 1: that stands for a centralized autocratic GOVERNMENT severe ECONOMIC regulation.
Don’t you understand?
What part of
Fascism that exalts nation and often race ABOVE the individual.
Nation and race ARE COLLECTIVIST IDEAS…. Race is a HUGE collectivist ideology because ALL COLLECTIVISTS are RACIST… why do you believe that hitler wasn’t racist? Why? Explain it to me? Hitler killed millions in the names of race HE IS A COLLECTIVIST… FASCISM IS A COLLECTIVIST IDEOLOGY. SOCIALISM IS A COLLECTIVIST IDEOLOGY…
I’m trying to keep this argument to a 3rd grade education level so you can keep up but day do I really need to drop it down to a 1st grader level so you can understand such basic things?
myth buster,
Re: post #120, you wrote “Don’t have insurance? You pay cash. Don’t have cash? We’ll set up a payment plan. Default on the payment plan? You get sued for wage garnishment”. That is what is already being done right now. At lease half of the 37 million Americans that don’t have health insurance, can’t afford it. If someone can’t afford a few hundred dollars a month for health insurance what makes you think they can afford a $100,000 emergency room bill? If you have no assets and little income, you have no assets and little income; that means there’s little or nothing to garnish.
This line of reasoning is very similar to seniors to saying ‘I want government out of health care and BTW get your hand off my Medicare’. If you want government out of health care, that means dismantling Medicare and ending universal access to emergency room care. The DEMs don’t want that because they want government to solve everything (which it can’t) and the REBs don’t want that because most seniors support Medicare and restricting access to emergency room will make what’s left of their party look like monsters.
So the solution for the marketplace is universal coverage and competition.
Humorous cartoon on Obama’s “Deaf” Panel at http://drawfortruth.wordpress.com/
Just to show you just how little you understand about anything how about you read the constitution that mexico enforces
Article 27
The property of all land and water within national territory is originally owned by the Nation, who has the right to transfer this ownership to particulars. Hence, private property is a privilege created by the Nation.
Expropriations may only be made when there is a public utility cause.
The State will always have the right to impose on private property constraints dictated by “public interest”. THE STATE WILL ALSO REGULATE THE EXPLOITATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES BASED ON SOCIAL BENEFITS AND THE EQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. The state is also responsible for conservation and ecological considerations.
ALL NATURAL RESOURCES IN NATIONAL TERRITORY ARE THE PROPERTY OF THE NATION, and private exploitation may only be carried out through concessions.
Nuclear fuel may only be exploited and used by the State. The use of Nuclear elements in the Nation may only have peaceful purposes (i.e., Mexico cannot build nuclear weapons).
This article also deals with other subtleties on what constitutes Mexico’s territory.
FOREIGN CITIZENS CANNOT OWN LAND WITH 100 KM OF THE BORDERS OR 50KM OF THE SEA, THAT AN AREA OF LAND NEXT TO THE COAST IS FEDERAL PROPERTY WHICH CANNOT BE SOLD TO PARTICULARS.
Nothing socialist at all about that… not a single thing… I don’t see anything about the state owning the means of production or distribution or equal wealth transfers… not a single thing at all… nope can’t seem to find it.
robotech master,
Re: post #121, you really are hilarious. I didn’t think that you could out do your previous posts but this last one is funnier still. I find your posts not just a reflection of our failed education system but the failure of the so called ‘baby boomer’ generation. Just out of curiosity what formal education (if any) do you have and what experience (if any) do you have in business?
On your point about definitions, yes I know what libertarianism is. I was discussing how it specifically relates to economic policy. You cut and pasted my post, it’s all there. If you accept that libertarianism refers to limited government then libertarian economic policies refer to limited government intervention in business. That is what exists in Mexico (except their energy sector).
The problem that you’re having is that you don’t understand the concepts that I’m discussing. Libertarianism is a philosophy that can refer to economics. Socialism and Fascism are socio-economic philosophies that refer to both government and economics. Fascism does not involve state ownership of the economy, socialism does. They are not the same.
On Mexico you still mistakenly believe that it’s economy is socialist. Excluding it’s energy sector, what portions of the Mexican economy (the means of production, distribution, and finance) are owned and operated by their government?
Back to health care. You stated in post #101 “If we banned insurance then we would see health care cost go down by a huge amount”. I stated that you’re contradicting yourself. and you responded by stating in post #109 “ Not a contradiction since health insurance has nothing to do with the cost of health care unless you start mandating it and regulating it… all of which add cost”. That’s a contradiction within a contradiction. How can health insurance have nothing to do with the cost of health care if it can add to the cost of health care? Additionally, if health insurance is banned how will that exactly lower the cost of health care? Even with the removal of the administrative costs of insurance those administrative functions will then be placed on providers or suppliers. Your suggestion doesn’t make any sense. But you still think fascism is a form of socialism.
Finally, when someone points out to you that you’re wrong or that a certain ‘source’ of information (like the Wikipedia) are not credible, if your only response is ‘I know you are but what am I’ you really make yourself look silly. But please continue, I haven’t had this many laughs on PJM is a long time.
robotech master,
Re: post #124, nice try. I checked, the wording you’re using is identical to the Wikipedia article on the Mexican constitution. And what exactly are the other “subtleties on what constitutes Mexico’s territory” that are discussed in that article of their constitution? I ask because the Wikipedia article that I know you’re referencing doesn’t discuss them.
On the rest of your post, I specifically excluded their energy sector. Concerning land and water; ask yourself what percentage of US territory and water is owned by the government? Better yet, what percentage of private land in this country was transferred to private ownership from the government. And the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution reads in part “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”. So do you think that our Constitution is socialist in nature? Additionally, I didn’t see anything in that article that describes the state owning the means of production, distribution, and finance. Perhaps that is in another section you couldn’t references since the Wikipedia didn’t have an article on it.
Finally, why did you drop the whole subject of health care? That is what this article was supposed to be about.
As always this has been another hilarious exchange, please keep your posts coming.
To 125. Mr. Independant
Please please… at least goto high school your complete lack of knowledge and responses that amount to a 5 year old say NON-UH repeatedly is only displaying you know nothing.
“The problem that you’re having is that you don’t understand the concepts that I’m discussing.”
No the problem is you don’t have the slightest clue what you are talking about. As displayed by this.
“Libertarianism is a philosophy that can refer to economics. Socialism and Fascism are socio-economic philosophies that refer to both government and economics.”
Libertarianism is like fascism in its a complete government, econ, social mind set. Socialism and capitalism are parts that make up things like libertarianism or fascism. Socialism however can also be argued to be a complete system as well depending on the context.
“Fascism does not involve state ownership of the economy, socialism does. ”
Once again read the definitions from websters the place you seem to like or for that matter read any history book…
“On Mexico you still mistakenly believe that it’s economy is socialist.”
No you mistakenly believe you know anything about mexico…
“Excluding it’s energy sector, what portions of the Mexican economy (the means of production, distribution, and finance) are owned and operated by their government?”
How about you know all the natural resources… you also understand that the energy sector in mexico is a very large percent of its GDP…?
“Additionally, if health insurance is banned how will that exactly lower the cost of health care? ”
Already explained… repeatedly…
“But you still think fascism is a form of socialism.”
Fascism is a form of socialism…
“Finally, when someone points out to you that you’re wrong or that a certain ‘source’ of information (like the Wikipedia) are not credible, if your only response is ‘I know you are but what am I’ you really make yourself look silly.”
Thanks for repeating my line to your sources once again… please read a book some time.
To 126. Mr. Independant
Yes its a direct copy from wikipedia because thats the only source your using so I figured maybe you’d believe your own source…
Are you arguing that wikipedias translation is wrong? If so please do post a different translation… o wait your only source is wikipedia…
“nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”.
Do you understand what this means? Do you understand that the US constitution clearly states that the citizen owns the land and the government MUST PAY FOR IT vs mexico where the government owns the land and that they deem who owns it when, how, why and that it is only by the grace of the government you are allowed to own the land.
Once again you have no counter argument to the facts your merely playing dodge the question and the facts.
More “non-socialist” rules from mexico… and their supposed no regulated business.
” BENEFITS
Employee benefits can substantially add to labor costs.
* Profit Sharing – Federal law requires firms to participate in a profit sharing program in which employees receive 10 percent of the firm’s annual profits. Executive officers and general managers often do not participate in this program.”
Thats not socialist at all…
“Terminating a work relationship can be an expensive process. To dismiss a worker without just cause, you must pay him three months salary plus 20 days pay per year of service.”
clearly other non-regulations thats not based on socialism…
“If you are planning to hire Mexican workers, you must be prepared to deal with labor unions (sindicatos). Unions are an important and highly politicized component of the labor market that are especially strong within the public and industrial sectors.
The constitution and the Federal Labor Law both favour unionization.”
“Mexico’s labour laws are among the most progressive in the world. However, the Mexican government doesn’t enforce its laws to protect the rights of workers. The government does use these laws to determine whether or not to sanction the activities of a union.”
Nope nothing screams socialism here….
Must I quote the whole mexican legal system to you?
robotech master,
Re: post #127 & 128, I noticed you didn’t answer several of my questions from my previous posts. So here they are again:
1) What formal education (if any) do you have and what experience (if any) do you have in business?
2) What business (excluding their energy sector) are owned and operated by the Mexican government?
3) What percentage of private land in the US was formally owned by the government and transferred to private property?
4) What percentage of the fresh water in the US is owned by the government?
5) Do you continue to dispute my assertion that economic libertarianism refers to limited (or no) government intervention or regulation of business?
6) If fascism is a form of socialism, can you name any credible economists who agree with your statement?
7) How exactly will banning insurance lower the cost of health care?
Concerning the economic aspects of fascism, it differs from socialism in that the government regiments the economy. In other words the state seeks to behave like one giant corporation. That’s why some economists refer to fascism as corporatism. That’s completely different from socialism in which the government owns and operates the economy.
The energy sector in Mexico comprises a very small part of their GDP, less than 7%. Like the US, Mexico has a service and export based economy. If PEMEX (that’s their state owned oil company) and the rest of their energy sector were privately owned, I think the Heritage Foundation would probably rate Mexico as the most economically libertarian country in Latin America (versus only the 3rd). I specifically excluded their energy sector for this reason. Your counter argument is useless.
On you continued use of the Wikipedia, the reason I asked in my last post about your ‘sources‘, is because you have stated repeatedly that you do not use the Wikipedia as a ‘source’ of information. You continued that deception and neglected to mention in post #124 that the Wikipedia was the ‘source’ of your information. No I’m not arguing that the translation in inherently wrong but simply illustrating that I’ve caught you in a lie.
So you see I have always answered your questions. It is you who are dodging mine. If you are man enough to respond make sure you answer ALL of the questions above. I’ll be laughing, err I mean waiting.
robotech master,
Re: post #129, seriously laughter really is food for the soul and you’ve given me a feast with your posts. Organized labor is a private enterprise. Do you not understand that concept either?
“You feel that taking the government out of health care should exclude Medicare”
Not quite — only for the time being. That is, re the following quote,
“So by that reasoning you should feel that everyone who has paid into the Medicare system (including 18 year olds) should receive those benefits”,
I do not feel that way at all. Medicare is a mess, and cleaning it up will not be a neat affair. Those over a certain age (say 50, for convenience’s sake), having paid into the program over a majority of their working years, would have to remain eligible for all the services they were promised, as it would be too jarring to yank the rug out from under them as they were nearing retirement age.
Everyone under that cutoff age, however, would begin to be immediately weaned off of Medicare as that program is currently configured. We simply cannot afford it.
Re seniors’ motives when demanding the government not loot its own program to provide others with government-subsidized health-care, as I see it, their taking such a position in no way equals a de facto endorsement of government-run healthcare. Rather, their position simply represents the insistence by one party to an agreement that the other party fulfill its end of the bargain. But this is small beans, and in any case you are right: it is time to move on.
Regarding the reference to ~45 million uninsured, that figure has been shown to be incorrect. The number of long-term uninsured is far lower, under 20 million. That being said, you seem fixated on this expression “universal competition”. I’m not sure why the qualifier “universal” is needed: let insurance companies compete across state lines and offer various plans to consumers, and bingo, you’ve got tons of competition that will lower prices. People can pick what they feel they need and what they can afford — just like they pick bourbon, groceries, cars and the countless services required in day-to-day life.
My position is, taking the above step, along with tort reform (about which I must disagree: even if it is only 10%, that money adds up; do you, Mr. Independant, throw away 10% coupons? I don’t), would lower insurance costs a great deal — thus, it would reduce the number of people who forego insurance for financial reasons. Further, we could make insurance policies tax deductible, and who knows, this being America, the insurance companies could partner with other industries to create further incentives, such as rewards programs — like credit cards that give you mileage for air travel or discounts on gas.
In short, let’s move with caution. Let’s take these very unobtrusive, safe steps, before we start mandating that people buy insurance. I agree with you that the ininsured do in a sense “steal” from those who maintain health insurance. And you are right, their behavior drives up costs for everyone — but I think we can and should take more reasonable steps to begin with, to incentivize people to buy insurance, before we start fooling around with mandates.
The trouble is, for a mandate to work, there have to be punishments for those who do disobey, and in this case I believe mandates will lead to some very nasty unintended consequences. E.g., the current bills will without doubt prompt many young people to disobey the mandate, as paying the fine for not having insurance is cheaper than the insurance plans themselves — they will do this, because they are young, and when you are young, having beer in the fridge and money to go out easily trumps paying to insure against the unimaginable possibility that one day your cold won’t just go away like always.
Lastly, re Japan and Switzerland, I disagree. Culture is SO important, as more often than not it dictates behavior. In Japan, there is the Japanese way, period, and that is why it works for them. On the other hand, here in the state of NY — just this state — if you take a walk from Chinatown to Little Italy (which will take you all of five minutes), you’ll see striking differences in culture: the surroundings will tell you as clearly as words, that what is important to each group is not the same. Or take my own area of Queens, which has a growing population of Jews from former Soviet Bloc countries: largely orthodox, they are an extremely hermetic group, and while they’re not bad neighbors, it’s plain that their sense of community does not extend to outsiders. And there are more dramatic examples I can name. When I was teaching ESL, one semester I had a class with a bunch of wealthy Uzbek kids. The corruption they described in their country was hard to fathom: you could literally buy a degree over there.
And these are just the tip of the iceberg. Will Israelis, the fictional “Latino community” (i.e., there is no such thing: there are Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Cubans, Dominicans, and on and on, and you’d be stunned how this group hates that one and vice versa, and how they differ from one another), American blacks, Italians, and Russians comport themselves as a homogenous unit like the Japanese? No. Chance. In. Hell. Frankly, you’d have more luck uniting the bunch simply as New Yorkers — Urbanites Against the World — or even as Yankees or Mets fans, than you would convincing them to all take care to use some complex, government-run health-care system with the same degree of honesty and civic concern that is possible in places like Japan and Switzerland.
Again, that’s why local governance works best across the board — but you and I agree on that point, as you said.
Lastly, the feeling is mutual, Mr. Independant. A lot of times I mean to quit responding, because it takes so much time — but you’re an engaging debater, and a polite one.
Signing off…
To 130. Mr. Independant
“I noticed you didn’t answer several of my questions from my previous post.”
I noticed that you keep changing the topic because you can’t answer or present any facts to defend your positions…
“1) What formal education (if any) do you have and what experience (if any) do you have in business?”
Have you even been to high school?
“2) What business (excluding their energy sector) are owned and operated by the Mexican government?”
define owned and operated since you seem to like to nitpick everything… but broadly all natural resources are owned and operated by the mexican government….as well as the service sector which accounts for 68% of the economy.
“3) What percentage of private land in the US was formally owned by the government and transferred to private property?”
Meaningless argument since the government to this day gives away land for free but then must buy it back. Stop trying to throw out strawmen argument that change the topic.
“4) What percentage of the fresh water in the US is owned by the government?”
Not a huge amount… maybe less then 10%… of course with old obama trying to grab everything the EPA and other groups are quickly trying to grab huge amounts of land and resources, I’m sure that number is changing near daily at this point…which is why its another strawman argument.
“5) Do you continue to dispute my assertion that economic libertarianism refers to limited (or no) government intervention or regulation of business?”
Their is no such thing as “economic libertarianism” their is something that you are trying to explain and thats called capitalism…
“6) If fascism is a form of socialism, can you name any credible economists who agree with your statement?”
How about reading what fascism is and what socialism is(you know old websters that you love so much) and seeing they are pretty much the same.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html
Most of the arguments in this video apply today in health care insurance…
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6813529239937418232#
“7) How exactly will banning insurance lower the cost of health care?”
Explained many times… you still have yet to display any knowledge or arguments about how granting insurance to “everyone” will somehow make health care cost less…
“Concerning the economic aspects of fascism, it differs from socialism in that the government regiments the economy. In other words the state seeks to behave like one giant corporation. That’s why some economists refer to fascism as corporatism. That’s completely different from socialism in which the government owns and operates the economy.”
Your ignorance of history and facts is just amazing. Socialism is a very broad terms applied to many things. “Corporatism” is a form of socialism and it doesn’t mean corporations in the terms you understand. See people like you that are completely uneducated in other cultures and history don’t understand where the term came from. You see their was this guy call Benito Mussolini and he talked about his form of fascism using the term “corporation”. However because like you, many poorly educated people believe because he was talking about “corporations” you think of the standard US corporation that you see when you goto say walmart. This is completely at odds with what he meant under his italy culture and speech ideology. You see like all socialism ignorant ppl don’t read what mussolini believed in… he believed that the state needed to heavily control business and that the “workers” need to be unionized and a whole host of other very strict controls on it. His corporations were much more inline with stalins work camps then the semi free markets currently in the US… but i’m sure next your going to argue that stalin wasn’t a socialist either.
“On you continued use of the Wikipedia, the reason I asked in my last post about your ‘sources‘, is because you have stated repeatedly that you do not use the Wikipedia as a ‘source’ of information. You continued that deception and neglected to mention in post #124 that the Wikipedia was the ‘source’ of your information. No I’m not arguing that the translation in inherently wrong but simply illustrating that I’ve caught you in a lie.”
Lie..? Lol didn’t even open wikipedia until I needed a translation. Once again your ignorance of being able to source anything and your near non-stop attempt to deflect the target using wikipedia as a scape goat is funny… being the fact that your arguing wkikpedia talking points to the letter such as fascism is not socialism(a classic wiki argument) that fascism is “corporatism”(another classic wiki argument) I think its pretty safe to safe that you don’t even argue a point until you’ve look at the wikipedia is telling you what to say.
Why is it that all your talking points are straight from wikipedia?
“Individuality is left out of their scheme of government. The state is all in all. Everything is referred to the production of force; afterwards, everything is trusted to the use of it. It is military in its principle, in its maxims, in its spirit, and in all its movements. The state has dominion and conquest for its sole objects—dominion over minds by proselytism, over bodies by arms.” Edmund Burke on the French Revolution
It is instructive to hear about “social justice” right out of the horses mouth.
“THE first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, “Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.” Jean Jacques Rousseau
http://www.constitution.org/jjr/ineq_04.htm
“But as the essence of the republic or of democracy is equality, it follows that the love of country necessarily includes the love of equality…. This great purity of the French revolution’s basis, the very sublimity of its objective, is precisely what causes both our strength and our weakness. Our strength, because it gives to us truth’s ascendancy over imposture, and the rights of the public interest over private interests…. We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people’s enemies by terror…. Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue.” Maximilien Robespierre
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Communism/ROBESPIERRE'S%20SPEECH.htm
“We claim to live and die equal, the way we were born: we want this real equality or death; that’s what we need. And we’ll have this real equality, at whatever price. Unhappy will be those who stand between it and us!…We need not only that equality of rights written into the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen; we want it in our midst, under the roofs of our houses… The French Revolution was nothing but a precursor of another revolution, one that will be bigger, more solemn, and which will be the last.” Gracchus Babeuf
http://www.marxists.org/history/france/revolution/conspiracy-equals/1796/manifesto.htm
“Social Justice” means unnatural/irrational equal outcome with associated unnatural/irrational inequality before law (unequal rules). What the Socialists (Marxists) will never admit is that, as we learn from history and from Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984, some are more equal than others – the Marxist ruling class is more equal than us serfs. What is never admitted is that the tax-paying middle class will eventually become exhausted and reduced into equal serfdom with the tax-eating proletariat class.
George Orwell understood Marxist Socialism better than anyone, except of course for those in the Inner Party – the “Priests of Power.” The whole “equality” and “social justice” rhetoric of the Left is a lie; they are not interested in either. The Marxist Left uses “class struggle” (excessive taxation of the middle class for the benefit of tax-eating Marxist ruling and proletariat classes) in order to make people think utopian “social justice” and “equality” (of outcome) are at hand, but it is a sick joke – they bring the opposite. Once firmly in power the Marxist ruling class has no more need for “class struggle” “equality” or “social justice;” these are merely temporary tools which are required to achieve oligarchic power.
“It had long been realized that the only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called “abolition of private property”… meant in effect the concentration of property in far fewer hands than before… It had always been assumed that if the Capitalist Class were expropriated Socialism must follow; and unquestionably the Capitalists had been expropriated. Factories, mines, land, houses, transport, everything had been taken away from them; and since these things were no longer private property it followed that they must be public property. Ingsoc (Socialist Principles of Oceania), which grew out of the earlier Socialist movement and inherited its phraseology, has in fact carried out the main item in the Socialist program with the result; foreseen and intended beforehand, that economic inequality has been made permanent.” George Orwell – 1984
“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others… We are different from all the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we’re doing… Power is not a means, it is an end… The object of power is power… Always there will be the intoxication of power… We are the priests of power.” George Orwell – 1984
Socialism (Marxism) means government ownership of the individual and his creative labor, whereas Fascism is government control (through law) of the individual and his creative labor. Since government control is de-facto government ownership there is little difference between Socialism (Marxism) and Fascism.
The main difference between Socialism (Marxism) and Fascism is in their path to power. The Fascist is more “in your face” in that they reject democratic elections. Marxists are more clever and subtle; they developed a bag of tricks containing “class struggle” for the purpose of “equality” (of economic outcome), i.e.: “social justice.”
The goal of both Socialism (Marxism) and Fascism is the same: oligarchic power. Both are “Leftist” in relation to the spectrum of power with all-powerful totalitarian government on the “Left” and no government (anarchy) on the “Right.” The American Constitution is in the middle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODJfwa9XKZQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEFA4uOPnV8&feature=related
JR Dogman,
Thanks again for your response.
Obviously there are several points that we disagree about on this issue. But I think it’s very encouraging to see that there are also many areas that we agree on. That if nothing else shows the value of civil and honest discourse.
As always, its’ been enlightening to debate with you.
Until next time…
robotech master,
I see you still do not understand the concepts that I’m discussing. Is that why you didn’t answer most of my questions? For the record, I’m not changing the subject, I’ve been continually asking the questions in post #130 and you have refused to answer any of them except one. Such a pity, I have found your responses and your continued use of the Wikipedia as a ‘source’ of information very funny. Well, there’s always next time…
Storm-Rider,
Thank you for your comments but you are mistaken. The thread I’ve been discussing with another poster concerning the difference between fascism and socialism has not been about political power but economics. Suggesting that there is no difference between the economies of the former USSR (and yes I know the USSR was communist but the economic aspect of communism and socialism are the same) and present day China is absurd. BTW, modern socialism is considered to be democratic to distinguish it from communism (think India).
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