Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Today I came across this fascinating exposition on a facet of American History often overlooked in our educational syllabus. The Boston Tea Party, from which today’s Tea Party takes its’ name, was actually a revolt against the dominance of the largest Multi-national Corporation of its’ time and its’ monopoly of the ubiquitous tea trade. The power of this entity came through its political dominance of the British Monarchy and with its’ compliance and enforcement of this Corporation’s needs. Contrast the actual positions of today’s “Tea Partier’s” with those whose names they usurp. I think you will find this a fascinating video and I will comment after the fold.
Even if you didn’t watch this whole video, I’m sure you got enough information to understand that the Boston Tea Party was about fighting the bestowal of government privileges, including tax cuts, to a large, influential corporation. Today’s “Tea Party” is a movement created by wealthy corporate interests, guided by a powerful lobbyist, Dick Armey, and is committed to ensuring that corporations have no regulations whatsoever. I had previously documented that here:
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/08/02/tea-party-and-the-myth-of-a-grassroots-movement/
This is a fact that it seems none dare mention in the Mainstream Broadcast Media, excepting MSNBC. The average viewer is led to believe, by the bloviating pundits, that this is a “grass roots” movement of average folk, fed up by too much government involvement in their lives. The “Tea Party” has been invested by the same punditry, with the mantle of being a “populist” movement. In fact, the only resemblance to them and certain “populists” of the past is that there is a racialist percentage among them.
Today’s TP’ers are essentially anti-constitutionalists, in league with those who would be theocrats, working in the service of corporate interests. They bandy about epithets for the rest of American’s, the majority of Americans I must say, that call their opponents socialists, communists and fascists. Although all of these epithets could hardly characterize either the Democratic Party, or the President they revile, they gain currency through the repetition of the corporate “Big Lie” and are given equal treatment by the media.
The only way for real American’s to battle these anti-constitutionalists is by constantly exposing the lies and the memes they use to give themselves legitimacy, such as taking on the mantle of an historic American move towards independence. Admittedly, these are harsh words and do not necessarily represent the views of this blog or its proprietor.
Enough, however, is enough. I cannot abide the hypocrisy being displayed here, nor can I abide watching a field of Republican candidates, kowtowing to this movement, who are themselves made up of clowns, knaves and even much worse. Oh, do I long for the days of Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower before him. The current crop of Presidential hopefuls in the GOP isn’t fit to step into the shoes of their Republican forebears, who were demonstrable realists with no small intelligence.
The worst part of it is that although the whole contingent of Republican Presidential hopefuls pretend to represent themselves as the people’s protectors, their history strongly suggests quite the opposite. Their greatest weapon thus far has been to seize the political initiative and attain power through erecting a Potemkin Wall of popular support. They have done this by redefining American History, the Constitution and given new meanings to words. The TP’ers have successfully infiltrated our Congress with preachers of cant and no-nothingness and because of this, we must perforce expose and oppose them, or watch the very heart of our government, our Constitution, shredded by the hypocrisy by which they justify their actions.
Double Speak works well…The Tongue of the Devil…lashon ha-ra
Jeebus Mike, I’m not even halfway done with a comment on your first post of the morning (which was fascinating) and you come out with another doozy.
Well said! (all of it, but I thought the above quote is the best summary of the teahadi that I’ve seen…)
Let’s get one thing straight about today’s Tea Party – they are the racist base that the GOP adds to its rich white voters to win elections. Period. Let’s not fool ourselves about these people. Recall that for his first major campaign speech in 1980, Ronald Reagan went to Philadelphia, Mississippi, where the civil rights workers were slaughtered. But did he talk about civil rights? No – he talked about states’ rights, and that’s dog whistle for “Democrats will give black people all your money so vote for me.” The GOP/Tea Party is composed largely of dangerous sociopaths, intent on driving the country into another ditch to prevent Obama’s re-election. They are anything but patriots.
Great article Mike. I am a big Thom Hartmann fan.
Great article and video find, Mike. Educational, thought provoking and speaking truth to power in one fell swoop. It illustrates the adage that all the best puppeteers never let their puppets see the strings.
good video. But the East India company was a government sponsored monopoly. It was not operating in a free market. It had protection from the King to sell its products.
Wal Mart and Koch Industries do not have government protection to sell their products. GE and GM now that might be another story.
“Actions like these, replete as they were with magnanimous
valour, were not more than commensurate with the transcendent
object of the American war of independenCE!’ Among the pro.
minent causes which led to that great event, it will be recol.
lected, was that of the claim of the British government to the
right of taxing the people of their colonies in America, withol1t
their consent. This right was denied by the citizens of Boston,
encouraged by their friends throughout the country.; who, after all
overtures to persuade thll parliament of Great Britain to relinquish
this assumed right, had proved abortive, formed the fixed resolu.
tion of resisting by physical force the collection of such taxes.
The duty on the article of tea, it seems, was intended to be reo
served as a standing claim, or exercise of the right of laying
such duties.”
This is going to be fun.
A look at who will get a monopoly on power, coal and chemical production in Wisconsin under the Koch-puppet Governor Scott Walker belies that assertion, Roco. Monopolies are built in real life just like in the game: one piece at a time.
Gene:
as you well know I am against monopolies. But there are more requirements for a monopoly than just ownership. And anyway why are you worried about utilities? they already are a monopoly.
If Koch industries gauges the power using public and are protected in that effort by the state, then that is clearly illegal. What should really happen is that competing power companies be allowed to do business in any state they can enter. If the infrastructure is paid for by government then they should be allowed to use it at the going rate, if not I guess they lose and will have to provide their own.
Roco,
Where do you think the money for the profits that the Koch’s will earn will come from? Do you really think that efficiency savings will account for a significant piece of that profit as compared to costs passed on to the consumer who has no choice in the matter? Why should the Kochs be the only ones to profit on the state’s resources? (why shouldn’t every state have socialist programs like Caribou Barbie’s Alaska for sharing the profits off of our natural resources? Why shouldn’t the country as a whole have programs like that?) Do you really think that the Kochs (and others) need to violate the letter of the law in order to rape its spirit these days?
Slarts,
Great comment. The Koch’s will be the only competition if they own the government.
Slarti:
I have never liked Palin for that reason. But then I also dont think the Federal government should own the majority of the state of Alaska.
How about we parcel out all public lands, except federal and state parks, to private individuals through a national lottery? break them up into small parcels and give them away to the working public.
I would be for that kind of socialism.
“By lIJl accidental concurrence of events, the author of
the following pages has recently discovered, that the wasting
influence of a hundred years had not yet subdued the spirit, nor
unnerved the arm which sixty years age had been outstretched
to arrest the progress of lawlcss power, and fix the inviolable
seal of physical force to the great decree, that the people of the
then British colonies, but now united independent states of
Noi-th America, would not be taxed by the British Parliament,
or any otlier power on earth, without their consent.”
Sounds like the current Tea Party to me.
Roco,
I sincerely hope that you are joking. That’s about the worst idea I’ve ever heard from you. I can’t even begin to explain all the things that are wrong with it. Can you even find one desirable result of parceling out “equal” pieces of public land to everyone? If you want to do that, then I assume that you’re okay with me dumping arsenic (and worse) into your water table if I get lucky in the lottery?
Roco wrote
I’m with you, but it’s far more than a simple majority of the land as I wrote about here when I said:
I did not say to everyone, just people who work, kind of a reimbursement for the taxes they have paid.
Now that is the rub, why do you think you have a right to harm your neighbor?
And what is wrong with parceling out federal and state lands to the public? The rich get to graze their cattle on those lands, why shouldn’t they have to pay the going rate for pasturing?
It all comes down to who is for rich people and who is for the rest of us. I am for everyone, neither rich nor poor. we all ought to have the same opportunities. You guys on the left want to help the poor at the expense of the rich but it ends up helping the rich.
Case in point is the federal insurance rich people who have coastal homes use to pay for the damage hurricanes do to their homes, it was initially meant for people in the inner cities to promote business after the 68 riots, if I remember correctly.
Why cant you just let it be? Why do want to exert control that cannot control?
puzzling:
thank you for that correction, it is an important point. Why does the federal government own almost all of Alaska? Why cant the people by it for the pennies per acre the government paid for it?
Puzzling,
The resources in Alaska won’t end the petro wars. There is not enough there and most of it is in environmentally sensitive lands.
rafflaw:
what environmentally sensitive lands? The North Slope?
Screw the environment [to a point], when we have 100% unemployment and people are prosperous we can worry about the environment. After all we are part of the environment to, we are just animals. So we spoil the other animals nests a little bit, screw em. We rule not some numb nutted caribou or arctic fox. I guess they just dont know they didnt hit the evolutionary jack pot we did.
You want to preserve them? Caribou are mighty tasty dried with some good rubbing spice.
Rico,
We have to worry about the environment. Global warming is already adversely impacting the weather due to human activity and you want to destroy the environment in order to fatten the pocketbook of the corporate masters.
Roco,
We have two choices – control pollution and be faithful stewards of the environment for our descendants (isn’t that what God told Christians to do in any case?) or condemn them to drown in their own filth until the ecosystem collapses. If you get your way it wont matter what Caribou taste like – because they’ll be extinct. Managing resources for the public good is not something that free-market capitalism does (there isn’t any profit in it – except that what’s good for society as a whole tend to be good for all of its members…).
I don’t want to put arsenic in your drinking water, but one of the logical conclusions of your argument seems to be that if I can make a buck off of doing so, then I should have that right. Corporations make enormous amounts of money off of their right to pollute – why doesn’t the government have not just a right, but an obligation to tax this anti-social behavior? How can the free market determine the value of anything without a price attached to it? The answer is that the free market assigns a value of $0 to anything without a price attached – what else can it do?
The economy, like any other dynamical system, can be controlled by negative feedback. In fact, it is simple to do so in principle (and functionally as well provided the political will to implement it) All you have to do is put a small price on any behavior that you want to discourage and slowly increase it over time. This allows the market to account for actions that cause generalized harm like pollution (the damage of which is not limited to individuals with the standing to sue). By what mechanism do you think that the free market can eliminate or even control pollution if there is no cost attached to polluting?
rafflaw:
“and you want to destroy the environment in order to fatten the pocketbook of the corporate masters.”
and I say do you want to fatten the power of the big bad government?
The nexus of environmentalism and corporatism is diminishing the ability of the proletarian to materialistically effect his future economic viability.
This combination of environmental over-regulation and economic incentives across a broad spectrum of industries is counterproductive to future economic viability for the poor and middle class. What you see as corporate masters are actually that set of industries which take money from government and use political connection to diminish competition in the form of over regulation.
A more correct restatement of your proposition would have been – do you want to destroy the economy in order to build up government.
Slarti:
“Managing resources for the public good is not something that free-market capitalism does (there isn’t any profit in it – except that what’s good for society as a whole tend to be good for all of its members…).”
that is just untrue, if you use it up where are you going to be in 10 years?
Roco,
You MANAGE resources by increasing dependence on renewable or green resources and reducing and eliminating the need for things that are expensive because they are scarce or because of the damage done by their use. If you think my statement was untrue, please give me an example of the free market acting in the public good when there was no economic incentive to do so.
Roco,
Protecting the environment does not fatten the power of government. Not protecting the environment is all about fattening the pockets of the Koch Brothers and their ilk.
Roco,
The whole reason we have an EPA is to protect against the tragedy of the commons. Since there is no economic incentive to prevent corporations from shitting where we drink and eat, we the people delegate the power to protect our food and water to the government. We don’t leave the state of nature and join society to have our water and food polluted.
Every argument you’ve made against environmental protection contradicts your expressed views of the social contract.
Roco,
Even the extreme Right Wing is aware of the importance of preserving our precious bodily fluids…
General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk… ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children’s ice cream.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: [very nervous] Lord, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I… no, no. I don’t, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard-core Commie works.
Ha, i know the video is a lie. lexington and concord are in new hampshire.
The Tea Party was grassroots. If it no longer is then that is another matter. Because of the internet any corruption of the Tea Party will get exposed. Naturally, it is the Democrats who wish to silence the internet, so hopefully that won’t happen and the Tea Party folks will be spared any shame.
But Mr. Hartman is indeed a trickster and a deceiver (no surprise then that his video clip shows up at this website) by calling the duty free transport of the tea for the East India Company as getting their “tax cut” (like rich people in America are accused by the communists (Democrats) of supposedly getting their tax cuts though they actually pay the most taxes. Except if you are a Democrat communist like Warren Buffet. Or a communist like Timmy the tax-cheat Geithner, of course.
I’m guessing the Tea Party folks want the Constitution to work. I say I guess because I know very little about the Tea Party.
The Constitution allows for duties (and imposts) on goods. Thus it follows that the Tea Party folks are by their support of the Constitution NOT opposed to duties on goods and therefore not in the same camp as supporters of the East India Company which got duty free privileges. Thus the Tea Party members then and now are essentially the same people.
So Hartman’s example is faulty. And it is morally twisted in various ways. Of course it is.
The Tea Party demographics as revealed in this* Gallup survey show that Tea Party folks are very regular folks indeed. Nearly half of them have incomes under 50k. Only about 15 percent have advanced degrees, but a whopping 34 percent of them have no college. They are not corporate types. They are generally working class people and the kind of people who suffer under the yoke of corporate jobs themselves. I know this grates on the communists (Democrats, liberals, progressives) who, in their demented little warped minds like to think only they suffer under this kind of burden.
Yet, it is the Democrats who kill and murder small businesses. These businesses are more friendly to America workers, but the Democrats are eliminating them through regulation leaving workers with fewer options outside of corporations and government work. Once Democrats kill the corporations by fascist take over all that will be left is government work. Government car companies. Government green companies. Government schools, Government banking. Government medicine. Commie heaven. Earthly hell. Thanks for nothing.
Tea Party folks then and now loathed such a world. And that is what any rebellion is about.
Tea Party folks mainly want government to stop being corrupt and stop usurping the Constitution. That is what the original Tea Party members wanted of their government as well. Tea Party folks today despise corrupt government, just like the Tea Party folks of yesterday did. Hartman pretends the problem was the corporations. It wasn’t. It was the government in league with them (in modern times we call it fascism and socialism). But it is Democrats who the are big supporters of centralized government taking over the functions of the corporations (i.e actually becoming corporations themselves).
It is deceptive to make it about corporations and take the focus off the biggest evil of mankind: powerful central governments. Powerful central governments have always been the biggest perpetrators of mass murder, wars, and slavery throughout history. It is no surprise then that Democrats worship at their altar and continually advocated unlimited government powers while they try to distract from their evil doings by demonizing lesser offenders (corporations).
Democrats did this smoke and mirrors with Hitler. Democrats supported a greater evil of the 20th Century (Stalin, Mao, communism, etc.) and then tried (and almost completely succeeded through government schools and government media) to cover it up with hysteria about Hitler. Yes, the hysteria about Hitler was legitimate, but there should have been a greater hysteria about what Democrats dabbled in: Stalin and Mao: Marx and Engels. Democrats have yet to repent of this sin. In fact, they are promoting it and have installed a communist in the White House.
It is Democrats who are the big-government unlimited-power Tories. It is Democrats who demand centralized, enslaving, mass-murdering powers like the Loyalists. General Electric is the East India Company. Barack Hussein Obama is King George. And everyone in the Democratic Party is as much an enemy of liberty as British loyalists were.
*
http://www.gallup.com/poll/127181/tea-partiers-fairly-mainstream-demographics.aspxYet
TOOOTIE!!! WAKE UP!!! You’re having a nightmare!!!
more $ for planned parenthood
“Crashing the Tea Party
By DAVID E. CAMPBELL and ROBERT D. PUTNAM
Published: August 16, 2011
GIVEN how much sway the Tea Party has among Republicans in Congress and those seeking the Republican presidential nomination, one might think the Tea Party is redefining mainstream American politics.
Related
But in fact the Tea Party is increasingly swimming against the tide of public opinion: among most Americans, even before the furor over the debt limit, its brand was becoming toxic. To embrace the Tea Party carries great political risk for Republicans, but perhaps not for the reason you might think.
Polls show that disapproval of the Tea Party is climbing. In April 2010, a New York Times/CBS News survey found that 18 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of it, 21 percent had a favorable opinion and 46 percent had not heard enough. Now, 14 months later, Tea Party supporters have slipped to 20 percent, while their opponents have more than doubled, to 40 percent.
Of course, politicians of all stripes are not faring well among the public these days. But in data we have recently collected, the Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.
The strange thing is that over the last five years, Americans have moved in an economically conservative direction: they are more likely to favor smaller government, to oppose redistribution of income and to favor private charities over government to aid the poor. While none of these opinions are held by a majority of Americans, the trends would seem to favor the Tea Party. So why are its negatives so high? To find out, we need to examine what kinds of people actually support it. ”
Read the rest at the New York Times.
Bob Esq:
“Every argument you’ve made against environmental protection contradicts your expressed views of the social contract.”
Mandating certain levels of pollution based on good science is reasonable. Pulling environmental BS out of your ass for political reasons is a violation in a free society.
Bob Esq:
you are a lawyer, sue the bastards who pollute their neighbors well.
Slarti:
Weyerhauser has thousands of acres of trees they grow for their business.
Slarti:
“We have two choices – control pollution and be faithful stewards of the environment for our descendants (isn’t that what God told Christians to do in any case?) or condemn them to drown in their own filth until the ecosystem collapses.”
The ecosystem is not going to collapse and we are not going to drown in our own filth. the history of economic progress makes that clear to us. Now poor nations do wallow and drown in their own filth.
There is a third choice as well. Let economic freedom take hold, problem solved. Progress Slarti, Progress. And here I thought you were the progressive.
roco
then the LLC you sued declares bankruptcy, sells its assets to the parent corp (a tax write-off), and you ( the plaintiff) still have a polluted well.
drink up
Pete:
Arent corporate executives liable for criminal acts? If you have pollution levels based on good science and laws based on that science, wouldnt the executives be legally responsible?
Also arent there laws on the books which prevent a corporation from knowingly selling assests to get out of a jam?
Roco,
Mandate pollution levels? What an incredibly bad idea – how does a mandate make a business pollute less? Take the CAFE standards – I was at a dinner where one of the top people from the GM Tech Center was speaking and he said that they could make a car that got 90 mpg and seated 4 people and went 300 miles – they just couldn’t sell it. This was in 1992, mind you… If instead of enacting CAFE standards in 1975 we had instituted a $0.01/gal additional gasoline tax which automatically went up by $0.01/gal each year, I bet we would be getting an average of 100 mpg and would have a much smaller debt with very little negative effect on the economy (well, except the oil industry – on noes!). How long do you think it would take to have an average 100mpg if we instituted this tax today? If we don’t? If there is a cost – especially an escalating cost – to having low gas mileage, then consumers will demand higher gas mileage (and be willing to pay more for it) and they will get it (and it will become cheaper [barring a monopoly or some such]). That’s how the regulated market works to produce a more stable economy. In every case appropriate negative feedback works to damp the boom and bust cycle. You’re an engineer – if you had some machine which was regularly oscillating out of control in various ways, how would you try to stop that? I think you’re a good enough engineer to know that you would apply a negative feedback control – why do you think the market is any different?
Roco,
Plaintiffs (including the government) who win judgements against corporate persons should get equity in the company in compensation. The only way a corporation can be punished is by loss of shareholder equity – and the shareholders should have the right to elect board members that uphold their fiduciary duty to avoid losing the shareholder’s equity.
teabaggers suck
and they drip
“[Tea Party]Membership and demographics
Several polls have been conducted on the demographics of the movement. Though the various polls sometimes turn up slightly different results, they tend to show that Tea Party supporters are mainly white and slightly more likely to be male, married, older than 45, more conservative than the general population, and likely to be more wealthy and have more education.
One Gallup poll found that other than gender, income and politics, self-described Tea Party members were demographically similar to the population as a whole. When surveying supporters or participants of the Tea Party movement, polls have shown that they are to a very great extent more likely to be registered Republican, have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party and an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party. The Bloomberg National Poll of adults 18 and over showed that 40% of Tea Party supporters are 55 or older, compared with 32% of all poll respondents; 79% are white, 61% are men and 44% identify as “born-again Christians”, compared with 75%, 48.5%, and 34% for the general population, respectively.
“[Tea Party]Canvass and polls
An October 2010 Washington Post canvass of local Tea Party organizers found 99% said “concern about the economy” was an “important factor”. Polls have also examined Tea Party supporters’ views on race and racial politics. The University of Washington poll of registered voters in Washington State found that 74% of Tea Party supporters agreed with the statement “[w]hile equal opportunity for blacks and minorities to succeed is important, it’s not really the government’s job to guarantee it”, while a CBS/New York Times poll found that 25% think that the administration favors blacks over whites, compared with just 11% of the general public, and that they are more likely to believe Obama was born outside the United States. A seven state study conducted from the University of Washington found that Tea Party movement supporters within those states were “more likely to be racially resentful” than the population as a whole, even when controlling for partisanship and ideology. Of white poll respondents who strongly approve of the Tea Party, only 35% believe that blacks are hard-working, compared to 55% of those strongly opposed to the Tea Party, and 40% of all respondents. However, analysis done by ABC News’ Polling Unit found that views on race “are not significant predictors of support for the Tea Party movement” because they are typical of whites who are very conservative.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement
FYI
A short piece on the effectiveness of private utility companies and why they are a bad idea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Island_Lighting_Company
Having lived on Long Island for periods of time I must say that the story is even far worse than portrayed in this rather fair article.
Mike Spindell:
that isnt much of a refutation.
Roco,
Depends on your viewpoint and facility for taking in information counter to ones’ pre-judgments.
Roco
1, September 3, 2011 at 4:18 pm
“I did not say to everyone, just people who work, kind of a reimbursement for the taxes they have paid.”
————–
Slippery slope there Roco.
That’s another teabagger meme; only “productive” citizens should have a say in the affairs of state or reap its rewards. It’s nothing new, it’s actually a pre-revolutionary idea. Pretty cool if you’re one of the folks that can set the policies that determines how many jobs and of what calibre, the country will sustain. It tends to take care of all those slackers that work but don’t make enough money to actually pay federal income taxes, as well as the disabled and the non-working/taxpaying elderly not receiving enough income to pay those taxes. Well, at least we know where the teabaggers want to take their country back to, the mid-eighteenth century.
Registering the Poor to Vote is Un-American
By Matthew Vadum
“Registering them to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country –”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/registering_the_poor_to_vote_is_un-american.html
**************
U.S. Voting Rights
When the Constitution was written, only white male property owners (about 10 to 16 percent of the nation’s population) had the vote. Over the past two centuries, though, the term “government by the people” has become a reality. During the early 1800s, states gradually dropped property requirements for voting. Later, groups that had been excluded previously gained the right to vote. Other reforms made the process fairer and easier.
1790
1790 Only white male adult property-owners have the right to vote
Read more: U.S. Voting Rights
http://www.infoplease.com/timelines/voting.html
Well said Lotta. It is unfortunate that Democracy gets in the way of the Wealthy running everything.
lotta katz:
anyone who works pays taxes and even those who dont work pay sales tax. Although that money is taken from people who do work so I think anyone who has paid taxes on labor is a reasonable place to start.
But I see nothing wrong with reimbursing people with federal land in the amount of the tax they have paid. It would sure open up a good number of opportunities for the average person, mostly the poor and the middle class. Mineral rights, land development or just selling it outright to developers and using that money to start some other business.
So I guess you are against the working poor and the middle class and for the fat cats and the environmentalists? The ones who lead that movement are by and large fat cats. Why do say you are for the worker when you are against a policy that would help the workers? Seems rather contradictory to me.
Nothing was said about voting in any event, but nice red herring. Very nicely done. Or maybe I should say straw man? I’ll let you pick.
Roco,
I don’t believe that a government in any way helps its citizens (they aren’t all workers…) by failing to protect the quality of their air, land, and water and failing to faithfully steward their natural resources – your plan would do both.
Slartibartfast:
how would it do both? Natural resources should not belong to government. They should belong to individuals. They should be used to benefit all, which means they should be in production.
Government has failed and miserably at most everything it has done except restricting the freedoms of the people.
We know enough about how to control pollution. As far as stewarding goes, government has done such a great job with social security. SS could be self sustaining by now if the money had been actually used for retirement accounts alone. So I dont see why you think they could steward our natural resources any better. If a guy gets a D in calculus, he probably isnt going to get an A in differential equations.
Roco, where your argument breaks down is the nature of human nature. Resources belong to ALL of us, and the government is the body that represents all of us. Your recommendation that resources should be in private hands does not take into account the human trait of hoarding. How many rare stamps or paintings in private hands disappear into vaults never to be seen again? But, if they are on display in a public museum, they cannot be hoarded by a private owner.
The spigot of essential natural resources do not need to be controlled on the whim of a private owner whose investment strategy may call for creating artificial scarcity in order to maximize profits at the expense of the rest of us.
http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/09/texas-cut-fire-department-funding-by-75-percent-this-year/ Texas teabaggers cut fire dept. funding and now have to rely more on the federal government for help.
Great link, SwM, thanks. I am bemused by the cognitive dissonance displayed by that example. If things were going the way they should–as LBJ would have handled it–Perry would be summoned to the White House for an epic arm twisting. Ol’ Lyndon would have explained to him that he would get jack shit out of the government unless there were a quid pro quo to the administration’s liking. And Perry, hat in hand, would have caved.
In the present instance, I fear that it is not Perry who will do the caving.
OS, We will see how Perry does tonight. Ron Paul has been running ads that attack Perry for being too liberal so I don’t think the cuts will hurt Perry in the republican primary. It is now his to lose if you look at today’s NBC/WSJ poll.
http://mojoe.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/06/7630766-top-talkers-nbc-newswsj-poll-shows-rick-perry-leading-the-2012-gop-field
Otteray Scribe:
take a look at the history of people trying to corner the market on most any commodity, it doesnt work out well for them for the most part.
Land is not like a stamp or rare painting. But a rare stamp or painting is the property of the owner to do with as they please. The same for land to the extent you dont do something to violate your neighbors land/property/person.
If resources belong to all of us, you shouldnt have any problem signing over title to private individuals.
all of you are all talk and no action you are all sheep
Roco, I don’t have the slightest clue as to what you are talking about . Your last post reminds me of Gabby Johnson’s epic rant. I can read the words and sentences, but they are entirely content free. Congratulations. It is quite an accomplishment to express nothing so succinctly.
This is a bit off topic, but not too far since it addresses the ‘public versus private’ public works issue. I am aware of several who post here regularly feel that private enterprise always does it better than public projects. Investigative reporter Roger Shuler reports on one such case. The problem arose when a privately owned dormitory had a kind of balcony called a “Juliet balcony.” Presumably named after the Shakespeare character, the balcony on the privately built dorm is not sturdy enough to stand on safely, but still has doors opening out onto the balcony where college students can go out and stand on it, safety be damned. And no lawyer type warnings on either it or the door, like you do on a new toaster or hair dryer. Despite the fact an apartment building costs a lot more than a toaster. Or for that matter, one of those cars that look like toasters.
Roger explains:
http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2011/09/is-private-enterprise-more-efficient.html