This thread is going to set a record post count once Markadepalma sees it. Haha
Random thoughts...
I have always thought that the left sees themselves, and others around them, as passive and helpless victims of powerful external forces, hence they are seen as political wards who require the continuous shepherding by a caretaker government. So a government that could so everything SHOULD do everything because according to lefties,
a) We are smart, unlike you;
b) We are free from greed, unlike like you;
c) Therefore, we must save you from yourselves, by regulating more of your life via government regulation.
Higher taxes? Less freedom? A welfare state? These are but a small price to pay for a total absence of suffering, bad decisions, worry and fear.
I have always wanted nothing more than the opportunity and freedom to pursue happiness on my own terms. Liberals think they have a right to happiness and that it should be delivered like a pizza. The liberal version of the American dream -- no worries, free health care, a guaranteed income as well as having the basics provided to you (among other things) -- would be like living in your parents' basement, for life. Put another way, modern liberalism is exactly like modern art: Ordinary people take one look and say, "Blech," while its elite defenders say, "You don't understand -- this is better than it looks."
It seems to me that many Democrats--not a majority, probably, but certainly most of the party's core--have gone into a state of permanent opposition. No election is ever over. No administration not favored by them can ever be legitimate. This is, I think, something new in American history--or modern history, anyway. In the past, elections were hard-fought, but when they were over, the lawn signs came down and life went on. Hatreds were not nursed--not, at least, on the mass scale that we see today. And people, by and large, accepted the quaint idea that once a government had been chosen by the majority. For many today, unrelenting opposition has become not just a political position but a way of life.
I’d like to know why tax increases don’t come with an expiration date like tax cuts do. How about entitlement social programs that are designed to "solve" (barf) some problem...why don’t they go away after they've "solved" the problem?
I’d like to know why tax increases don’t come with an expiration date like tax cuts do. How about entitlement social programs that are designed to "solve" (barf) some problem...why don’t they go away after they've "solved" the problem?
Because the philosophy cannot be wrong.
If a solution fails, it must be because that solution wasn't implemented correctly. Since there can be no reexamination of the underlying philosophy, the only answer is to do it again only harder!
Otherwise known as "cognitive dissonance" and its corresponding "escalation of failure."
b) We are free from greed, unlike like you;
Yet they have a pathological and near insatiable greed for "Do-Goodness" activity and it's dynamic feedback-loop, "Feels-Goodful"...
Well, last, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings but I'm afraid this thread won't be long at all. It's such a bizarre miscalculation of "liberals"..that it is sad, really, after such an eloquent post by Kevin on individual rights that an insanely narrow minded, stereotypical, and insanely faulted line of thought would follow.
I would be interested in this, though. Where, if anywhere, does anyone think that Goldberg is at fault?
I haven't read the book, but I will, because the Geek w/a .45's analysis matches my perspective wrt the behavior of self-styled "progressives" - the people who have hijacked the word "liberal."
How can the man who said that he wants a world like Star Trek call this post a "bizarre miscalculation of liberals". It seems that it fits you and those like you perfectly. You want your perfect society and by hook or by crook you will have it.
"Rather like the War on Drugs. Although the left tends to be more prone to this, it is by no means their exclusive province."
Another example is the Security theater that the Right seems to be hell bent on implementing. The Right wants to use government to create the perfect society as well. They just disagree with the Left in how that society should look.
The Left likes to recycle or repurpose. Consider the excise tax on phone service that was to pay for the Spanish-American War. How long did it take to finally get rid of it? Also consider the 55 mph speed limit. It was repurposed from a gas saving concern to a safety concern.
Any tax or regulation can have an infinite number of justifications. THe left does not like time limit (except on tax cuts) because then they have to justify in current terms why the cut or regulation is still needed, and their vote will go on the record.
"It's such a bizarre miscalculation of "liberals".."
Translation: this hits too close to the mark and I can't possibly refute it so I'm going to pretend that it's not a valid question for discussion.
To be fair, maybe the Left/liberals/Democrats and their supporters in your neck of the woods don't think like this. But the ones I've encountered over the years, in places all around the country, did to some degeree or another.
I think a lot of the Left's inability to be self-reflective or read History is a result of their feedback loop - a perceived threat to the smug assurances and feelgoodism instantly results in a reflexively defensive posture not unlike the fight-or-flight syndrome.
Vision and auditory exclusion abounds as they prepare to defend, a situation which doesn't allow for much internal analysis. When the threat goes away they return to the bipolar happy feelgoodism with no memory of the other state.
Of course I will. In fact, I will buy it. Remember, you have to test the negative:)
Any takers on renting or buying Sicko? (other than you, last, who I saw it with!)
"How can the man who said that he wants a world like Star Trek call this post a "bizarre miscalculation of liberals"
Actually, I think the world of Star Trek has MORE not less to do with individual responsibility and morality than any liberal or conservative view point. It is an ideal, though, and after what happened in Texas and Ohio last night, I fear we are very far from it.
Good point on your second post, Yosemite. I agree.
"It is not for us to prove our virtue by agreeing with you."
What this says to me, geek, is that you are willing to swallow...lock, stock and barrel...anything that fits into your fervent belief system. I'd love to be proved wrong.
And I have taken on some of Goldberg's comments that were discussed in a previous thread...
"this hits too close to the mark"
No, not really. What does hit close to the mark is how closed minded people can be. Of course, I am guilty of this as well. But I bet I can list more things I dislike about Democrats than you can about things you like about them...:)
DirtCrashr, in my opinion, you are exactly describing the conservative movement, not the liberal one. In fact, #1 on my list of things I don't like about liberals is that are TOO self reflective.
Last, I may be wrong and you may be right..this could be a long one...
My observations are as one born to the Liberal Movement by its most devout and faith-based religious followers (and who in that all consuming Faith gave up teh-Normal Everything) - having grown-up Nurtured in its Heart and protective Village-University bosom, as a child of the Left.
Then one day I saw anew. But this whole Conservative thing is recent and a bit of an uncomfortable suit sometimes - I may really be a Libertarian.
>>"It is not for us to prove our virtue by agreeing with you."
>>What this says to me, geek, is that you are willing to swallow...lock, stock and barrel...anything that fits into your fervent belief system. I'd love to be proved wrong.
And yet again,
NO.
That is not how debate works.
Your assertion (that I am willing to swallow ... belief system) DOES NOT follow from the statement you have selected or any other statement I have made.
It is NOT for me to prove that facially preposterous statement false.
If you wish to take the position that "I am willing to swallow...lock, stock and barrel...anything that fits into my fervent belief system", you're going to have to prove, (or at the very minimum, plausibly demonstrate that it might be true) your position.
You will have to first enumerate just what exactly you think my fervent belief system is", and then show evidence that I accept uncritically any statement that fits it.
I take it this is you, geek? I am going to read the book and then I will make my arguments against Goldberg. I would ask you again to read the previous thread on Goldberg in which we discuss the difference between fascism and socialism. A few things, however, come to mind....
Your fervent belief system is defined as your statement that the American left are totalitarians which will ultimately destroy liberty in this country and our lives, right?
Totalitarianism is defined as state control in every aspect of public and private life. Given the fact that most Democrats get elected through the support of various private benefactors, just like the Republicans, I find your giant leap into totalitarianism to be quite silly. The corporations of this country that support Democratic candidates will simply not stand for it.
The problem is not that we need to protect industry and our private lives from government...it's that we need to protect government (and our private lives) from private industry . Both Dems and Repubs essentially have paid stoolies in place in all areas of government to make sure their interests are met. A President Clinton or McCain will most assuredly continue this policy. Look a their donor list.
A President Obama will also continue this (check out his donor list!) but with an attempt, at least, to drive out special interests and to have a return to the intrinsic motivation of simply serving your country (see JFK and FDR). In my opinion, he will put the best people in place to serve their country. Obama is not going to force anyone into anything (see his health plan). The OPTION of having government help will be there for those who want it. If you don't want it, don't take it. He will also inspire and motivate people to do more for themselves. It is already happening...hopefully it will...unless Clinton pulls a Bush and steals the election.
It is a giant misconception that the left is all about hand outs and doing good. This is particularly true of Senator Obama who has said repeatedly that people need to take responsibility for themselves, work, and help out in their communities.
As to where you accept things uncritically, I would say your entire review of Goldberg's book is uncritical. You essentially magnify his argument by taking a paranoid leap into a vision of America that will never be. Millions dead? Please...did millions die when FDR was president because of his programs? Any programs that the Democrats come up with won't even be anywhere near as socialist as that time in history and look at how that turned out? We came together as a nation and defeated the greatest army this world has ever seen.
Of course, it's possible that you view ANY social programs as totalitarianism in which case I would ask you to demonstrate to me exactly how Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton is going to systematically murder Americans in the way that Stalin murdered his own people.
The difference between you and I, geek, is that I am a critical thinker and you are not. For example, when I watch a Michael Moore movie, the first thing I do is figure out how and why he is wrong. I weight that with how is right. How do both columns affect his main points?
So, how is Goldberg wrong? Because the first question I am going to ask myself when I read the book is how is he right? Can it really be true? Here is why he is right...
The argument has been made on here that liberals are not self reflective and conservatives are self reflective. Well, let's hear it. How is your position weak? What are two or three essential flaws in conservative ideology?
I would also humbly suggest that you review the definition of the terms "ingroup bias" and "outgroup bias"...two things I have suffered from in the past.
I've got one for you Mark. I've actually quoted it before:
"(A)t the heart of conservatism is an ongoing, unresolvable dialectic between freedom and virtue. In other words, there is a bedrock belief in the idea that free markets are the best way to allocate scarce resources and to create wealth and prosperity for all, but a frank acknowledgment that, without a virtuous populace, the system may produce a self-centered, materialistic citizenry living in a sort of degenerate, 'pitiable comfort.' Thus, there is an ongoing, unresolvable tension between the libertarian and traditional wings of the movement."
What kind of circular logic are you following with this:"The problem is not that we need to protect industry and our private lives from government...it's that we need to protect government (and our private lives) from private industry"?
Yes, fine, the problem is that private industry uses government to screw the competition and enrich themselves. But they are able to do it because we have a government that is able to intrude on every aspect of business, and us sheep put up with it.
With a smaller and less obtrusive government, businesses would have to duke it out in the marketplace, with the best product for the best price and service usually winning, as it should be.
Government should be a referee and policeman for thieves, including the blue collar kind. It goes way beyond that mandate in so many ways, with onerous regulations, bureaucracy and taxation.
Protect government from business? Sure, great idea. I'm all for it, but get government out of the hand of business.
Great example in a recent Forbes, talking about how specialty hospitals are restricted by government working in cahoots with the large hospital corporations. Specialty hospitals give better care at the same or even less cost, but the government that is supposed to protect US, protects the hospital corporations that pay off the Senators and Reps.
Get rid of government intrusion into the BUSINESS of medicine and let doctors and anyone else compete, and see if prices don't come down. But much of the problem in the "health-care" system is due to GOVERNMENT interference in the marketplace.
If this means I'm a small-government libertarian or conservative, or whatever label I am given, fine. But liberals, aka totalitarian/fascist wannabees, want to control MY access to healthcare. Goldberg would absolutely agree that business corrupts government and vice versa, but the problem is the liberal belief that government can be a wonderful institution and solve all these ills.
Government is more often the problem or the enabler.
Another example here happened just two days ago. The citizends of the City of Oklahoma City (meaning that city alone, not the other cities surrounding it) voted a 1% sales tax on themselves to fund improvements to the Ford Center, which, once they move here, will be the home of what is now the Seattle NBA basketball team. Thus the citizens, through taxation, give a subsidy to the very wealthy owner of a business in a highly profitable industry. So, we can't say this is gubmint and bidness conspiring to screw us and enrich themselves, even though such might appear an apt description, because the sheeple voted for this tax by a 60/40 margin.
"because we have a government that is able to intrude on every aspect of business, and us sheep put up with it"
I disagree. You may have been able to make an argument for this 30 years ago but Reagan changed all of that. There has been a a slow shift in power in this country and, to me, it clearly resides with companies like KBR and Blackwater.
"with a smaller and less obtrusive government, businesses would have to duke it out in the marketplace"
Show me how KBR is "duking it out."
"with the best product for the best price and service usually winning"
This was possibly true 60 years ago, back when we were creative and innovative as opposed to now-lazy and willfully ignorant. That world of 60 years ago is gone and it has been replace by an oligarchy with less and less competition and more gigantic corporations. This is because of less, not more, government regulation.
"Government should be a referee and policeman for thieves"
I agree. They aren't doing that because they have been bought off by companies like KBR etc.
"But liberals, aka totalitarian/fascist wannabees, want to control MY access to healthcare"
No, they don't. You will have a choice of providers but, remember, with Hillary you MUST have health care otherwise it is a crime. With Obama, it is not mandatory.
"Government is more often the problem or the enabler."
The real problem is that there is no balance. We need to return to a time when the government served the needs of the people. Right now they are serving the needs of the corporations.
DJ, sad story. We have the same problem here with the Vikings, although most people have voted down any public financing of sports stadiums. Owners should pay for their own damn stadiums. They have the money.
Mark, the government IS ABLE to intrude on every aspect of business. It's called "the commerce clause" and its abuse dates back to Wickard v. Filburn in 1942. (In fact, it dates back much further, but Wickard legalized it.)
This FACT is then MANIPULATED by OTHER BUSINESSES to their competitive advantage.
Like, oh say KBR and ADM. This is known as "good business practice."
The fact that you think this has been going on for only sixty years further illustrates your general ignorance.
"...with Hillary you MUST have health care otherwise it is a crime. With Obama, it is not mandatory."
The missing operative word being "YET". You seem hopelessly obtuse to the fact that no government entitlement program ever goes away, gets smaller, or even remains the same size. They do nothing but grow in scope, cost, and "inclusiveness." So (perhaps long after Obama has left the scene) you can bet your bottom $10,000 bill (inflation, you know,) that you not only must have health care, you will be restricted to a bloated, inefficient government program.
"We need to return to a time when the government served the needs of the people."
Thus illustrating you unquestioning assumption that the government - any government - has ever done such a thing.
"Idealist without illusion" my aching ass.
Re-read the quote of the day this comment thread is attached to. You are the embodiment of its subject.
Maybe KBR and Blackwater aren't duking it out with other companies, is because their bread and butter is to ,wait for it, provide services for government. Engineering support services for KBR and security services for Blackwater. If the government was limited then one would think it would need those services less.
If government stays large but say under Obama, government will still need those specialized services and guess what, KBR and Blackwater will provide them.
>>The difference between you and I, geek, is that I am a critical thinker and you are not.
Rolling. on. the. floor. laughing. my. freaking. ass. off.
This is fun! Please, indulge your "Prometheus bringing the fire of enlightened thought to the ignorant savage conservatives" fantasy some more! It just keeps getting better and better!
No, I'm not. Let me repeat myself again because apparently you are having trouble understanding me. I want a return to good capitalism.
The problem is your bias, Kevin. You are unable to see, for whatever reason, that our country has become one giant mega-corp, with unofficial employees of said corp in elected positions of our government "representing" the people...
I would humbly suggest that if you are so concerned about government waste that you take the same energy you put into slamming government run health care and spend a week looking into the defense industry. Examine closely how competition works in regards to their government contracts. In addition, take a look at how Reagan's deregulation of the FCC changed the face of media corporations.
Further, I would suggest you watch this film...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation
and pay attention to what Milton Friedman, someone you told me to check out, says in it.
"Rolling. on. the. floor. laughing. my. freaking. ass. off."
In all your rolling and laughing, any thoughts pop into your head about the drawbacks to conservative ideology? Kevin had a very astute one...any ideas? And how is Goldberg wrong?
I answered your questions...will you answer mine? Until you show me some "self reflection," geek....well....I think my point is quite valid.
Thus further illustrating your (apparently willful) ignorance.
I repeat: "Idealist without illusion" my aching ass.
And I concur completely with Russell: The GeekWithA.45 is perhaps one of the five or six smartest people I have ever 'met' on the internet. (I somehow missed the "critical thinker" comment.)
If anyone thinks he isn't a critical thinker, then they are sadly mistaken.
So far, Markadelphia, your intellectual prowess hasn't impressed me or anyone else commenting here.
"The problem is your bias, Kevin. You are unable to see, for whatever reason, that our country has become one giant mega-corp, with unofficial employees of said corp in elected positions of our government "representing" the people..."
Huh? You mean like state insurance boards, unelected officials that tell us how many dumb health mandates we have to pay for?
I agree, that isn't right. They are quasi-governmental, unelected bureaucrats. But the point YOU are missing Markadephia is that these corporations use a corrupt government to do their mischief, rather than fairly compete in the marketplace. How hard is that to comprehend?
Big government equals big problems. Government protects the evil mega-corporations...ok, your solution is MORE government to do what? Fix the evil corporations? But the goverment is the cause of much of the mischief in the first place!
This is a chicken-and-egg argument. I happen to think that goverment is the prime cause of the problems, or at least is NOT fulfilling its function as a watchman. It certainly isn't doing a good job in healthcare, the one area I know something about. Healthcare is a non-free market, and yes, it is being run to a large degree by evil corporations IN CAHOOTS with the goverment. The government has caused the problems by not getting rid of the World War 2 employer-based insurance model, that was not supposed to be an eternal thing (as Kevin pointed out, no govt. programs are ever abolished).
That model clearly doesn't work.
Mark'phia, did you read the Forbes article on how Big Hospital Chains have USED GOVERNMENT to protect their turf against competition? So, we get worse quality of care and higher costs. Brought to you by your government.
Did you read about the Mayor of Boston declaiming that evil corporations shouldn't make money from sick people, when they wanted to open in-store walk-in clinics? Great idea (Karl Marx might think so). Doctors and nurses should work for free! Or by some magic mechanism, we should know exactly what price would be fair to give them so they wouldn't "make a profit", whatever that means.
Of course, all HIzzoner was doing was protecting the huge mega-hospitals in the Boston area...but again, we had government, in its infinite (lack) of wisdom protecting...whom? The "PEOPLE"? Right. Better they should go sit in supposed non-profit hospital ER's, with 6-8 hour-long waits and a bill 8 or more times what the walk-in clinic would charge for a sore throat.
That goverment sure is helpful. I feel SO very protected!
Goverment doesn't have to be bad, I am no anarchist, but when it grows so large and obtrusive..and nationalized health care will be all that and worse...and again, this is the industry I'm in, but I see it everywhere...the liberal dream that government is going to solve our problems is precisely the wrong end of the chicken.
Evil mega-corporations LOVE big government. Why do we think Big Government is going to solve the problems of Big Corporations? How is Obama or Hillary going to keep that from happening? Hike corporate taxes? Fix corporate-government interaction/corruption?
I don't see it. The best thing the government can do is SHRINK and get out of the business of intruding and making most things it touches worse.
Maybe shifting to an alternate coastal perspective would shed some light. California is one Giant Mega-Government run by the State Employees Union and the Teacher's Union, with Healthcare run by the Nurses Union and massive Government regulatory penetration calcifying the creativity of every Mom-and-Pop business AND all the Major Corporations.
oops. That's what I get for firing off a comment when I'm trying to get out the door. I just did a search for KBR. But, the point remains that for an evil corporation that is supposedly so powerful and controls the government, it's funny that they aren't even in the top 100.
'You seem hopelessly obtuse to the fact that no government entitlement program ever goes away, gets smaller, or even remains the same size. They do nothing but grow in scope, cost, and "inclusiveness." ' - Kevin
"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program." - Ronald Reagan
"If anyone thinks he isn't a critical thinker, then they are sadly mistaken."
Well, I suppose you would have to define what a critical thinker is...so far, as I see it, you are one, Sarah is one, juris is one..randy and Russell..maybe, need to read them more..
Oh, Bilgeman, now he is most definitely one!
Geek? Well, he/she hasn't demonstrated it to me yet. I am waiting for two or three things with which he finds fault in regards to the conservative ideology....
"These corporations use a corrupt government to do their mischief, rather than fairly compete in the marketplace. How hard is that to comprehend?"
And Maurice is a critical thinker as well...I agree....so that's why I am very against a Clinton or McCain presidency, which could be one and the same since she seems to feel that they have both "crossed the commander in chief threshold"...whatever the heck that means!!!!
"Healthcare is a non-free market, and yes, it is being run to a large degree by evil corporations IN CAHOOTS with the goverment"
More pearls of wisdom...completely agree...
"The best thing the government can do is SHRINK and get out of the business of intruding and making most things it touches worse"
Some would argue that it already has...shrinking in dick size, that is. I see most members of government these days as lazy cowards, unwilling to give any effort or act in an honorable way. They take their corporate handouts, leave business to fuck people over, and do their damndest to prevent any kind of competition interfering with the business of their masters....and that includes the very own government that employs them!!!
The biggest problem I have with these comments is they completely fail to take into account the LACK of power the individual has in regards to the health care industry. You would know this if you took your blinders off and watched the film Sicko. Of course, that's just a primer.
As customers, we pay for the service of health care, right? If we don't like our service, we go elsewhere, right? Not exactly. That's not how it works and neither one of you understand this because you have not heard story after story about how PAYING, HARD WORKING customers have been fucked over by the "free" market that is health care. There's nothing free about it and the word "choice" often times is not present at all.
There needs to be some regulation and another choice...a government subsidized choice...for people. That's not to say I support a single payer system. That would put thousands of people out of jobs and make things worse. Many of your predictions might come true. I want more choices, not less.
That's not how it works and neither one of you understand this because you have not heard story after story about how PAYING, HARD WORKING customers have been fucked over by the "free" market that is health care.
::Sigh::
Mark, the "health insurance" industry is largely the creation of government, growing out of wage freezes imposed by the government in WWII. The companies involved in the health insurance industry have grown huge and profitable - and have used their influence ON THE GOVERNMENT to maintain their profitability.
Today's situation IS THE DIRECT RESULT OF GOVERNMENT INFLUENCE ON THE FREE MARKET - which always, always destroys the "free" part.
Read this carefully: THERE IS NO FREE MARKET IN THE HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY.
Read this even more carefully: NOTHING YOU ESPOUSE WILL RETURN US TO A TRUE FREE MARKET.
There needs to be some regulation and another choice...a government subsidized choice...for people.
That's already been done. It doesn't work either. It only gets bigger, more intrusive, less effective, and more expensive everywhere it is tried. Your insistence is one more case of "the philosophy cannot be wrong! Do it again ONLY HARDER!"
Maggie Mahar, a economic journalist, wrote a review of SICKO I found interesting. In it, she said this:
Of course people in the U.K. Canada and France know that healthcare is not free. (And contrary to what some of Moore’s critics say, he does not pretend that it is.) But since they think of healthcare as a right—something we all deserve simply because we are human—it seems to them fair that, “You pay according to your means [through taxes] and receive according to your needs.” In this, national health programs that are funded by taxes resemble Medicare: the higher your salary, the more you pay into Medicare. The sicker you are, the more you will take out in benefits. If you’re lucky, you put in more than you take out.
What “Sicko” doesn’t do is focus on the waste in our system. As Jonathan Weiner observes below, we can’t afford to pay for everything that someone might possibly want. We need to be sure that we are getting value for our healthcare dollars. In one case, Moore tells the story of a man dying of kidney cancer. Desperate to save him, his wife valiantly tries to persuade insurers to pay for new treatments –including a bone-marrow transplant that the insurance company calls “experimental.” But the insurer refuses, and a few weeks later her husband dies. This is one of the saddest moments in the film—both husband and wife are very appealing.
Yet it is not clear that the insurer was wrong to refuse the cover the bone-marrow transplant.
Bold emphasis is mine.
This defines the difference between our positions, Markadelphia.
Health care is not a right. It cannot be a right. Treating it as a right goes against the founding philosophy of this nation, and it goes against reality - defined as "that which remains even when I stop believing in it."
Believing that health care is a right, and that it is the government's job to provide it for you is to believe that the government can love you, and Jonah Goldberg is exactly correct:
The government is not your mommy and it's not your daddy, and any system that is based on those assumptions will eventually lead to folly.
Aw, crap, again. Russell, that "anonymous" above was me. It seems my wife made a few "comments" from here while I backed up her computer (I do such things manually), and she didn't reset my name and I didn't notice. Now that I know to watch for it, I will.
"Is that an exception or an example?" Well, you could do a statistical analysis of your previous comments, and map that to a standard deviation chart to see.
Or just chalk it up to an example of old age ;)
No one reads John Locke, David Hume, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, or Thomas Jefferson anymore, do they?
This Health Care 'issue' wouldn't have gained as much traction if the ideals of the Renaissance still prevailed.
Kevin, exactly what do you think is going to happen if the government truly "gets out" of the health care industry?
Also, what kind of "rights" do you think people have when they actually work for health insurance and then don't get it? And then can't afford to buy insurance elsewhere because their employers won't pay for it?
This is not the result of government interference. It is the result of private corporations wanting to increase profits. Your guru Friedman has said it himself: the corporation is amoral. It has to be to make profit.
The government isn't going to "get out" of the health care industry. Those cows are already out of the barn. The government's job insofar as it properly has one, is to make sure that insurance companies live up to their contractual obligations. Of course, the government doesn't seem to be doing a remarkably good job of that either, does it? Isn't that one of the things you're complaining about?
Yet you believe that that same government should assume the responsibility for subsidizing health care? (That is, rob Peter to pay Paul - which always gets the support of Paul.) Of course, it already is, but you want to expand it.
The system is broken - absolutely. It's not fair - positively.
And nothing you advocate will fix that. In fact, all experience shows that your ideas will only make it worse. Of course, it might take, oh, five or ten election cycles before the house of cards approaches collapse (See: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security), but hey! The officials responsible for getting that legislation passed will have moved on to bigger and better things by then! And it won't be your fault, because the philosophy cannot be wrong! If "health-care reform" fails it will be because it wasn't properly implemented! We must do it again, only HARDER!
Yes, the corporation is amoral. (You say that like it's a bad thing.) All the corporation cares about is profits, and profits depend on happy customers. Try to get that through your head.
If the customers aren't happy, the corporation doesn't make a profit, because the customers can go elsewhere. At least, that's how it works when there really is a free market.
Except our government has set it up so there isn't.
And here's the worst part: The government doesn't care if its customers are happy. It doesn't have to. You have nowhere else to go.
So what you're complaining about is that the insurance industry is acting like the government, but your solution is to cut out the middleman and make the government the payer.
And somehow, you think this will make things better.
Understand, Mark, I'm not saying that we can make things significantly better than they are now - not without an essentially impossible complete reset of the entire health-care and insurance industries. I'm saying that everything you espouse will make it WORSE, long-term.
Now, do you want to discuss what is and what isn't a "right" again?
Well, let me ask you this...do you have a right to clean water?
No. (Really. Honestly. No, you don't have a right to clean water.)
Want to move the goalposts some more?
(You really don't get it, do you? You're so sure you understand the people you consider "conservative." All you have to do is bring us your obvious wisdom and enlightenment, and we must bow to your superiority, yet you haven't got a clue.)
Golly, Kevin, don'tcha see? Well, then go see this article and you'll understand. It seems that We The People have a right to watch televsion.
Why don't they tell us these things?
OK, fine. I'll have one of these for the living room, and one of these for the bedroom. And I want the taxpayers to pay for them, because I have goddamned right to watch TV.
Well, I don't think I am superior to anyone. And I also don't think I am moving any goalposts. You asked me a question..
"do you want to discuss what is and what isn't a "right" again?"
..and I responded to it. Remember what happens when I "don't answer questions?" (Reminder: notice that many of my questions and challenges have gone unanswered or unmet(ex:you)....do you see me blowing a bowel about it?)
Many of the things you say regarding health care, in your above post, are accurate. When you begin any discussion with the belief (set in rock granite) that government never works , however, it makes it extremely difficult to move forward from that point. There have been plenty of times throughout our history that government has not worked or has been awful. There have been times when it has worked. To say that it never works no mater what and you will never ever never change your mind is...well...not very critically minded wouldn't you say?
To say that it never works no mater what and you will never ever never change your mind is...well...not very critically minded wouldn't you say?
Again, you really don't get it.
"I quite agree with the opinion of the court that whether the legislation under review is wise or unwise is a matter with which we have nothing to do. Whether it is likely to work well or work ill presents a question entirely irrelevant to the issue. The only legitimate inquiry we can make is whether it is constitutional. If it is not, its virtues, if it have any, cannot save it; if it is, its faults cannot be invoked to accomplish its destruction. If the provisions of the Constitution be not upheld when they pinch, as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned." - Justice Sutherland (dissenting), Blaisdell (1934)
If it's not within the powers conferred upon the government under the Constitution, it doesn't matter what it's purported virtues are, or how "successful" the government might be at it. It is power not granted to that entity. And that power was not granted to that entity specifically to prevent government overreach.
"These aren't people who seek evil. They are people who seek Good, albeit through dubious means. They are people who blind themselves to the truth that the power for unlimited good is cannot be distinguished, even in principle, from the power for unlimited evil. As such, they do not understand that we oppose them for their means, not their ends, and many believe that we oppose the Good they seek to bring forth, and cannot understand why anyone (other than a reactionary degenerate seeking to preserve a position of oppression based privilege) would oppose such Goodness.
This premise, government as a source of unlimited Good, directly contravenes one of the few axioms upon which America is predicated: that since it is impossible to create a government capable of doing unlimited good without creating a government capable of doing unlimited evil, we shall not make a government so capable, because it will inevitably degenerate into the unlimited evil case."
Health care is not a right. Clean water is not a right. A "fair income" is not a right. Watching television is NOT A RIGHT.
If government must coerce its citizens in order to provide something, then - by definition - it is NOT A RIGHT. The primary purpose of government is to SECURE our rights. Securing our NEEDS is supposed to be up to US.
Many of the things you say regarding health care, in your above post, are accurate. I almost surprised that you'll admit that.
When you begin any discussion with the belief (set in rock granite) that government never works , however, it makes it extremely difficult to move forward from that point.
No, government does work (as good as can be expected, anyway) at the very narrowly limited tasks it is assigned within the scope of the Constitution. Where it has stepped (or leaped, or hopped into a 4WD and blasted) outside those boundaries, not so much.
But it is easy to convince people that they shouldn't be responsible for themselves, that someone else can do it for them better - and this ALWAYS leads, eventually, to limiting liberty.
Have you read Hayek's The Road to Serfdom? He makes a very compelling case that fits with all available facts.
Actually, juris, how about eliminating Crony-Capitalism? Right now, we have an executive branch that is acting in the best interests, not of our country, but of a certain group of corporations in two or three specific industries in our country. Our government is a tool of private industry.
Kevin, yes I read Hayek back in college. While I found his arguments to be compelling, even then (80s) I thought they were woefully out of date. Today? Well, it really explains quite a bit about much of the thought process that goes on here.
I am curious as to how you think Hayek's main points fit into the one world economy that we have today. I realize this might be a long answer so maybe a future post?
>>Actually, juris, how about eliminating Crony-Capitalism?
Markadelphia:
Do you fundamentally fail to recognize that to the extent business and government are enmeshed today is a form of fascism? Or is what you fail to recognize the historical facts concerning the Left's significant contribution to creating and perpetuating this state of affairs?
Of course, you ~could~ just go ahead and blame it all on conservatives and the Right.
That's what a we uncritical thinkers would do, anyway.
Actually, juris, how about eliminating Crony-Capitalism?
I asked you about your alleged golden age. We can talk about how to 'get back to that', if you like. But let's stick to one topic at a time - even if you find that topic, the one YOU chose - a bit uncomfortable.
Our government is a tool of private industry.
And it will be so long as that govt has the power, and will, to hand out goodies to private industry. If govt wasn't a useful tool to industry, industry wouldn't use it. You are insane if you think that you can make govt more powerful AND less useful as a tool; not merely mistaken or misguided - but flat out fucking insane.
Here, I'll show ye how it's done. We'll skip the early failures and cut to the current efforts. That'll save lotsa words and ink, and we can get back to thinking non-critically.
What you do is find a promising young stud, er, candidate, and train him up good. Make sure he's high-minded, has good morals, is motivated by a really strong sense of ethics, and has all the right specifications. Begin by making him a lawyer. Now don't scoff, as we both know that lawyers (haaacckkk, spit) know how to get things done. You just have to get the right one.
We'll skip all the probationary apprenticeship gopher stuff and cut right to the chase. Make him the [cue the trumpets] Attorney General. Give him some power, by gum. Give him a goddamned mandate. Watch as he roots out corruption, sleaze, favoritism, insider goin's-on, and other such intolerable practices. Why, he'll just steamroller right over what ought to be steamrollered right over, right?
If you do it really, really well, he'll get a nashnull repatation! He'll be a hero to all the folks what don't got squat! He'll be so popular that you can groom him to be Prezdet! Start early, as it takes a long time to train up a new Prezdet. Talk up his repatation as being incorruptible and, and, hmmm.
Well, shit.
Karma is a bitch, ain't she?
So, you do it again, only harder!
What you do is find a promising young stud, er, candidate, and train him up good. Make sure he's high-minded, has good morals, is motivated by a really strong sense of ethics, and has all the right specifications. Begin by ... well, you know the drill now. Keep trying. It'll work. Some day.
Now DJ, you know the only reason Spitzer got caught was because of the unconstitutional provisions of the Patriot Act that were misused against a citizen. The FBI shouldn't be chasing government corruption, it should be chasing Al Qaeda cells in the U.S!
Spitzer would have eventually made a WONDERFUL President, steamrollering over all the fat-cat industrialists who make their living stealing their customers blind, deaf, dumb, and stupid!
I wonder if the Chinese would have provided him prostitutes, or a resurgent Russia?
Probably both.
Betcha the photos would have been hi-rez Penthouse quality!
"Now DJ, you know the only reason Spitzer got caught was because of the unconstitutional provisions of the Patriot Act that were misused against a citizen."
How he was caught is irrelevant to the fact that he was a phony, a hypocrite who committed the same crimes he prosecuted others for. That his example happened now is priceless.
"Do you fundamentally fail to recognize that to the extent business and government are enmeshed today is a form of fascism?"
No, I agree with this statement.
"Or is what you fail to recognize the historical facts concerning the Left's significant contribution to creating and perpetuating this state of affairs?"
Ah, that's where you are incorrect. More than any group, it has been the Republicans who have "perpetuated this state of affairs." I would ask you...who, more than any other group, worships, child like and starry eyed, at the feet of corporate America?
Certainly, Democrats are cronies as well (eg Hillary) but Republicans, you have to admit, have taken it to whole new level. Show me how a hard core left winger like Russ Feingold is beholden to corporate interests.
Juris, I guess I don't understand your question about the golden age and where you are heading....
"not merely mistaken or misguided - but flat out fucking insane."
The thing is, juris, I don't see government as having much power at all ...now or in an Obama presidency. The corporations of this country control so much of what we do....wow.....if you can't see that....
This whole thread has got me thinking about that cartoon you put a while back....is Capitalism an "ism" we should be worried about? Or run away from?
BTW, Kevin, I finally started God and Gold and I love it. I am about a third of the way through and it is extraordinarily well written. I am such a geek for shit like this. I think I might teach it next year in an AP class. I am curious, though, as to what you thought I would get from it and how I would receive it.
Ah, the timing of it all. This column by Susan Estrich really validates the scenario I outlined above.
The money quote is:
" To run for high office, you have to view yourself a little differently than most of us view ourselves. You need to believe you have something special; you need to be able to hear your own voice all day long, see your own image, be in your own face in a way that most of us couldn't, at least not comfortably. But you also need to remember not to buy into the idea that you really are different. You have to resist the almost irresistible intoxication of power, the part of it that might leave a mere mortal believing, as 16-year-olds do, that they are something more.
Eliot Spitzer knew better, but he clearly forgot that the rules apply to everyone. Especially him. Now, the face in the mirror is the one that did him in. Poor Eliot. I do feel sorry for him. But there are some things you can't teach, some things that can only be learned through painful experience. Hubris is what it's called."
And this is why more gumnint, and/or more powerful gubmint, isn't the solution to our society's problems. The people who are the gubmint are just that, people, and the only thing that differentiates them from the run-of-the-mill sheeple is ambition. Ambition combined with authority is a recipe for despotism. The whole objective of the designers of our republic was to avoid that. And to think that some people believe it's just what we need ...
The thing is, juris, I don't see government as having much power at all ...now or in an Obama presidency. The corporations of this country control so much of what we do....wow.....if you can't see that....
You're right - I don't see that. Whatever power corporations have - they get it FROM the govt. Say, like eminent domain. Pfizer wanted Suzanne Kelo's house, but she wouldn't sell - so the govt condemned it. Who the fuck had the power there asshole?
If some company wants me to piss in a cup I can tell them to piss off, but if the state police arrest me it's a whole different ballgame. You can't see that? You're beyond blind.
But you go ahead and collect your taxpayer funded paycheck and piss yourself in fear of corporations, you ridiculous little weasel. No doubt the WalMart goons will break into your house tonight and force you to buy cheap goods against your will.
I finally started God and Gold and I love it. I am about a third of the way through and it is extraordinarily well written. I am such a geek for shit like this. I think I might teach it next year in an AP class. I am curious, though, as to what you thought I would get from it and how I would receive it.
Hell, wait until you get to the end. You'll orgasm.
Try to find the first comment where I implored you to read the book. I'll wait...
"Whatever power corporations have - they get it FROM the govt"
I would recommend you watch this film.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation
Milton Friedman is in it as well as Peter Drucker and people from the Fraser Institute. Plenty of liberals are in it as well. There is also a hilarious bit in the extras...the Milton Friedman choir!
"you ridiculous little weasel."
Well, watch the film and tell me how ridiculous you think I am at that point.
Kevin, find the first comment? Geez...that could take some time. Tell you what, I'll post a review when I am done on my blog and then you can comment.
What kind of documentary would be made, do you think, if a psychologist studied the American government in the same way The Corporation studied American business? What conclusions would be reached? What psychological pathologies would be diagnosed?
From your link (slightly paraphrased):
...callous unconcern for the feelings of others, incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, reckless disregard for the safety of others, deceitfulness (Repeated lying to and deceiving of others for gain), incapacity to experience guilt and failure to conform to the social norms with respect to lawful behaviors.
Just offhand, I don't see any differences. At all.
Oh, except one. Government holds the exclusive power to coerce.
Jeezus Markadelphia, don't you ever read ALL of the articles you link to?
"The Economist review suggests that the idea for an organization as a psychopathic entity originated with Max Weber, in regards to government bureaucracy. Also, the reviewer remarks that the film weighs heavily in favor of public ownership as a solution to the evils depicted, while failing to acknowledge the magnitude of evils committed by governments in the name of public ownership..."
Corporations have not fundamentally changed since your favorite era of capitalism (post WWII to 1980). So, you don't really believe there was a better age to return to, do you? In fact, you don't really like capitalism at all - since you can't point to an era when corporations were not evil (in your view).
No, I do like capitalism. What we have going on in our country right now is not it. It needs to change. If you can come up with a better entity than the government to regulate and change it, by all means, I am all ears.
If you can come up with a way for government to A) actually regulate it, B) not kill it, and C) not be further corrupted by it, I'd really like to hear it.
But so far the only thing I've heard out of you is "we need the right people in charge" which is the semantic equivalent of "The philosophy cannot be wrong!" Do it again, ONLY HARDER!
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This thread is going to set a record post count once Markadepalma sees it. Haha
Random thoughts...
I have always thought that the left sees themselves, and others around them, as passive and helpless victims of powerful external forces, hence they are seen as political wards who require the continuous shepherding by a caretaker government. So a government that could so everything SHOULD do everything because according to lefties,
a) We are smart, unlike you;
b) We are free from greed, unlike like you;
c) Therefore, we must save you from yourselves, by regulating more of your life via government regulation.
Higher taxes? Less freedom? A welfare state? These are but a small price to pay for a total absence of suffering, bad decisions, worry and fear.
I have always wanted nothing more than the opportunity and freedom to pursue happiness on my own terms. Liberals think they have a right to happiness and that it should be delivered like a pizza. The liberal version of the American dream -- no worries, free health care, a guaranteed income as well as having the basics provided to you (among other things) -- would be like living in your parents' basement, for life. Put another way, modern liberalism is exactly like modern art: Ordinary people take one look and say, "Blech," while its elite defenders say, "You don't understand -- this is better than it looks."
It seems to me that many Democrats--not a majority, probably, but certainly most of the party's core--have gone into a state of permanent opposition. No election is ever over. No administration not favored by them can ever be legitimate. This is, I think, something new in American history--or modern history, anyway. In the past, elections were hard-fought, but when they were over, the lawn signs came down and life went on. Hatreds were not nursed--not, at least, on the mass scale that we see today. And people, by and large, accepted the quaint idea that once a government had been chosen by the majority. For many today, unrelenting opposition has become not just a political position but a way of life.
I’d like to know why tax increases don’t come with an expiration date like tax cuts do. How about entitlement social programs that are designed to "solve" (barf) some problem...why don’t they go away after they've "solved" the problem?
I’d like to know why tax increases don’t come with an expiration date like tax cuts do. How about entitlement social programs that are designed to "solve" (barf) some problem...why don’t they go away after they've "solved" the problem?
Because the philosophy cannot be wrong.
If a solution fails, it must be because that solution wasn't implemented correctly. Since there can be no reexamination of the underlying philosophy, the only answer is to do it again only harder!
Otherwise known as "cognitive dissonance" and its corresponding "escalation of failure."
Otherwise known as "cognitive dissonance" and its corresponding "escalation of failure."
Rather like the War on Drugs. Although the left tends to be more prone to this, it is by no means their exclusive province.
Wow, thanks for linking to that, the discussion over there is mind-blowingly good.
b) We are free from greed, unlike like you;
Yet they have a pathological and near insatiable greed for "Do-Goodness" activity and it's dynamic feedback-loop, "Feels-Goodful"...
Well, last, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings but I'm afraid this thread won't be long at all. It's such a bizarre miscalculation of "liberals"..that it is sad, really, after such an eloquent post by Kevin on individual rights that an insanely narrow minded, stereotypical, and insanely faulted line of thought would follow.
I would be interested in this, though. Where, if anywhere, does anyone think that Goldberg is at fault?
I haven't read the book, but I will, because the Geek w/a .45's analysis matches my perspective wrt the behavior of self-styled "progressives" - the people who have hijacked the word "liberal."
Will you?
How can the man who said that he wants a world like Star Trek call this post a "bizarre miscalculation of liberals". It seems that it fits you and those like you perfectly. You want your perfect society and by hook or by crook you will have it.
"Rather like the War on Drugs. Although the left tends to be more prone to this, it is by no means their exclusive province."
Another example is the Security theater that the Right seems to be hell bent on implementing. The Right wants to use government to create the perfect society as well. They just disagree with the Left in how that society should look.
>>I would be interested in this, though. Where, if anywhere, does anyone think that Goldberg is at fault?
Once again.
NO.
That's not how debate works.
If markadelphia wants to take the position that Goldberg is at fault, he must do his own homework, declare his position, and defend it.
It is not for us to prove our virtue by agreeing with you.
The Left likes to recycle or repurpose. Consider the excise tax on phone service that was to pay for the Spanish-American War. How long did it take to finally get rid of it? Also consider the 55 mph speed limit. It was repurposed from a gas saving concern to a safety concern.
Any tax or regulation can have an infinite number of justifications. THe left does not like time limit (except on tax cuts) because then they have to justify in current terms why the cut or regulation is still needed, and their vote will go on the record.
"It's such a bizarre miscalculation of "liberals".."
Translation: this hits too close to the mark and I can't possibly refute it so I'm going to pretend that it's not a valid question for discussion.
To be fair, maybe the Left/liberals/Democrats and their supporters in your neck of the woods don't think like this. But the ones I've encountered over the years, in places all around the country, did to some degeree or another.
I think a lot of the Left's inability to be self-reflective or read History is a result of their feedback loop - a perceived threat to the smug assurances and feelgoodism instantly results in a reflexively defensive posture not unlike the fight-or-flight syndrome.
Vision and auditory exclusion abounds as they prepare to defend, a situation which doesn't allow for much internal analysis. When the threat goes away they return to the bipolar happy feelgoodism with no memory of the other state.
"Will you?"
Of course I will. In fact, I will buy it. Remember, you have to test the negative:)
Any takers on renting or buying Sicko? (other than you, last, who I saw it with!)
"How can the man who said that he wants a world like Star Trek call this post a "bizarre miscalculation of liberals"
Actually, I think the world of Star Trek has MORE not less to do with individual responsibility and morality than any liberal or conservative view point. It is an ideal, though, and after what happened in Texas and Ohio last night, I fear we are very far from it.
Good point on your second post, Yosemite. I agree.
"It is not for us to prove our virtue by agreeing with you."
What this says to me, geek, is that you are willing to swallow...lock, stock and barrel...anything that fits into your fervent belief system. I'd love to be proved wrong.
And I have taken on some of Goldberg's comments that were discussed in a previous thread...
"this hits too close to the mark"
No, not really. What does hit close to the mark is how closed minded people can be. Of course, I am guilty of this as well. But I bet I can list more things I dislike about Democrats than you can about things you like about them...:)
DirtCrashr, in my opinion, you are exactly describing the conservative movement, not the liberal one. In fact, #1 on my list of things I don't like about liberals is that are TOO self reflective.
Last, I may be wrong and you may be right..this could be a long one...
You think naked activists at a Code Pink rally in Berkeley are very self-reflective?? From the outside it would not appear so.
My observations are as one born to the Liberal Movement by its most devout and faith-based religious followers (and who in that all consuming Faith gave up teh-Normal Everything) - having grown-up Nurtured in its Heart and protective Village-University bosom, as a child of the Left.
Then one day I saw anew. But this whole Conservative thing is recent and a bit of an uncomfortable suit sometimes - I may really be a Libertarian.
DirtCrashr, well, are you saying that naked activists and the Democratic party one and the same?
They are two behavioral parts of the same whole, with one using the other as a proxy for political purposes.
>>"It is not for us to prove our virtue by agreeing with you."
>>What this says to me, geek, is that you are willing to swallow...lock, stock and barrel...anything that fits into your fervent belief system. I'd love to be proved wrong.
And yet again,
NO.
That is not how debate works.
Your assertion (that I am willing to swallow ... belief system) DOES NOT follow from the statement you have selected or any other statement I have made.
It is NOT for me to prove that facially preposterous statement false.
If you wish to take the position that "I am willing to swallow...lock, stock and barrel...anything that fits into my fervent belief system", you're going to have to prove, (or at the very minimum, plausibly demonstrate that it might be true) your position.
You will have to first enumerate just what exactly you think my fervent belief system is", and then show evidence that I accept uncritically any statement that fits it.
Pencils up, the clock is ticking.
Good luck.
I take it this is you, geek? I am going to read the book and then I will make my arguments against Goldberg. I would ask you again to read the previous thread on Goldberg in which we discuss the difference between fascism and socialism. A few things, however, come to mind....
Your fervent belief system is defined as your statement that the American left are totalitarians which will ultimately destroy liberty in this country and our lives, right?
Totalitarianism is defined as state control in every aspect of public and private life. Given the fact that most Democrats get elected through the support of various private benefactors, just like the Republicans, I find your giant leap into totalitarianism to be quite silly. The corporations of this country that support Democratic candidates will simply not stand for it.
The problem is not that we need to protect industry and our private lives from government...it's that we need to protect government (and our private lives) from private industry . Both Dems and Repubs essentially have paid stoolies in place in all areas of government to make sure their interests are met. A President Clinton or McCain will most assuredly continue this policy. Look a their donor list.
A President Obama will also continue this (check out his donor list!) but with an attempt, at least, to drive out special interests and to have a return to the intrinsic motivation of simply serving your country (see JFK and FDR). In my opinion, he will put the best people in place to serve their country. Obama is not going to force anyone into anything (see his health plan). The OPTION of having government help will be there for those who want it. If you don't want it, don't take it. He will also inspire and motivate people to do more for themselves. It is already happening...hopefully it will...unless Clinton pulls a Bush and steals the election.
It is a giant misconception that the left is all about hand outs and doing good. This is particularly true of Senator Obama who has said repeatedly that people need to take responsibility for themselves, work, and help out in their communities.
As to where you accept things uncritically, I would say your entire review of Goldberg's book is uncritical. You essentially magnify his argument by taking a paranoid leap into a vision of America that will never be. Millions dead? Please...did millions die when FDR was president because of his programs? Any programs that the Democrats come up with won't even be anywhere near as socialist as that time in history and look at how that turned out? We came together as a nation and defeated the greatest army this world has ever seen.
Of course, it's possible that you view ANY social programs as totalitarianism in which case I would ask you to demonstrate to me exactly how Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton is going to systematically murder Americans in the way that Stalin murdered his own people.
The difference between you and I, geek, is that I am a critical thinker and you are not. For example, when I watch a Michael Moore movie, the first thing I do is figure out how and why he is wrong. I weight that with how is right. How do both columns affect his main points?
So, how is Goldberg wrong? Because the first question I am going to ask myself when I read the book is how is he right? Can it really be true? Here is why he is right...
The argument has been made on here that liberals are not self reflective and conservatives are self reflective. Well, let's hear it. How is your position weak? What are two or three essential flaws in conservative ideology?
PS
Geek,
I would also humbly suggest that you review the definition of the terms "ingroup bias" and "outgroup bias"...two things I have suffered from in the past.
I've got one for you Mark. I've actually quoted it before:
"(A)t the heart of conservatism is an ongoing, unresolvable dialectic between freedom and virtue. In other words, there is a bedrock belief in the idea that free markets are the best way to allocate scarce resources and to create wealth and prosperity for all, but a frank acknowledgment that, without a virtuous populace, the system may produce a self-centered, materialistic citizenry living in a sort of degenerate, 'pitiable comfort.' Thus, there is an ongoing, unresolvable tension between the libertarian and traditional wings of the movement."
What kind of circular logic are you following with this:"The problem is not that we need to protect industry and our private lives from government...it's that we need to protect government (and our private lives) from private industry"?
Yes, fine, the problem is that private industry uses government to screw the competition and enrich themselves. But they are able to do it because we have a government that is able to intrude on every aspect of business, and us sheep put up with it.
With a smaller and less obtrusive government, businesses would have to duke it out in the marketplace, with the best product for the best price and service usually winning, as it should be.
Government should be a referee and policeman for thieves, including the blue collar kind. It goes way beyond that mandate in so many ways, with onerous regulations, bureaucracy and taxation.
Protect government from business? Sure, great idea. I'm all for it, but get government out of the hand of business.
Great example in a recent Forbes, talking about how specialty hospitals are restricted by government working in cahoots with the large hospital corporations. Specialty hospitals give better care at the same or even less cost, but the government that is supposed to protect US, protects the hospital corporations that pay off the Senators and Reps.
Get rid of government intrusion into the BUSINESS of medicine and let doctors and anyone else compete, and see if prices don't come down. But much of the problem in the "health-care" system is due to GOVERNMENT interference in the marketplace.
If this means I'm a small-government libertarian or conservative, or whatever label I am given, fine. But liberals, aka totalitarian/fascist wannabees, want to control MY access to healthcare. Goldberg would absolutely agree that business corrupts government and vice versa, but the problem is the liberal belief that government can be a wonderful institution and solve all these ills.
Government is more often the problem or the enabler.
Another example here happened just two days ago. The citizends of the City of Oklahoma City (meaning that city alone, not the other cities surrounding it) voted a 1% sales tax on themselves to fund improvements to the Ford Center, which, once they move here, will be the home of what is now the Seattle NBA basketball team. Thus the citizens, through taxation, give a subsidy to the very wealthy owner of a business in a highly profitable industry. So, we can't say this is gubmint and bidness conspiring to screw us and enrich themselves, even though such might appear an apt description, because the sheeple voted for this tax by a 60/40 margin.
"because we have a government that is able to intrude on every aspect of business, and us sheep put up with it"
I disagree. You may have been able to make an argument for this 30 years ago but Reagan changed all of that. There has been a a slow shift in power in this country and, to me, it clearly resides with companies like KBR and Blackwater.
"with a smaller and less obtrusive government, businesses would have to duke it out in the marketplace"
Show me how KBR is "duking it out."
"with the best product for the best price and service usually winning"
This was possibly true 60 years ago, back when we were creative and innovative as opposed to now-lazy and willfully ignorant. That world of 60 years ago is gone and it has been replace by an oligarchy with less and less competition and more gigantic corporations. This is because of less, not more, government regulation.
"Government should be a referee and policeman for thieves"
I agree. They aren't doing that because they have been bought off by companies like KBR etc.
"But liberals, aka totalitarian/fascist wannabees, want to control MY access to healthcare"
No, they don't. You will have a choice of providers but, remember, with Hillary you MUST have health care otherwise it is a crime. With Obama, it is not mandatory.
"Government is more often the problem or the enabler."
The real problem is that there is no balance. We need to return to a time when the government served the needs of the people. Right now they are serving the needs of the corporations.
DJ, sad story. We have the same problem here with the Vikings, although most people have voted down any public financing of sports stadiums. Owners should pay for their own damn stadiums. They have the money.
Sweet bleeding jeebus.
Mark, the government IS ABLE to intrude on every aspect of business. It's called "the commerce clause" and its abuse dates back to Wickard v. Filburn in 1942. (In fact, it dates back much further, but Wickard legalized it.)
This FACT is then MANIPULATED by OTHER BUSINESSES to their competitive advantage.
Like, oh say KBR and ADM. This is known as "good business practice."
The fact that you think this has been going on for only sixty years further illustrates your general ignorance.
"...with Hillary you MUST have health care otherwise it is a crime. With Obama, it is not mandatory."
The missing operative word being "YET". You seem hopelessly obtuse to the fact that no government entitlement program ever goes away, gets smaller, or even remains the same size. They do nothing but grow in scope, cost, and "inclusiveness." So (perhaps long after Obama has left the scene) you can bet your bottom $10,000 bill (inflation, you know,) that you not only must have health care, you will be restricted to a bloated, inefficient government program.
"We need to return to a time when the government served the needs of the people."
Thus illustrating you unquestioning assumption that the government - any government - has ever done such a thing.
"Idealist without illusion" my aching ass.
Re-read the quote of the day this comment thread is attached to. You are the embodiment of its subject.
Funny, I don't see KBR or Blackwater anywhere in this list:
Fortune 500 List
Maybe KBR and Blackwater aren't duking it out with other companies, is because their bread and butter is to ,wait for it, provide services for government. Engineering support services for KBR and security services for Blackwater. If the government was limited then one would think it would need those services less.
If government stays large but say under Obama, government will still need those specialized services and guess what, KBR and Blackwater will provide them.
Yosemite:
Halliburton (parent company of KBR) is #103.
>>The difference between you and I, geek, is that I am a critical thinker and you are not.
Rolling. on. the. floor. laughing. my. freaking. ass. off.
This is fun! Please, indulge your "Prometheus bringing the fire of enlightened thought to the ignorant savage conservatives" fantasy some more! It just keeps getting better and better!
"You are the embodiment of its subject"
No, I'm not. Let me repeat myself again because apparently you are having trouble understanding me. I want a return to good capitalism.
The problem is your bias, Kevin. You are unable to see, for whatever reason, that our country has become one giant mega-corp, with unofficial employees of said corp in elected positions of our government "representing" the people...
I would humbly suggest that if you are so concerned about government waste that you take the same energy you put into slamming government run health care and spend a week looking into the defense industry. Examine closely how competition works in regards to their government contracts. In addition, take a look at how Reagan's deregulation of the FCC changed the face of media corporations.
Further, I would suggest you watch this film...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation
and pay attention to what Milton Friedman, someone you told me to check out, says in it.
Um, non-impartial observer here, but geekWithA.45 is perhaps one of the smartest people I have ever 'met' on the interweb.
If anyone thinks geekWithA.45 isn't a critical thinker, then they are sadly mistaken.
"Rolling. on. the. floor. laughing. my. freaking. ass. off."
In all your rolling and laughing, any thoughts pop into your head about the drawbacks to conservative ideology? Kevin had a very astute one...any ideas? And how is Goldberg wrong?
I answered your questions...will you answer mine? Until you show me some "self reflection," geek....well....I think my point is quite valid.
I want a return to good capitalism.
Thus further illustrating your (apparently willful) ignorance.
I repeat: "Idealist without illusion" my aching ass.
And I concur completely with Russell: The GeekWithA.45 is perhaps one of the five or six smartest people I have ever 'met' on the internet. (I somehow missed the "critical thinker" comment.)
If anyone thinks he isn't a critical thinker, then they are sadly mistaken.
So far, Markadelphia, your intellectual prowess hasn't impressed me or anyone else commenting here.
"The problem is your bias, Kevin. You are unable to see, for whatever reason, that our country has become one giant mega-corp, with unofficial employees of said corp in elected positions of our government "representing" the people..."
Huh? You mean like state insurance boards, unelected officials that tell us how many dumb health mandates we have to pay for?
I agree, that isn't right. They are quasi-governmental, unelected bureaucrats. But the point YOU are missing Markadephia is that these corporations use a corrupt government to do their mischief, rather than fairly compete in the marketplace. How hard is that to comprehend?
Big government equals big problems. Government protects the evil mega-corporations...ok, your solution is MORE government to do what? Fix the evil corporations? But the goverment is the cause of much of the mischief in the first place!
This is a chicken-and-egg argument. I happen to think that goverment is the prime cause of the problems, or at least is NOT fulfilling its function as a watchman. It certainly isn't doing a good job in healthcare, the one area I know something about. Healthcare is a non-free market, and yes, it is being run to a large degree by evil corporations IN CAHOOTS with the goverment. The government has caused the problems by not getting rid of the World War 2 employer-based insurance model, that was not supposed to be an eternal thing (as Kevin pointed out, no govt. programs are ever abolished).
That model clearly doesn't work.
Mark'phia, did you read the Forbes article on how Big Hospital Chains have USED GOVERNMENT to protect their turf against competition? So, we get worse quality of care and higher costs. Brought to you by your government.
Did you read about the Mayor of Boston declaiming that evil corporations shouldn't make money from sick people, when they wanted to open in-store walk-in clinics? Great idea (Karl Marx might think so). Doctors and nurses should work for free! Or by some magic mechanism, we should know exactly what price would be fair to give them so they wouldn't "make a profit", whatever that means.
Of course, all HIzzoner was doing was protecting the huge mega-hospitals in the Boston area...but again, we had government, in its infinite (lack) of wisdom protecting...whom? The "PEOPLE"? Right. Better they should go sit in supposed non-profit hospital ER's, with 6-8 hour-long waits and a bill 8 or more times what the walk-in clinic would charge for a sore throat.
That goverment sure is helpful. I feel SO very protected!
Goverment doesn't have to be bad, I am no anarchist, but when it grows so large and obtrusive..and nationalized health care will be all that and worse...and again, this is the industry I'm in, but I see it everywhere...the liberal dream that government is going to solve our problems is precisely the wrong end of the chicken.
Evil mega-corporations LOVE big government. Why do we think Big Government is going to solve the problems of Big Corporations? How is Obama or Hillary going to keep that from happening? Hike corporate taxes? Fix corporate-government interaction/corruption?
I don't see it. The best thing the government can do is SHRINK and get out of the business of intruding and making most things it touches worse.
Maybe shifting to an alternate coastal perspective would shed some light. California is one Giant Mega-Government run by the State Employees Union and the Teacher's Union, with Healthcare run by the Nurses Union and massive Government regulatory penetration calcifying the creativity of every Mom-and-Pop business AND all the Major Corporations.
"Halliburton (parent company of KBR) is #103."
oops. That's what I get for firing off a comment when I'm trying to get out the door. I just did a search for KBR. But, the point remains that for an evil corporation that is supposedly so powerful and controls the government, it's funny that they aren't even in the top 100.
'You seem hopelessly obtuse to the fact that no government entitlement program ever goes away, gets smaller, or even remains the same size. They do nothing but grow in scope, cost, and "inclusiveness." ' - Kevin
"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program." - Ronald Reagan
"If anyone thinks he isn't a critical thinker, then they are sadly mistaken."
Well, I suppose you would have to define what a critical thinker is...so far, as I see it, you are one, Sarah is one, juris is one..randy and Russell..maybe, need to read them more..
Oh, Bilgeman, now he is most definitely one!
Geek? Well, he/she hasn't demonstrated it to me yet. I am waiting for two or three things with which he finds fault in regards to the conservative ideology....
"These corporations use a corrupt government to do their mischief, rather than fairly compete in the marketplace. How hard is that to comprehend?"
And Maurice is a critical thinker as well...I agree....so that's why I am very against a Clinton or McCain presidency, which could be one and the same since she seems to feel that they have both "crossed the commander in chief threshold"...whatever the heck that means!!!!
"Healthcare is a non-free market, and yes, it is being run to a large degree by evil corporations IN CAHOOTS with the goverment"
More pearls of wisdom...completely agree...
"The best thing the government can do is SHRINK and get out of the business of intruding and making most things it touches worse"
Some would argue that it already has...shrinking in dick size, that is. I see most members of government these days as lazy cowards, unwilling to give any effort or act in an honorable way. They take their corporate handouts, leave business to fuck people over, and do their damndest to prevent any kind of competition interfering with the business of their masters....and that includes the very own government that employs them!!!
"Healthcare is a non-free market, and yes, it is being run to a large degree by evil corporations IN CAHOOTS with the goverment"
More pearls of wisdom...completely agree...
Yet your "solution" is more government. It isn't working, so do it again, ONLY HARDER! (With apologies to your "dick" reference.)
What a classic example of "critical thinking."
Please, that line is soooo played and not valid at all. How can it be more government when it will be one choice of many?
And here's another one for you....why does a man have a right to a lawyer but not a doctor?
A man only has a right ot lawyer when the STATE is trying him, Mark.
If you do not have an attorney in a civil case, the other side does not have to provide you with one.
The state provides defense council because our system is adversarial.
Are you suggesting that dieseases should be obligated to provide us with doctors? Or that the Government makes people sick?
Because that is the only way that the doctor/lawyer argument holds any water.
The sky really is made of fluffy bunnies in your world, isn't it, Mark?
Apparently, the "sky" in your world is filled with a complete lack of perspective.
How about addressing Eric's criticism of your analogy, Mark?
(In answer to your question: No. You do not have a "right" to a doctor. But obviously you cannot fathom why that is [and must be] so.)
Being able to rationalize is not the same thing as being able to reason.
Russell, I don't recall whom I am quoting, but the quote is: "Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal."
Google says: Robert A. Heinlein
Heh.
Damn. You'd think I'd recognize one of his, wouldn't you? I didn't even try to find it, I just remembered it.
Hmmm ... Is that an exception or an example?
Eric (and Kevin)
The biggest problem I have with these comments is they completely fail to take into account the LACK of power the individual has in regards to the health care industry. You would know this if you took your blinders off and watched the film Sicko. Of course, that's just a primer.
As customers, we pay for the service of health care, right? If we don't like our service, we go elsewhere, right? Not exactly. That's not how it works and neither one of you understand this because you have not heard story after story about how PAYING, HARD WORKING customers have been fucked over by the "free" market that is health care. There's nothing free about it and the word "choice" often times is not present at all.
There needs to be some regulation and another choice...a government subsidized choice...for people. That's not to say I support a single payer system. That would put thousands of people out of jobs and make things worse. Many of your predictions might come true. I want more choices, not less.
That's not how it works and neither one of you understand this because you have not heard story after story about how PAYING, HARD WORKING customers have been fucked over by the "free" market that is health care.
::Sigh::
Mark, the "health insurance" industry is largely the creation of government, growing out of wage freezes imposed by the government in WWII. The companies involved in the health insurance industry have grown huge and profitable - and have used their influence ON THE GOVERNMENT to maintain their profitability.
Today's situation IS THE DIRECT RESULT OF GOVERNMENT INFLUENCE ON THE FREE MARKET - which always, always destroys the "free" part.
Read this carefully: THERE IS NO FREE MARKET IN THE HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY.
Read this even more carefully: NOTHING YOU ESPOUSE WILL RETURN US TO A TRUE FREE MARKET.
There needs to be some regulation and another choice...a government subsidized choice...for people.
That's already been done. It doesn't work either. It only gets bigger, more intrusive, less effective, and more expensive everywhere it is tried. Your insistence is one more case of "the philosophy cannot be wrong! Do it again ONLY HARDER!"
Maggie Mahar, a economic journalist, wrote a review of SICKO I found interesting. In it, she said this:
Of course people in the U.K. Canada and France know that healthcare is not free. (And contrary to what some of Moore’s critics say, he does not pretend that it is.) But since they think of healthcare as a right—something we all deserve simply because we are human—it seems to them fair that, “You pay according to your means [through taxes] and receive according to your needs.” In this, national health programs that are funded by taxes resemble Medicare: the higher your salary, the more you pay into Medicare. The sicker you are, the more you will take out in benefits. If you’re lucky, you put in more than you take out.
What “Sicko” doesn’t do is focus on the waste in our system. As Jonathan Weiner observes below, we can’t afford to pay for everything that someone might possibly want. We need to be sure that we are getting value for our healthcare dollars. In one case, Moore tells the story of a man dying of kidney cancer. Desperate to save him, his wife valiantly tries to persuade insurers to pay for new treatments –including a bone-marrow transplant that the insurance company calls “experimental.” But the insurer refuses, and a few weeks later her husband dies. This is one of the saddest moments in the film—both husband and wife are very appealing.
Yet it is not clear that the insurer was wrong to refuse the cover the bone-marrow transplant.
Bold emphasis is mine.
This defines the difference between our positions, Markadelphia.
Health care is not a right. It cannot be a right. Treating it as a right goes against the founding philosophy of this nation, and it goes against reality - defined as "that which remains even when I stop believing in it."
Believing that health care is a right, and that it is the government's job to provide it for you is to believe that the government can love you, and Jonah Goldberg is exactly correct:
The government is not your mommy and it's not your daddy, and any system that is based on those assumptions will eventually lead to folly.
Aw, crap, again. Russell, that "anonymous" above was me. It seems my wife made a few "comments" from here while I backed up her computer (I do such things manually), and she didn't reset my name and I didn't notice. Now that I know to watch for it, I will.
Indeed, Kevin, one cannot have a right to something that someone else must do work to provide.
DJ,
"Is that an exception or an example?" Well, you could do a statistical analysis of your previous comments, and map that to a standard deviation chart to see.
Or just chalk it up to an example of old age ;)
No one reads John Locke, David Hume, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, or Thomas Jefferson anymore, do they?
This Health Care 'issue' wouldn't have gained as much traction if the ideals of the Renaissance still prevailed.
Kevin, exactly what do you think is going to happen if the government truly "gets out" of the health care industry?
Also, what kind of "rights" do you think people have when they actually work for health insurance and then don't get it? And then can't afford to buy insurance elsewhere because their employers won't pay for it?
This is not the result of government interference. It is the result of private corporations wanting to increase profits. Your guru Friedman has said it himself: the corporation is amoral. It has to be to make profit.
Mark:
The government isn't going to "get out" of the health care industry. Those cows are already out of the barn. The government's job insofar as it properly has one, is to make sure that insurance companies live up to their contractual obligations. Of course, the government doesn't seem to be doing a remarkably good job of that either, does it? Isn't that one of the things you're complaining about?
Yet you believe that that same government should assume the responsibility for subsidizing health care? (That is, rob Peter to pay Paul - which always gets the support of Paul.) Of course, it already is, but you want to expand it.
The system is broken - absolutely. It's not fair - positively.
And nothing you advocate will fix that. In fact, all experience shows that your ideas will only make it worse. Of course, it might take, oh, five or ten election cycles before the house of cards approaches collapse (See: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security), but hey! The officials responsible for getting that legislation passed will have moved on to bigger and better things by then! And it won't be your fault, because the philosophy cannot be wrong! If "health-care reform" fails it will be because it wasn't properly implemented! We must do it again, only HARDER!
Yes, the corporation is amoral. (You say that like it's a bad thing.) All the corporation cares about is profits, and profits depend on happy customers. Try to get that through your head.
If the customers aren't happy, the corporation doesn't make a profit, because the customers can go elsewhere. At least, that's how it works when there really is a free market.
Except our government has set it up so there isn't.
And here's the worst part: The government doesn't care if its customers are happy. It doesn't have to. You have nowhere else to go.
So what you're complaining about is that the insurance industry is acting like the government, but your solution is to cut out the middleman and make the government the payer.
And somehow, you think this will make things better.
Understand, Mark, I'm not saying that we can make things significantly better than they are now - not without an essentially impossible complete reset of the entire health-care and insurance industries. I'm saying that everything you espouse will make it WORSE, long-term.
Now, do you want to discuss what is and what isn't a "right" again?
"Now, do you want to discuss what is and what isn't a "right" again?"
Well, let me ask you this...do you have a right to clean water?
Meet Mark.
Do not mind that bulge in his pants, it's just the crane he uses to move goal posts.
Well, let me ask you this...do you have a right to clean water?
No. (Really. Honestly. No, you don't have a right to clean water.)
Want to move the goalposts some more?
(You really don't get it, do you? You're so sure you understand the people you consider "conservative." All you have to do is bring us your obvious wisdom and enlightenment, and we must bow to your superiority, yet you haven't got a clue.)
Golly, Kevin, don'tcha see? Well, then go see this article and you'll understand. It seems that We The People have a right to watch televsion.
Why don't they tell us these things?
OK, fine. I'll have one of these for the living room, and one of these for the bedroom. And I want the taxpayers to pay for them, because I have goddamned right to watch TV.
Kevin,
Well, I don't think I am superior to anyone. And I also don't think I am moving any goalposts. You asked me a question..
"do you want to discuss what is and what isn't a "right" again?"
..and I responded to it. Remember what happens when I "don't answer questions?" (Reminder: notice that many of my questions and challenges have gone unanswered or unmet(ex:you)....do you see me blowing a bowel about it?)
Many of the things you say regarding health care, in your above post, are accurate. When you begin any discussion with the belief (set in rock granite) that government never works , however, it makes it extremely difficult to move forward from that point. There have been plenty of times throughout our history that government has not worked or has been awful. There have been times when it has worked. To say that it never works no mater what and you will never ever never change your mind is...well...not very critically minded wouldn't you say?
To say that it never works no mater what and you will never ever never change your mind is...well...not very critically minded wouldn't you say?
Again, you really don't get it.
"I quite agree with the opinion of the court that whether the legislation under review is wise or unwise is a matter with which we have nothing to do. Whether it is likely to work well or work ill presents a question entirely irrelevant to the issue. The only legitimate inquiry we can make is whether it is constitutional. If it is not, its virtues, if it have any, cannot save it; if it is, its faults cannot be invoked to accomplish its destruction. If the provisions of the Constitution be not upheld when they pinch, as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned." - Justice Sutherland (dissenting), Blaisdell (1934)
If it's not within the powers conferred upon the government under the Constitution, it doesn't matter what it's purported virtues are, or how "successful" the government might be at it. It is power not granted to that entity. And that power was not granted to that entity specifically to prevent government overreach.
"These aren't people who seek evil. They are people who seek Good, albeit through dubious means. They are people who blind themselves to the truth that the power for unlimited good is cannot be distinguished, even in principle, from the power for unlimited evil. As such, they do not understand that we oppose them for their means, not their ends, and many believe that we oppose the Good they seek to bring forth, and cannot understand why anyone (other than a reactionary degenerate seeking to preserve a position of oppression based privilege) would oppose such Goodness.
This premise, government as a source of unlimited Good, directly contravenes one of the few axioms upon which America is predicated: that since it is impossible to create a government capable of doing unlimited good without creating a government capable of doing unlimited evil, we shall not make a government so capable, because it will inevitably degenerate into the unlimited evil case."
Health care is not a right. Clean water is not a right. A "fair income" is not a right. Watching television is NOT A RIGHT.
If government must coerce its citizens in order to provide something, then - by definition - it is NOT A RIGHT. The primary purpose of government is to SECURE our rights. Securing our NEEDS is supposed to be up to US.
Many of the things you say regarding health care, in your above post, are accurate. I almost surprised that you'll admit that.
When you begin any discussion with the belief (set in rock granite) that government never works , however, it makes it extremely difficult to move forward from that point.
No, government does work (as good as can be expected, anyway) at the very narrowly limited tasks it is assigned within the scope of the Constitution. Where it has stepped (or leaped, or hopped into a 4WD and blasted) outside those boundaries, not so much.
But it is easy to convince people that they shouldn't be responsible for themselves, that someone else can do it for them better - and this ALWAYS leads, eventually, to limiting liberty.
Have you read Hayek's The Road to Serfdom? He makes a very compelling case that fits with all available facts.
I want a return to good capitalism.
As represented by the 50s and 60s, even up through the 70s.
Or have you changed your mind about when this golden age was?
Actually, juris, how about eliminating Crony-Capitalism? Right now, we have an executive branch that is acting in the best interests, not of our country, but of a certain group of corporations in two or three specific industries in our country. Our government is a tool of private industry.
Kevin, yes I read Hayek back in college. While I found his arguments to be compelling, even then (80s) I thought they were woefully out of date. Today? Well, it really explains quite a bit about much of the thought process that goes on here.
I am curious as to how you think Hayek's main points fit into the one world economy that we have today. I realize this might be a long answer so maybe a future post?
>>Actually, juris, how about eliminating Crony-Capitalism?
Markadelphia:
Do you fundamentally fail to recognize that to the extent business and government are enmeshed today is a form of fascism? Or is what you fail to recognize the historical facts concerning the Left's significant contribution to creating and perpetuating this state of affairs?
Of course, you ~could~ just go ahead and blame it all on conservatives and the Right.
That's what a we uncritical thinkers would do, anyway.
Actually, juris, how about eliminating Crony-Capitalism?
I asked you about your alleged golden age. We can talk about how to 'get back to that', if you like. But let's stick to one topic at a time - even if you find that topic, the one YOU chose - a bit uncomfortable.
Our government is a tool of private industry.
And it will be so long as that govt has the power, and will, to hand out goodies to private industry. If govt wasn't a useful tool to industry, industry wouldn't use it. You are insane if you think that you can make govt more powerful AND less useful as a tool; not merely mistaken or misguided - but flat out fucking insane.
But Juris! Don't you understand?? It'll work if the right people are in charge!
See today's Quote of the Day, and the piece it's from.
Why, juris, have ye no faith?
Here, I'll show ye how it's done. We'll skip the early failures and cut to the current efforts. That'll save lotsa words and ink, and we can get back to thinking non-critically.
What you do is find a promising young stud, er, candidate, and train him up good. Make sure he's high-minded, has good morals, is motivated by a really strong sense of ethics, and has all the right specifications. Begin by making him a lawyer. Now don't scoff, as we both know that lawyers (haaacckkk, spit) know how to get things done. You just have to get the right one.
We'll skip all the probationary apprenticeship gopher stuff and cut right to the chase. Make him the [cue the trumpets] Attorney General. Give him some power, by gum. Give him a goddamned mandate. Watch as he roots out corruption, sleaze, favoritism, insider goin's-on, and other such intolerable practices. Why, he'll just steamroller right over what ought to be steamrollered right over, right?
If you do it really, really well, he'll get a nashnull repatation! He'll be a hero to all the folks what don't got squat! He'll be so popular that you can groom him to be Prezdet! Start early, as it takes a long time to train up a new Prezdet. Talk up his repatation as being incorruptible and, and, hmmm.
Well, shit.
Karma is a bitch, ain't she?
So, you do it again, only harder!
What you do is find a promising young stud, er, candidate, and train him up good. Make sure he's high-minded, has good morals, is motivated by a really strong sense of ethics, and has all the right specifications. Begin by ... well, you know the drill now. Keep trying. It'll work. Some day.
Sounds like the megalomaniac we have for City Attorney in this little corner of the Golden State. Complete with persecution AND messiah complex.
Now DJ, you know the only reason Spitzer got caught was because of the unconstitutional provisions of the Patriot Act that were misused against a citizen. The FBI shouldn't be chasing government corruption, it should be chasing Al Qaeda cells in the U.S!
Spitzer would have eventually made a WONDERFUL President, steamrollering over all the fat-cat industrialists who make their living stealing their customers blind, deaf, dumb, and stupid!
I wonder if the Chinese would have provided him prostitutes, or a resurgent Russia?
Probably both.
Betcha the photos would have been hi-rez Penthouse quality!
"Now DJ, you know the only reason Spitzer got caught was because of the unconstitutional provisions of the Patriot Act that were misused against a citizen."
How he was caught is irrelevant to the fact that he was a phony, a hypocrite who committed the same crimes he prosecuted others for. That his example happened now is priceless.
"Do you fundamentally fail to recognize that to the extent business and government are enmeshed today is a form of fascism?"
No, I agree with this statement.
"Or is what you fail to recognize the historical facts concerning the Left's significant contribution to creating and perpetuating this state of affairs?"
Ah, that's where you are incorrect. More than any group, it has been the Republicans who have "perpetuated this state of affairs." I would ask you...who, more than any other group, worships, child like and starry eyed, at the feet of corporate America?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/08/business/08pay.html?ex=1205643600&en=718ba1bed3ed3d7e&ei=5070&emc=eta1
Certainly, Democrats are cronies as well (eg Hillary) but Republicans, you have to admit, have taken it to whole new level. Show me how a hard core left winger like Russ Feingold is beholden to corporate interests.
Juris, I guess I don't understand your question about the golden age and where you are heading....
"not merely mistaken or misguided - but flat out fucking insane."
The thing is, juris, I don't see government as having much power at all ...now or in an Obama presidency. The corporations of this country control so much of what we do....wow.....if you can't see that....
This whole thread has got me thinking about that cartoon you put a while back....is Capitalism an "ism" we should be worried about? Or run away from?
BTW, Kevin, I finally started God and Gold and I love it. I am about a third of the way through and it is extraordinarily well written. I am such a geek for shit like this. I think I might teach it next year in an AP class. I am curious, though, as to what you thought I would get from it and how I would receive it.
I'm stunned that no one has hauled out O'Rourke yet.
"When buying and selling is controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators."
Ah, the timing of it all. This column by Susan Estrich really validates the scenario I outlined above.
The money quote is:
" To run for high office, you have to view yourself a little differently than most of us view ourselves. You need to believe you have something special; you need to be able to hear your own voice all day long, see your own image, be in your own face in a way that most of us couldn't, at least not comfortably. But you also need to remember not to buy into the idea that you really are different. You have to resist the almost irresistible intoxication of power, the part of it that might leave a mere mortal believing, as 16-year-olds do, that they are something more.
Eliot Spitzer knew better, but he clearly forgot that the rules apply to everyone. Especially him. Now, the face in the mirror is the one that did him in. Poor Eliot. I do feel sorry for him. But there are some things you can't teach, some things that can only be learned through painful experience. Hubris is what it's called."
And this is why more gumnint, and/or more powerful gubmint, isn't the solution to our society's problems. The people who are the gubmint are just that, people, and the only thing that differentiates them from the run-of-the-mill sheeple is ambition. Ambition combined with authority is a recipe for despotism. The whole objective of the designers of our republic was to avoid that. And to think that some people believe it's just what we need ...
"Ambition combined with authority is a recipe for despotism."
Hmm...has anyone other than me read Dreams of My Father?
The thing is, juris, I don't see government as having much power at all ...now or in an Obama presidency. The corporations of this country control so much of what we do....wow.....if you can't see that....
You're right - I don't see that. Whatever power corporations have - they get it FROM the govt. Say, like eminent domain. Pfizer wanted Suzanne Kelo's house, but she wouldn't sell - so the govt condemned it. Who the fuck had the power there asshole?
If some company wants me to piss in a cup I can tell them to piss off, but if the state police arrest me it's a whole different ballgame. You can't see that? You're beyond blind.
But you go ahead and collect your taxpayer funded paycheck and piss yourself in fear of corporations, you ridiculous little weasel. No doubt the WalMart goons will break into your house tonight and force you to buy cheap goods against your will.
I finally started God and Gold and I love it. I am about a third of the way through and it is extraordinarily well written. I am such a geek for shit like this. I think I might teach it next year in an AP class. I am curious, though, as to what you thought I would get from it and how I would receive it.
Hell, wait until you get to the end. You'll orgasm.
Try to find the first comment where I implored you to read the book. I'll wait...
"Whatever power corporations have - they get it FROM the govt"
I would recommend you watch this film.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation
Milton Friedman is in it as well as Peter Drucker and people from the Fraser Institute. Plenty of liberals are in it as well. There is also a hilarious bit in the extras...the Milton Friedman choir!
"you ridiculous little weasel."
Well, watch the film and tell me how ridiculous you think I am at that point.
Kevin, find the first comment? Geez...that could take some time. Tell you what, I'll post a review when I am done on my blog and then you can comment.
Markadelphia:
What kind of documentary would be made, do you think, if a psychologist studied the American government in the same way The Corporation studied American business? What conclusions would be reached? What psychological pathologies would be diagnosed?
From your link (slightly paraphrased):
...callous unconcern for the feelings of others, incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, reckless disregard for the safety of others, deceitfulness (Repeated lying to and deceiving of others for gain), incapacity to experience guilt and failure to conform to the social norms with respect to lawful behaviors.
Just offhand, I don't see any differences. At all.
Oh, except one. Government holds the exclusive power to coerce.
Ask Suzette Kelo.
I'm just sayin'.
Ask the Obama's, too. It's quid pro quo time.
Jeezus Markadelphia, don't you ever read ALL of the articles you link to?
"The Economist review suggests that the idea for an organization as a psychopathic entity originated with Max Weber, in regards to government bureaucracy. Also, the reviewer remarks that the film weighs heavily in favor of public ownership as a solution to the evils depicted, while failing to acknowledge the magnitude of evils committed by governments in the name of public ownership..."
Corporations have not fundamentally changed since your favorite era of capitalism (post WWII to 1980). So, you don't really believe there was a better age to return to, do you? In fact, you don't really like capitalism at all - since you can't point to an era when corporations were not evil (in your view).
No, I do like capitalism. What we have going on in our country right now is not it. It needs to change. If you can come up with a better entity than the government to regulate and change it, by all means, I am all ears.
If you can come up with a way for government to A) actually regulate it, B) not kill it, and C) not be further corrupted by it, I'd really like to hear it.
But so far the only thing I've heard out of you is "we need the right people in charge" which is the semantic equivalent of "The philosophy cannot be wrong!" Do it again, ONLY HARDER!
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