Recently, Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas took to the floor of the House to talk about Wikileaks, transparency in government, and the case of Daniel Ellsberg, the 
Pentagon Papers, and the New York Times. He spoke about how the Iraq War was based on lies. He asked how the U. S. government should prosecute a citizen of Australia for publishing classified U. S. documents that he did not steal. Paul also said the following: “Revealing the real nature and goal of our presence in so many Muslim countries is a threat to our empire, and any revelation of this truth is highly resented by those in charge.”
Paul posed a number of questions at the end of his talk:
Number 1: Do the America People deserve know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?
Number 2: Could a larger question be how can an army private access so much secret information?
Number 3: Why is the hostility mostly directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our governments failure to protect classified information?
Number 4: Are we getting our moneys worth of the 80 Billion dollars per year spent on intelligence gathering?
Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?
Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?
Number 7: Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on Wikileaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?
Number 8: Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death and corruption?
Number 9: Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?
Thomas Jefferson had it right when he advised ‘Let the eyes of vigilance never be closed.’ I yield back the balance of my time.
Source: Huffington Post
– Elaine Magliaro
Tony C:
from Wikipedia concerning the tradgedy of the commons:
Thucydides (ca. 460 B.C.-ca. 395 B.C.) stated: “[T]hey devote a very small fraction of time to the consideration of any public object, most of it to the prosecution of their own objects. Meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come to his neglect, that it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for him; and so, by the same notion being entertained by all separately, the common cause imperceptibly decays.”[6]
Aristotle (384 B.C.-322 B.C.) similarly argued against common goods of the polis of Athens: “That all persons call the same thing mine in the sense in which each does so may be a fine thing, but it is impracticable; or if the words are taken in the other sense, such a unity in no way conduces to harmony. And there is another objection to the proposal. For that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Every one thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest; and only when he is himself concerned as an individual. For besides other considerations, everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he expects another to fulfill; as in families many attendants are often less useful than a few.”[7]
Even Aristotle thinks you and Bubbha are wrong.
Tony,
Thanks for finally admitting you cannot even muster an attempt to counter my arguments and are reduced to saying that what i advocate wont work simply because you say it wont work.
“You want to reduce everything to money ”
“One of the most popular criticisms we hear of capitalism and the free market is that they are only concerned with money. These heartless, greedy ideologies, we are told, would let a man’s house burn down over mere money! But the owner offered to pay the fee. He offered to pay more than the fee. In that case, the issue is not money anymore.”
Did you miss that part or are purposefully choosing not to consider it?
“Who enforces the value of the money?”
If money (im assuming you mean federal reserve notes backed by legal tender laws) was valued at all, why would it require enforcement? If it required force to make people accept them, then wouldnt the obvious conclusion be that their value is zero? You could declare rocks legal tender and force people to accept them as forms of payment but this would say nothing about how much people valued rocks and more about the incoherence of legal tender laws. People would freely accept any form of payment if that is what they wanted, why would you even concieve they would have to be forced to?
I dont think I have ever seen a more breathtaking lack of economic understanding in only 7 words.
@ekeyra: The problem, other than your obstinate ignorance, is that for your system to work everybody must be a sociopath; i.e. willing to let a house burn down over a missed payment, willing to let a child die because the parent doesn’t have enough money, willing to let an old woman be murdered for her wedding ring because she chose to buy food instead of police protection.
This is why your system is unsustainable; it requires an unrealistic level of heartlessness. You want to reduce everything to money — Who enforces the value of the money? When my house burns down and my children are dead and I have nothing left, who do I call to sue the contract fire department that didn’t show up? What forces them to pay me, and how much of that pay do I have to give up to the army that took the money from them? What prevents them from hiring their own armed forces to prevent such collections?
If I am a single person without a family, how exactly do I sue the company I paid to ensure my medicine was safe to take, when that medicine suddenly kills me? They are in breach of contract, they didn’t protect me — And I can’t do a damn thing about it, because I am inconveniently deceased.
Your fantasy system is so full of holes they cannot be counted, and debating the finer points of your fantasy is simply counter-productive.
1) People are not heartless sociopaths.
2) Without a government, money is meaningless and contracts are worthless.
3) Anarchy produces the end of civilization. If that is your goal, go wander about in the middle east, or Yemen, or Somalia, or India or something. There are plenty of uncivilized places with no rules that would be happy to kill you for the shirt on your back.
Tony,
The commons dilemma is one of capacity and sustainability of a common resource. The free rider dilemma is a problem concerning the non specific distribution of services to a group without knowledge of who has contributed and who hasnt, i.e. providing “protection” to a neighborhood. Again both problems are present only in a redistributive economic system which you advocate. Bringing up hospital ER visits, which are de facto public services, precisely because of laws not allowing hospitals to turn away patients, is mistaken because it is a “commons” problem (individuals straining a public resouce to the point of unsustainability), rather than a free rider problem (providing services which benefit a large group, some of whom have not contributed). Other than hospitals who must, by law, eat the cost of patients unable or unwilling to pay, you have no other examples of free riders in a free market economy. If private companies provided services to those who could not pay, the companies themselves would bear the cost of those services, not the public. Regardless of what might motivate them to do so, it is their resources to employee as they see fit, making provision of services to those who could not pay an expenditure notation rather than a political crisis to be solved.
As for your “free market firehouse” in Tennesse, try again. That fire department, although charging fees, was still a government entity.
http://mises.org/daily/4812
“One of the most popular criticisms we hear of capitalism and the free market is that they are only concerned with money. These heartless, greedy ideologies, we are told, would let a man’s house burn down over mere money! But the owner offered to pay the fee. He offered to pay more than the fee. In that case, the issue is not money anymore.”
Here is the exact reason why the free rider agrument is completely invalid to private enterprise
“Some may object that if the fire department were to accept fees on the spot for services, this would weaken the incentive for people to pay beforehand. This would then supposedly deprive the fire department of an operating budget unless there are actual fires to put out and provide a revenue stream. This may be a valid point as far at it goes. But those that make this point are essentially arguing that the government fire department was correct to let the house burn down. So then what is the complaint? It would seem that according to this argument the government fire department acted properly.”
To argue the free rider dilemma in this context is to say that allowing the house to burn down was the right thing to do.
Also,
“If we are all going to pay for a policy anyway, why don’t we all get together and start our own fire company?”
Great idea, noone’s stopping you in a free market. There would be no monopoly on the provision of fire protection. I doubt your rag tag volunteer fire dept could match performance and equipment with a fire suppression business, but that does not mean it would not be needed or welcomed. In fact it would provide better protection to have multiple and overlapping providers competing for customers. If one fire department is cruel and heartless and wont put out your fire, call another one!
Tony C.
1, December 18, 2010 at 9:17 am
@Blouise: My best friend retired last year and I and others put up money to help him launch his retirement business. We do not need investors or employees, so I am not pitching anything; but I do love the startup phase! This is my fifth, I think. In this case I put up 25% of the capital (and we won’t borrow anything). In my spare time I did a lot of his research and …….
Do you have any particular sort of business that interests you?
============================================================
I got rather lost on this thread and missed your post until this morning.
I whole-heartedly support your business philosophy as you have presented it here.
I’ve been working since I was 4 years old for myself and for others. I find either state of employment to be satisfactory. I have had a couple of businesses but they were both incorporated for my own benefit/protection and not intended to grow or to sell even though that is what eventually happened to one of them.
I prefer the inverted pyramid but, other than a catering business where I employed others (passed it on to a friend when I decided to do something else … it’s still going strong), I’ve not always been in a position of concerning myself with the awesome responsibility of employing and providing direction for others. When I have I look to hire the individual who displays an independence of thought and an “I take no shit” attitude. I like people who talk back and who think they know more than I do.
I’ve never been all that interested in making money as I found the challenge and joy of working at something worthwhile to truly be its own reward … it should come as no surprise to anyone who understands this work ethic that the money always seems to come.
At this point in my life I’m content to rest on my laurels … however, I am presently studying the food production industry as there is a product I’m seriously considering for the market. I’ll start small and see where it goes … it’s complicated but doable.
Cuba has announced it will lay off a half-million workers from bloated state-run enterprises, while simultaneously allowing more free enterprise. It has also begun to scale back many of the subsidies Cubans have come to rely on to compensate for salaries that average just $20 a month.
This is not good news for Florida. Allowing free enterprise the last time resulted in a mass exodus. Free meaning free to build a raft and leave.
I seen the rafts up close and personal and in fact as a joke got on one 65 miles due East of Jacksonville Florida to have my picture taken. If you seen how they were made you would stand in awe.
@Chan: In any case, your formulation of the case is wrong because it implies the user does not own the commons. By definition of “commons” the user DOES own a share of the commons, it belongs to everybody. The tragedy of the commons is when he uses more than his fair share of the commons.
This becomes inevitable when everybody relies on the commons for feed grass, and it cannot supply enough for everybody. The field will be overgrazed and the entire supply will be lost, a tragedy because until it was overgrazed it was a naturally replenishing source of free economic benefit to the community.
The free rider problem and the tragedy of the commons are two different things, and ekeyra cannot tell the difference, and since that is the important fact you are incapable of distinguishing the difference between what is important and what is trivial.
Kelly is also wrong in the same way you are wrong. You’ve failed to ask “wherein the control lies and for what purpose”. Centralized control is required for certain elements of society. The Romans would not have been able to build aqueducts without centralized control nor run their military or any of the other positive functions they provided (like education) without it. In the Roman Republic, that control resided with the Senate. In Imperial Rome, it rested with the Emperor. In America, the power is held by the Federal Government’s co-equal branches and – as a representative democracy – is held is trust for “We the People”. Or it is supposed to be, but I’ll get to that.
In democratic socialism (as paired with social democracy – the very form I advocate and you’ve been attacking), the control lies with the government and is held as a public trust.
In fascism, the control lies with industry coordination government and is held for private profit of an oligarchy.
In the instance of modern America the fundamental problem is that industry – through corruption of in the campaign finance system and lobbyists – have usurped the will of We the People (the demos in the Greek sense of the word) in exercising control over our government. It is fascism in fact once control is handed to a merchant class oligarchy and taken out of the hands of the demos (the common people).
Keep cherry picking nonsense to justify your greed.
In your zeal to paint anyone against corporate excess as a fascist (a term you obviously consider pejorative), you’ve done quite the opposite.
All you’ve done with that bit of sophistry directed at painting democratic socialism as fascism (which it isn’t because they have innately different loci of control) is tacitly admit that you’re an anti-democratic fascist.
You’re just “me, Me, ME” 24/7/365, aren’t you, sport? (rhetorical)
@Chan: Are you just being a jerk, or are you truly too dumb to see that you are just rephrasing what I said? Is that how it is with you, all you can ever do is parrot what somebody else has told you, and because you have never truly understood it, you cannot tell when somebody says it slightly differently? All you can do is compare my words to the magic words you learned and conclude, “not equal”?
What a pathetic mindless existence you must lead, to be so cognitively restricted.
ekeyra:
you should like this:
HAVANA (AP) — Cuban President Raul Castro told legislators Saturday that the future of the country’s revolution is at stake as the government tries to institute sweeping economic reforms, adding that the changes are meant to strengthen socialism — not replace it.
Cuba has announced it will lay off a half-million workers from bloated state-run enterprises, while simultaneously allowing more free enterprise. It has also begun to scale back many of the subsidies Cubans have come to rely on to compensate for salaries that average just $20 a month.
Castro has argued that the changes are needed to boost notoriously low productivity, and that once that happens, living standards will begin to rise. He urged his countrymen to embrace the changes, and warned that anybody who doesn’t will be left behind.
“The life of the revolution is in the balance,” Castro said in a two-hour speech closing out a twice-yearly meeting of the island’s national assembly. He repeated his contention that the dollop of limited capitalism being injected into the economy does not mean the end of the revolution’s ideal to create an egalitarian utopia.
“The strategic economic changes are being made to sustain socialism,” he said. “They are to preserve and strengthen socialism, so as to make it irrevocable.”
He also warned his countrymen that they’ll have to work in the new Cuba, and can no longer rely on the state for handouts.
“Many of us Cubans confuse socialism with freebies and subsidies, and equality with egalitarianism,” the president said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iRIq41rTrBxTzm90UGIZZFEmKt0w?docId=4a9b65b23a0446b9bdd72d7ebd5773d0
http://weaselzippers.us/2010/12/19/raul-castro-yeah-socialisms-basically-a-complete-failure-so-were-going-to-add-some-capitalism-to-save-it/
Looks like it took those dumb asses (the Marx er Castro Brothers) 50 years to figure out socialism doesn’t work. What a bunch of morons. I guess that is what we are going to have to do in the US as well, use capitalism to save socialism. When will these stupid lefties learn? It must be some kind of defect in some area of the brain or an emotional disorder. I guess they were dropped on their head shortly after birth or didn’t breast feed long enough. Although it could have been mild oxygen deprivation during birth.
Bubbha is Laughing, call your office; price check required on aisle 9.
“Mussolini’s own idea, since he started it, was that Fascism was Socialism where Internationalism was replaced with Nationalism.”
Dr. Kelly (a political philosopher)
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/mussolini.htm
“8. Conception of a corporative state
(15) We have created the united state of Italy remember that since the Empire Italy had not been a united state. Here I wish to reaffirm solemnly our doctrine of the State. Here I wish to reaffirm with no weaker energy, the formula I expounded at the scala in Milan everything in the state, nothing against the State, nothing outside the state. (speech before the Chamber of Deputies, May 26, 1927 , Discorsi del 1927, Milano, Alpes, 1928, p. t57).
(16) We are, in other words, a state which controls all forces acting in nature. We control political forces, we control moral forces we control economic forces, therefore we are a full-blown Corporative state. We stand for a new principle in the world, we stand for sheer, categorical, definitive antithesis to the world of democracy, plutocracy, free-masonry, to the world which still abides by the fundamental principles laid down in 1789. (Speech before the new National Directory of the Party, April 7, 1926, in Discorsi del 1926, Milano, Alpes, 1927, p. 120).
The Ministry of Corporations is not a bureaucratic organ, nor does it wish to exercise the functions of syndical organizations which are necessarily independent, since they aim at organizing, selecting and improving the members of syndicates. The Ministry of Corporations is an institution in virtue of which, in the centre and outside, integral corporation becomes an accomplished fact, where balance is achieved between interests and forces of the economic world. Such a glance is only possible within the sphere of the state, because the state alone transcends the contrasting interests of groups and individuals, in view of co-coordinating them to achieve higher aims. The achievement of these aims is speeded up by the fact that all economic organizations, acknowledged, safeguarded and supported by the Corporative State, exist within the orbit of Fascism; in other terms they accept the conception of Fascism in theory and in practice. (speech at the opening of the Ministry of Corporations, July 31, 1926, in Discorsi del 1926, Milano, Alpes, 1927, p. 250).
We have constituted a Corporative and Fascist state, the state of national society, a State which concentrates, controls, harmonizes and tempers the interests of all social classes, which are thereby protected in equal measure. Whereas, during the years of demo-liberal regime, labour looked with diffidence upon the state, was, in fact, outside the State and against the state, and considered the state an enemy of every day and every hour, there is not one working Italian today who does not seek a place in his Corporation or federation, who does not wish to be a living atom of that great, immense, living organization which is the national Corporate State of Fascism. (On the Fourth Anniversary of the March on Rome, October 28, 1926, in Discorsi del 1926, Milano, Alpes, 1927, p. 340).”
Seems like centralized control of industry to me. And we all know what centralized control is. You call it whatever you want but the concept is the same.
Tony C:
“No it isn’t, that is called the tragedy of the commons; named after a metaphor in which a field (the ‘commons’) is free for all people to graze their sheep, and is thus overgrazed. people have used more than their fair share.”
Incorrect, the tradgedy of the commons is that people will not properly husband that which is not theirs.
@ekeyra: The free rider problem comes about when people use more of a public resource than they have contributed,
No it isn’t, that is called the tragedy of the commons; named after a metaphor in which a field (the ‘commons’) is free for all people to graze their sheep, and is thus overgrazed. people have used more than their fair share.
The free rider problem comes from a metaphor of transportation, a service, in which people are supposed to share the cost of the service and a person finds a way to get a ‘free ride.’
The free rider problem is only a dilemma of PUBLIC goods.
No it isn’t. The free rider problem is when everybody is supposed to pay for a service, including a private one like (as one example) the E.R. at a hospital, but some people refuse and then use the service anyway: For example they get hit by an out-of-control car, show up at the E.R. and get treated because doctors cannot legally turn them away (and the reason that is a law is because some have in the past when they could).
But they can’t pay, they can’t afford it, so they ended up with life-saving treatment, from a private hospital, that gets stuck with a $100,000 bill they will never collect, because the guy that owes it earns $15K a year and will simply never pay it.
So in your firehouse context, the free rider problem is precisely what you describe: Somebody fails to pay their fire department, but you think the fire department will douse their fires anyway. Then one of two things happen:
1) The non-payee gets a free ride. Either by a write off as PR (stops happening when 50% of the people are not paying, and the other 50% overpaying realize they can just stop paying too, and be written off as PR)
2) The ‘after-the-fact’ negotiation becomes hostage taking: The fire department shows up and says they want $100,000 to save the house, sign here or we’ll watch it burn.
If you don’t think that will happen, I refer you to a post on this blog a few months back where exactly that happened with a for-pay fire department.
Also assuming someone would want to be a firefighter only to watch people burn because they couldnt pay is beyond ludicrous.
I didn’t claim that you dumbass, I asked if you thought that was what they would do, and apparently you do not, which means you are going to get FREE RIDERS, because people will be saved whether they pay their premiums or NOT, because the firefighters are human and have empathy.
What is it with you guys and rape?
This is funny, you think it is because we are thinking about rape, when in fact it is because we see rape as a violation and crime on par with slavery; rape can ruin a person’s life and psyche.
They would be under far less budgetary and political contraints
Bullshit squared. The most probable scenario is that to STOP free riders they would get sociopathic and let houses burn (as we have seen in reality) and/or demand exorbitant payment contracts be signed on the spot for the non-insured, costing them half the value of their house or so, and the fact that they have fewer political constraints will make them MORE sociopathic, not less. Look at Exxon, Massey Energy, Walmart, BP.
The ideal scenario for a for-profit fire house is if everybody paid for a policy. But if we are all going to pay for a policy anyway, why tack on 30% to that policy for pure profit? (and remember dummy, profit is the money left over after all expenses including all salaries and materials).
If we are all going to pay for a policy anyway, why don’t we all get together and start our own fire company? Then our share of the profits is going to go right back in our pockets, and the easy way to do that is: Reduce the premium by 30%.
This is essentially what we have done by making fire fighting a non-optional public service supported by taxes. The taxes are the premium, the non-optional part eliminates free riders, and the firemen are paid a fair wage and nobody gets rich by holding panicked people hostage.
This is the point of cooperative public services. Not to provide something for free, but to provide something at cost. It is impossible to argue that this “at cost” goal is not achieved: The firemen get paid, the trucks get bought, the firehouses get built, and fires are put out and lives are saved. The costs are paid, and there is no billionaire CEO of some chain of firehouses out there, living off the money he extorted from people about to lose everything.
I think your problem is you want to be the free rider. You want to steal the security benefit of our cooperative action without paying for it. You object to the premium on this service being non-optional; but the only reason for that is to avoid free riders, and the most likely reason for objecting is that you want to BE the free rider.
Tony,
The free rider problem comes about when people use more of a public resource than they have contributed, thus draining the funding instead of keeping it an equilibrium of cost, eventually leading to the bankruptcy of that service. Isnt this the very foundation of a redistributive economic model? Poor recipients of government funds must recieve more than they contribute. If this were not the case they would be recieving exactly as much as they contributed, leaving them no better off, or contributing more than they recieve, which would leave them in an even worse situation. To say this is a problem is to advocate against the very redistributive systems you support. The free rider problem is only a dilemma of PUBLIC goods. A for-profit rescue service or fire prevention and suppression service, would have no reason to deny anyone rescue. Their excess funds from insurance premiums and on the spot invoicing would allow them the luxury of negoiating payment plans after the fact, or simply writing the cost of a rescue off as PR and advertising expenditures. They would be under far less budgetary and political contraints as a publicly funded service. Also assuming someone would want to be a firefighter only to watch people burn because they couldnt pay is beyond ludicrous.
“This is like saying, “Why can’t I just rape at gunpoint the women that I find attractive? And don’t bring up how they or others feel about it or her ‘human rights’ or whatever.””
What is it with you guys and rape? Why is that always the first thing off the top of your heads? Seriously?
@Buddha: Absolutely, I think it should be unconstitutional for corporations to even attempt to influence politics in any way; either by donations or by paying lobbyists. And they are not frikkin’ people with rights, either. The idea of defining any property as a person, or vice versa, is simply wrong-headed. A corporation is a thing that can be bought and sold. My car has no rights of any kind, and neither should Exxon.
“I think the USA has a legitimate interest in preventing the rise of despotism around the world that might endanger us” – I agree, but with the stipulation that this includes the rise of corporate/”security” state despotism domestically.
@Chan: I am a leftist, as should be obvious.
I don’t think the USA should be the world’s policeman; and I will note our “foreign aid” is about the stingiest of any industrialized country.
I think the USA has a legitimate interest in preventing the rise of despotism around the world that might endanger us, just like I have a legitimate interest in preventing my neighbors from creating fire or health hazards or other dangers within a stone’s throw of my residence.
That prevention can be by police action or by humanitarian aid that prevents desperation from giving rise to anarchy and totalitarianism. Even by the logic of libertarianism, it is entirely possible to intervene militarily or provide aid because it is in our own self-interest (collectively speaking) economically to do so.
Although I’d certainly prefer to only do that in times of clear crisis, I don’t think the level of such things should be zero. As for genocide and other such moral tragedies, I think it is a red herring when libertarians claim we will go broke being the world’s policeman.
We can sometimes prevent a genocidal purge of tens of thousands of human lives with a one-time cost of a few bucks per adult citizen. When that is the case I think we should do it; preventing genocidal governments from gaining power is worth it, and saving innocent lives from horror is worth it. I do not want to spend a trillion dollars in foreign adventures either, but a few hundred million for a humanitarian end like stopping genocide is not going to be noticed by me or virtually anybody else that pays taxes, and there aren’t that many of them that one can claim they all “add up.” They just don’t.
Come on. Follow your pattern and call the left fascists when I’ve already proven the left and fascism are diametrically opposed. Lie some more.
Fascists.
You’re the ones calling them lefties, distortionist.
you just said they were Neo-Con.
Which is it? are they lefties or Fascists? Oh but I contradict myself.