Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Some comments in the ongoing debate regarding the candidacy of Elizabeth Warren got me to thinking about our political system and people’s reactions to it. Warren is criticized by the Right for obvious reasons, given her strong stances on managing the economy and controlling the excesses of the Corporate Culture. In a sense she offends their sense of political purity, but then that is but a given because she is a Democrat. We have seen though on the Right that such conservative stalwarts as Richard Lugar have gone down to primary defeat because he failed the Tea Parties test of what a “true” conservative should be. Richard Lugar failed the “purity” test even though his conservative history is impeccable. In my conception political purity conforms to “party line” thinking, punishing those that fail to adhere in all respects to the standards of a given faction’s concept of standards their candidates must adhere to in order to retain enthusiastic support. I use “faction”, rather than “party”, because our two party political system actually represents an amalgam of various factions imperfectly coalescing under the rubric of a “Political Party”.
From a Left, or even Centrist perspective, there has been both amusement and trepidation about how the “Tea Party” faction has exerted control over the Republican Party. Then too, there is the same reaction to the power exerted by Fundamentalist Christians, a group that at some points overlaps with the “Tea Party”. A human trait is to see the foibles of groups we define as “other”, while being oblivious to the idiosyncrasies of the groups we are aligned with. Liberals, Progressives, Radicals and even Leftist Centrists like to believe that they are immune from the turmoil that they see in their Right Wing opposites, yet the “Left” and even the “Center” also routinely define people in terms of litmus tests of political purity. This was highlighted by certain comments on the Warren thread where people who were seemingly in tune with her domestic policy views, disliked her positions on the Middle East and appeared to hold them against her. This has definitely been true with many progressives and/or civil libertarians in viewing this current Administration. My purpose here is not one of castigation for anyone’s perspective; rather I’m interested in exploring the phenomenon of the belief that political figures need to meet all of our expectations in their positions, or be unworthy of our support. My own perspective is that tests of political purity are self defeating because it is impossible for any particular political figure to be in perfect agreement with all that any of us individually believe and politics becomes oppression without the ability to negotiate. The process of real negotiation requires compromise. What follows is why I believe that is true. Before my discussion though, I think a definition of perspectives would be helpful. There are some of us, including myself to a certain degree, who believe that we are living under a corporate oligarchy and as such the common pretense that our national fate is in the hands of the majority’s vote, is but pleasant mythology. I wrote about this in my guest blog Published 1, March 17, 2012: http://jonathanturley.org/2012/03/17/a-real-history-of-the-last-sixty-two-years/ .One logical conclusion that can be drawn from believing that democracy is an illusion, is that voting is a wasted effort, since whatever person we choose will either be a corporate stooge, or unelectable. I can respect those who draw that conclusion since the evidence of its truth is quite convincing. My own conclusion is not quite there yet, even though I do believe that we are under the rule of a coalition of the Military Industrial Complex and of the Corporate Elite. The redeeming feature to me is that I don’t believe in the homogeneity of the “ruling classes”. I think that they are made up of various factions and roiled by clashing egos. In my estimation voting for politicians thus has value because the vote affects the competition among our oligarchs. There is a qualitative difference for instance between Buffett/Gates and the Koch Brothers, in the sense that the former believe in more humane social policies and the latter have a draconian social view.
If one believes that Democracy is completely illusory, then why bother voting, since voting is a futile exercise? The logical conclusion of such a belief is to disdain all of American politics and politicians as being tools of the Oligarchy. From that perspective it isn’t a question of particular policy, since almost every player in normative politics is not to be trusted. So the question becomes how do the people change things when the political process is believed to be non-existent? Obviously, if it is ones view that America politics is a total sham, then a massive uprising of the people would be needed to make change. How does that uprising occur? Will its’ nature be peaceful, or violent? While I know there are “militias” out in the hills of places like Idaho, are they capable of banding together to overthrow our current government, I think not. Violent revolutions always seem to breed unforeseen and unpleasant excesses, which make their original aims moot. So the question becomes how do we effect a peaceful revolution? The answer is simple, but the process itself is immensely complex. A peaceful revolution can come about when you are able to convince an overwhelming majority of the people that the current system needs change and that they need to refuse to cooperate with it. Think of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. When the media is in the hands of corporations though, the issue is one of how does the message of change come across to reach the populace? It’s a question I’ve pondered for years.
Back in the 60’s there was the idea of “dropping out” of a corrupt system. Its problem was that it was espoused by many and practiced by few. The truth was that for those “dropping out” the system didn’t miss their participation, nor would it now. A current conservative stratagem is to make voting harder, thereby limiting turnout of voters negative to their cause. We solve nothing by not voting. We could vote, but cast our votes for nascent opposition parties. This is not a bad premise in my estimation, even though in our loaded political system, minority party effectiveness is more limited than under parliamentary government. Let us think though about a minority party legislator’s ability to be effective once elected, since I assume that the process of gaining political power through organizing a minority party opposition would be slow and could be violently opposed. Think of the police reactions to Occupy Wall Street. However, OWS does show that the elite can feel threatened by a mass movement.
When we discuss the election of someone whose political views are outside of what the “mainstream allows”, we need to take into account how much positive influence they can have on the political process, if they are unwilling to compromise their “political purity”. Let us take the real instance of Senator Bernie Sanders, a socialist, as he does his job in the Senate. I believe that Bernie is the most ethical and perceptive Senator we have had in the Senate in a long time. He is also an effective Senator in terms of being able to not only put forth a progressive point of view, but to actually influence Senate activity. In order to be effective in the Senate, Bernie has had to compromise on certain issues and thus would certainly be seen from the orthodox socialist perspective to have sold out. In contrast let us take another man whose career I’ve admired, Dennis Kucinich. Dennis has been an aggressive/effective spokesman on a national level for unpopular, yet valid causes. Within the house though he has not been able to effectuate change simply because Dennis does not do compromise well
In today’s world a political change process is mainly effectuated in four ways:
1. Violent revolution, which is highly problematic at best.
2. Massive non cooperation with the system, ala Gandhi and King, which can be very successful based
upon the right circumstances.
3. Organizing and creating an opposition political movement, a possibly fruitful, yet hard process to carry
out with success..
4. Working within the system, imperfect as it may be, to effect slow change.
All of the above can be work to effect change in a given context, but one factor is a given no matter which method is chosen. To build a mass movement in a diverse population the need to compromise is paramount. This need to compromise is called “coalition building”. The Right has been effective at this for years when you think of the coalition between religious fundamentalists, lukewarm objectivists and outright corporatists. What would Jesus, Ayn Rand and even Adam Smith think of the ways their teachings have been presumably melded? In the past the Left also coalesced around certain issues, bringing together groups that were hardly homogeneous. However, from the 60’s onward building of coalitions on the Left has broken down. “Centrists” and “Liberals” became anathema to “progressives” and “radicals”. After all that he had accomplished Martin Luther King became an “Uncle Tom” in the minds of “Black Power” advocates for his refusal to entertain the concept of violence as a tool.
The Left coalition also began to break down in the 60’s over the issue of Viet Nam. Working class union members generally supported the war that was drafting and killing their children. The leadership of the AFL-CIO, who had striven to disassociate themselves from Marxism during the McCarthy era, had become part of the country’s establishment. As George Meany, the AFL-CIO President, began to play golf with Eisenhower and major industrialists, the Union movement swung away from its Left Wing roots. The fact that the labor movement was overwhelmingly “white working class” in an era where Blacks were demanding equal status also took its toll on the coalition between Big Labor and the Democratic Party. The AFL-CIO and Teamsters supported Richard Nixon in 1968..
The labor movement’s departure from coalition with the Democratic Party was to have devastating consequences for its strength. Their workers, doing well financially aspired to a scaled down version of the American Dream. The threat that competition with Blacks for jobs and with the Left’s critique of muscular foreign policy, helped drive white workers into the Republican Party. The fact that their leadership had become cozy with Management and Republicans led the way. The power of the labor movement waned until today it is a shadow of what it once was. The Left coalition forged under FDR and informed experientially by the “Great Depression”, began to fight amongst themselves. The battles increasingly became issues of “purity of political belief”. When a person’s political value is weighed on only specific issues that are politically “black and white”, coalition becomes almost impossible. Without the ability to coalesce “Movements” face severe limitations in their ability to grow.
I believe that in the desire for reforming our governance to work for the interests of all the people, all viable methods must be used. Of the four methods I list above I believe that only the latter three are really viable. A violent revolution in this country will only hasten the totality of oppression, since violent revolutions never seem to work out the way people have planned and that the people once having risen find themselves ruled harshly by those they so hopefully followed. Refute this premise if you will, but please don’t cite the American Revolution. While it certainly had violence it was a rebellion of colonies against an overseas colonial state. By revolution I mean the rebellion of a people in a certain geographical area against their own government.
Methodologically, none of the three methods can work without bringing together people of differing standards via a coalition that accepts deviation from a “party line”. This seems obvious to me since rarely do those who wish change agree on all issues. Are there “deal breakers” that cannot brook compromise? That depends upon the individual, the perceived threat and the current circumstance. I have my own deal breakers, certainly, but I invoke them in context of my reading of the perceived threat.
What do you the reader think of the argument I’ve made? If you disagree please let me know, since I understand that on any given subject I can be wrong and I am really willing to learn. If you agree with me then what are your “deal breakers”? Perhaps if you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
@Bron: The problem, as always, is you falsely assume that 100% of whatever you earn is YOUR MONEY, and it isn’t. The only way you were able to EARN that money is by using OUR resources that we all own collectively, and those require maintenance and support, and you are responsible for a share of that maintenance and support.
The only reason you are free, instead of a slave, is by virtue of OUR resources. Probably the only reason you are alive is by virtue of OUR resources.
That is the point you refuse to acknowledge, but tough shit. We are not taking YOUR money, we are taking OUR share for YOUR use of OUR resources.
That is what this argument is about. Whether guys like you, Gene and the rest of your government cronies should be given the legality to steal from Bron and me. Who gave you the authority to make such an assumption that you can do this? The Constitution that you guys don’t follow any more?? The Law of Nations? Where does government get its authority. I don’t remember signing on for” THIS” deal. And I bet if you offered this deal to the full majority, they’d turn it down. You think all the guys in prison on drug related charges would sign on for this system.My udnderstanding is that its 50% of the prison population and the highest in the world.
You need to fix the system you advocate before you can criticize what we believe. We told you this economic collapse was going to happen. If we knew it was going to happen, it stands to reason, that we new why.
@skiprob: The free market can generally do and make things better and less exspensively.
No, they cannot, because they have an inevitable markup that the government does not need to apply. Even in theory, the free market cannot not do or make anything better or less expensively than the government can, the government can make and sell things at cost with zero markup, the free market cannot do that, they MUST mark up their products to be able to survive market fluctuations.
Once again, you are parroting bullshit nonsense somebody told you instead of thinking it through for yourself. The reason you do not see government making many discrete products for sale is that is not their mission, their mission is primarily law enforcement, defense, and public works, not factory work. They will, in public works, build schools, roads, bridges, parks, etc. Sometimes with contractors, sometimes with their own employees.
What you need to study is when private companies are nationalized by governments. You’ll find that even with “the markup” government is not very good at running businesses and generally can’t compete with private enterprise, if they’re not a monopoly. Government eventually either shut them down or sell them off back to private enterprise. That is why government generally doesn’t make any produces and sub contract most everything out.You will find that even the research labratories are often managed by private companies. The government does make pretty good license plates though.
As to law enforcement, you can see in this blog almost on a day to day basis how good our government run law enforcement system is working. Police corruption and brutality has become common place. One ex-cop thinks it’s from the training institutions incouraging the take no prisoner type attitude. What I’ve seen that it surely has increased in the last couple of decades. The war on drugs in my opinion has added fule to the fire. Wealthy people have to hire private security if they really want to be protected. Our police have be allocated to collecting money for the bureacracy and investigating crimes.
Skip,
Name 3 private companies that were taken over by government in the last 60 years?
Throughout the world or are you going to limit me to this country? FNMA, Freddie Mac and Portions of AIG and GM. Obviously The rest of the governments of the world provide a larger statistical sample of the relationship between goverment and private enterprise.
Good Article by Walter Williams:
Benjamin Franklin, statesman and signer of our Declaration of Independence, said: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” John Adams, another signer, echoed a similar statement: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Are today’s Americans virtuous and moral, or have we become corrupt and vicious? Let’s think it through with a few questions.
Suppose I saw an elderly woman painfully huddled on a heating grate in the dead of winter. She’s hungry and in need of shelter and medical attention. To help the woman, I walk up to you using intimidation and threats and demand that you give me $200. Having taken your money, I then purchase food, shelter and medical assistance for the woman. Would I be guilty of a crime? A moral person would answer in the affirmative. I’ve committed theft by taking the property of one person to give to another.
Most Americans would agree that it would be theft regardless of what I did with the money. Now comes the hard part. Would it still be theft if I were able to get three people to agree that I should take your money? What if I got 100 people to agree — 100,000 or 200 million people? What if instead of personally taking your money to assist the woman, I got together with other Americans and asked Congress to use Internal Revenue Service agents to take your money? In other words, does an act that’s clearly immoral and illegal when done privately become moral when it is done legally and collectively? Put another way, does legality establish morality? Before you answer, keep in mind that slavery was legal; apartheid was legal; the Nazi’s Nuremberg Laws were legal; and the Stalinist and Maoist purges were legal. Legality alone cannot be the guide for moral people. The moral question is whether it’s right to take what belongs to one person to give to another to whom it does not belong.
Don’t get me wrong. I personally believe that assisting one’s fellow man in need by reaching into one’s own pockets is praiseworthy and laudable. Doing the same by reaching into another’s pockets is despicable, dishonest and worthy of condemnation. Some people call governmental handouts charity, but charity and legalized theft are entirely two different things. But as far as charity is concerned, James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, said, “Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” To my knowledge, the Constitution has not been amended to include charity as a legislative duty of Congress.
Our current economic crisis, as well as that of Europe, is a direct result of immoral conduct. Roughly two-thirds to three-quarters of our federal budget can be described as Congress’ taking the property of one American and giving it to another. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid account for nearly half of federal spending. Then there are corporate welfare and farm subsidies and thousands of other spending programs, such as food stamps, welfare and education. According to a 2009 Census Bureau report, nearly 139 million Americans — 46 percent — receive handouts from one or more federal programs, and nearly 50 percent have no federal income tax obligations.
In the face of our looming financial calamity, what are we debating about? It’s not about the reduction or elimination of the immoral conduct that’s delivered us to where we are. It’s about how we pay for it — namely, taxing the rich, not realizing that even if Congress imposed a 100 percent tax on earnings higher than $250,000 per year, it would keep the government running for only 141 days.
Ayn Rand, in her novel “Atlas Shrugged,” reminded us that “when you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good.”
@skiprob: would like “you” to elaborate on the “well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state”.
Why should I? I believe that condtiion existed in Colonial America, I think it is an archaic prescription now, and should be re-written in clear language.
As for guns, I am a gun owner, as a young man in the military I was proficient with a rifle, I am currently proficient with a handgun. I have never been hunting, but I do not have a problem with people owning guns for both sport and self-defense. I am not a member of the NRA, they are idiots, but I am a fan of every season of Top Shot.
But the phrasing of the 2nd Amendment is convoluted and ridiculous; the right to own guns, in my mind, has nothing to do with defending the State, it has to do with defending yourself and your property from dangerous predators, primarily of the human variety.
The fact that gun ownership results in more deaths, including deaths of police officers, civilians, and children, is a price we pay, but I think freedom, even self-destructive freedom, trumps that price. Just as I believe people should be free to consume alcohol (I do not) or tobacco (I do not) or pot (I do not) or other mind-altering drugs like crack or heroin (I do not). I DO think that if a child is shot to death in a home with a gun, the parents should be tried for manslaughter by reckless endangerment.
To me, the idea that gun ownership is for a militia is antiquated and ludicrous. The 2nd tries to justify gun ownership, and I do not know why, because to me it is simply a right that requires no justification, like freedom of speech.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/06/1097886/-Florida-voter-purge-official-linked-to-Koch-funded-efforts-to-defeat-Obama
@skip: The majority can choose to raise taxes on the wealthy, yes. Does that “enslave” the wealthy? No. Does it oppress them? I suppose it could in some country, but not in this one: We use a progressive tax system, so higher taxes are only levied on the portion of income over a threshold, and taxes are always less than 100%, so the wealthy are always guaranteed to earn MORE than anybody that pays LESS tax than they do. That is a mathematical proof a sixth grader could outline.
What it means is the knife cuts both ways: If the wealthy are “oppressed” while earning more money than the middle class, then the middle class are obviously “oppressed” by being paid less of the profits the wealthy are reaping.
In fact nobody is oppressed; the wealthy pay more because they USE more of the infrastructure of society than the middle class does. The use does not go up linearly, there is a curve to the line, and the progressive tax rate indicates that.
As for your right to earn nothing: Isn’t that your prescription for individuals in a company town? If you don’t like the job conditions, just leave and go somewhere else. Isn’t that what you Aynish are always telling us? That there is always a choice to just refuse to work, because you can always move to another company, another county, another state?
You get the same shit-sandwich deal, Skipper. You have the choice to drop off the grid and earn zero dollars and still survive. Save up some cash and buy yourself an untaxed arable acre for $5000 or so, if you have a good well you can indefinitely sustain a family of eight on that puppy, managed properly, and never pay tax again. Heck, you can even earn $400 a year, per adult, selling produce and the IRS says you do not even have to report it.
A high progressive or graduated income tax is the second platform of communism. Do you support a Federal or State Income tax Tony?
Be careful what you answer here buddy because you should be able to reason what my next statement would be.
Yes, taxes suppress/oppress all peoples ability to survive, but mostly the the poor and middle class. The idea is to get the expense portion of your society as low as possible which equates to less taxation. The free market can generally do and make things better and less exspensively. That’s why you seldom see government making many products.
@Tony C. – Economic slavery is almost as bad as physical slavery. So instead of having private police and private roads because you think that free riders are going to exist, even though they exist at a greater level under the current system, lets run up the deficits so high that we bankrupt our nation. That’s what you’re arguing for, because that’s what has happened every time in a democratic republic. You promoting a system that will eventually bankrupt the posterity and it may be this generation, since we are already in the later stages of the U.S. economic cycle. I know how we think it should work, but it doesn’t end up working in the way we all think it should. We have already been in bankruptcy once in 1933, so keep this in consideration when analyzing our current condition.
Have you ever studied the Swiss Military – They’re the only modern country is the world that I’m aware of that hasn’t been invaded in the last several hundred years. Why? Each military person serves one month a year and keeps an automatic weapon in their posession (stored in their home) not much crime in the country either. Guess who pays for the military personel while there serving. The company that they work for when they’re not serving. So there are a bunch of way to skin a cat.
I would like “you” to elaborate on the “well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state”. 2nd Amendment. Remember, back then “regulate” meant to assist. Remember how key the Green Mountain Boys were in winning the Revolutionary war. The Swiss have a kind of modified militia system.
@skiprob: If two people are allowed to enslave one person in a 3 person democratic vote, how is that free and critical thinking?
Two people are not allowed to enslave one person. When a democracy passes a law, the law applies to everybody equally including the people that voted for it, so if the law enslaves anybody it enslaves them too.
As for the wealthy and taxation, they are free at any time to stop earning money in response to a law that taxes their income; they are free at any time to up sticks and hightail it to some private island compound or whatever. They are not slaves.
The reason they typically do not do that is because their earnings are inextricably linked with the citizens and infrastructure of our country, and it is impossible to undo. So they pay their taxes, which are the fees they owe for doing business with us, on our roads, with the protection of our police force, using our workers that need healthcare, retirement, and protections, with our public utilities, with our courts and our contract enforcement.
The country demands a percentage share of the profits because it is in silent partnership with the businesses that use the services provided by the country. By silent partnership, I mean the government is not making the direct management decisions, but like an individual that is a silent partner it is still entitled to a share of the profits, and those cover the expenses it incurs to provide its services that support the business.
Your demands are equivalent to saying you want to be a free rider, or that you do not want a silent partner, you want a service provider so you can pick and choose and control your costs.
However, that is not a feasible model. When the police arrest, try, and imprison a armed robber, they protect you even if the armed robber was never within 50 miles of you or your business.
First, they took a criminal off the streets that might have victimized you, and almost certainly would have victimized others. Second, the fact that they punish armed robbers serves as an example to discourage others from becoming armed robbers, so you are protected from their thwarted predations too. Third, the fact that crime is reduced by the enforcement of laws against theft allows you to spend less on security and protection of your property, allowing you to keep more of your money. It is the reason clerks in stores are not 100% locked behind bulletproof glass.
Letting you decide what that protection is worth is not a feasible alternative, because as a society we cannot provide one reality to some people and a different reality to others. It is like the military: We cannot defend the country from invasion for those people that pay, but allow the country to be invaded for those that refuse: The enemy won’t cooperate and work from our client list while looting us.
We cannot provide free roads without any access restriction for some people and not others, free courts for some and not others, free police protection for some and not others, free building safety inspection for some patrons of an establishment but not other patrons of that same establishment.
What we do instead is act as a landlord/partner. We provide an environment in which you can engage in profitable activity, and we demand a percentage of the profits earned using our environment.
If you do not like our terms, you are free to stop earning, or leave. You do not even have to renounce your citizenship, just wander into Mexico and find a job on a farm or ranch somewhere. No income tax from us, because you aren’t using our environment. See how simple?
By analogy, in nearly every restaurant in this country, a typically dressed person can walk in, order a meal and eat it without showing a dime. Your complaints are the equivalent of doing that, and then complaining when the bill comes due that you are being robbed. Robbed!
You know when you order a meal you will have to pay for it, and you know when you take a job that you will have to pay taxes. It is no different; you do not get to use our infrastructure without paying some rent on it, and our payment arrangement is actually MORE generous than the typical landlord. With the typical landlord, you owe rent whether you make money or lose money. With us, we take the risks with you, and we only charge a percentage of your profits, and we charge you nothing if you lose money, despite the expenses we incurred on your behalf.
That is a sweet deal for you, really.
Tony, Tony Tony. So the middle class can’t vote to raise taxes on the wealthy without raising taxes on themselves. Are you thinking when you write this stuff?
And Tony you’re free to leave the country and go live with you socialist comrades somewhere else. FYI: Thanks for giving me the right to not earn any money. You’re quite generous. This is a country whose Constitution is based on the protection of individual rights and I’m having to argue against someone whose opposed to it. Whether you know it or not, you’re really arguing for a position that give greater power to the oligarchy. That is all that I’m trying to make you understand Tony. Socialism is a deceitful means of transferring wealth from the majority to the ruling class. I can show you how they do this, but you should know this already. Sure, they throw the majority some bones to make them feel good about the political work but they’re transferring much more wealth into their own pockets than most understand. Most people are either apathetic or complicit to the scam.
@Mike Spindell – I read you initial article and I think one of your suggestions is important to discuss. I think you know my stance on your other suggestions.
2. Massive non cooperation with the system, ala Gandhi and King, which can be very successful based upon the right circumstances.
If you think about it, what other event was as successful and as peaceful as this in eradicating the brute forse of an occupying government. Total success with relatively little bloodshed. I believe there was a lot more bloodshed fighting over the spoils by the two religions then when the British where kicked out. It just goes to show you what people are willing to do to gain political power.
What we are talking about is the “Boycott”. It’s a free market solution to tyranny and oppression, whether it is comes from government, private enterprise or when there is collusion between the two.
I read a story about a boycott in Spain where college students boycotted the government. What they did was every week at the same time they would flush their poilets and flip their light switches. Reportedly, it caused sewer pipes to burst and switching stations to exploid, etc. I don’t remember the exact details, but it worked. I don’t even remember what they were boycotting, just that it was a very clever way of doing it. Matt gave us a URL on the pirates code. Go figure, pirates had a code of ethics.
The point is that we humans have an incredable potential to do the most amazing things if we can agree on what to do. We think of pirates as the bad guys, but Spain, Portugal and England were rapping and pillaging the western hemisphere at the time. Ask the native Americans for their perspective on the Spanish. Who were the bad guys?
If you were going to boycott one of the multinationals, which one would it be????? My choice would be Texico for their involvement with the Bush Family and the military industrial complex. You can bring a company to it’s knees. Boycotting the government is a bit more risky. Withholding your tax dollars and paying it into a escrow account has, I believe, been tried unsuccessfully. We’re kind of doing a boycott because so many people just can’t afford to pay their taxes, mortgages and such, anyway.
I think the $USD has seen it’s day because there is no longer the need for a world reserve currency with forex now available for any country to exchange currencies. If you follow the news, the various countries (Japan & China) are slowly weaning themselves off the dollar trade system which should theoretically cause hyperinflation as all the money comes back to the U.S.
Bron,
It’s not “my way or the highway”. It’s “if you think I’m wrong, prove it”. That you are really bad at proving anything via argumentation and evidence is your failing.
As for the sociopath thing? I’m not the one here who thinks selfishness is a virtue and professes a love for Objectivism. Nice try at the Rove maneuver there, but you’ll need a lot of luck and/or lies to convince anyone I’m a sociopath. If you don’t like people thinking you are a sociopath, perhaps you shouldn’t pimp for one like Rand.
I like most people just fine, by the way.
I do, however, think you suck as a human being. Don’t take it personally. Most people who worship their own ego and money suck even if they don’t adhere to your religion of Objectivism.
skiprob:
Gene said:
“Unlike you and Bron, I’m not hobbled by binary thinking.”
Gene engages in unitary thinking, it is his way or the highway. I think it comes from being a cat slave. He cannot fight his feline masters.
Come to think of it Ayn Rand was a huge cat person and all of the people I have ever met who have been cat people are strange as hell. Loners mostly and not inclined to actually like people.
Just a general observation but it may explain a good deal. Maybe it takes a sociopath to know a sociopath?
skip,
Now you claim plurality as a method of decision making after bemoaning democracy as a great social ill. How incredibly self-contradictory. That post is also so full of false equivalences, begging the question, a fundamental lack of comprehension of how civilization operates as well as appeals to authority instead of any kind of free and independent critical thinking, I think I’m just going to let your idiotic dogma stand all on its own this time instead of dissecting it. It’s Tony’s turn.
If you say that, you did not understand my post. Read it again. I have no problem with using a plurality vote, if I have the right to choose if I want to be a part of the group in the first place. If people are forced to be a part of the group, that I can assure you, is not going to be good for the majority. You socialists just don’t appear to understand the concept of force and how it adversely effect us in a social capacity. Just look at the system and see how screwed up it is. If you think this is the best system we can come up with, God help us all Gene.
And once again the fatal flaw in strict adherence to dogma is revealed to be a penchant for the abdication of free and independent critical thought for the spoon fed answers served by authoritarians.
I believe we only have a fatal flaw, when it (free and independent critical thought) is used to deny the rights of others in a political context. In a none-government context, I think plurality determination in a group is vital as I propose in the system I discussed previously. Podolsky asserts from his research that the greater the plurality, unanimous being the best, the greater the level of ethics in a determination. The greater the level of ethics, the greater the creativity and outcome. If two people are allowed to enslave one person in a 3 person democratic vote, how is that free and critical thinking? Let’s vote for my rich neighbor to pay for us poor people’s children’s education. We want free lunches also and by golly we can get out the vote. There are more of us poor folks than you rich folks.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not rich monetarily, but I would never vote any privilege to myself, which denies another person their individual rights.
I wish I could only get the majority of people to understand this.
Skip,
I ask you to state what your societal organization preference is and you refer me to a book because it’s too complicated to explain? I’ll contrast that with the fact that you can write many disjointed paragraphs explaining what is wrong with government. If you aren’t able to clearly explain what you believe in perhaps four paragraphs then I think what you believe in is beyond your comprehension. You are expressing a faith system similar to many religious beliefs. That represents a good example of what my article talked about. You are a political purist following a party line laid down in a book whose logic you are incapable of expressing succinctly.
Examples of faith-based political beliefs based on books can be found in Marxists, NAZI’s, Aynists, fundamentalists, etc. That type of belief exemplifies an authoritarian mindset that is unable to logically draw their own conclusions. This is why you and Bron find Gene, Tony and I so hard to understand that you have to try to fit us into your pre-conceived political/economic boxes. Unable to marshall your own critical thinking you can’t understand how others can. The common thread between the three of us is we rely on our own intelligence to reach our political assuptions. You on the other hand need an authority to explain to you what you should be thinking.
Just remember guys that you constant unconstructive and unsupported criticizm generally weakens your positions, even when your right. You guys are smart guys so you shouldn’t have to do this.
OK, mIke, I’ll give you a hint but first explain to me in specific terms, how an automobile gets to your driveway, from the time it starts out as iron ore and other commodies. How does the free market produce the billions of items that are available to us to buy. How do people voluntarily associate, under various contracts to produce all this stuff and then voluntarily go out and buy it.
If you don’t think market forces are powerful, look at how Greece and Spain are currently being treated now by the world. They hadly have any industry left and they have the huge bureaucarcy that has bankrupted them.
Why should I have to write a book for you when one has already been written. Get off you lazy butt and go buy the book. As far as not being able to understand what you, Gene and Tony are trying to say. Please, you think this is the first time that I’ve been up against a bunch of yahoos that support the mixed economic model.
Mike stated: “Examples of faith-based political beliefs based on books can be found in Marxists, NAZI’s, Aynists, fundamentalists, etc. That type of belief exemplifies an authoritarian mindset that is unable to logically draw their own conclusions.”
Explain, because, I became a libertarian before I was really exposed to it. I found that government granted authority was suspect. I caught the local garbage company and police redistributing drugs after it was initially conficated from the so-called bad guys. A highschool class mate of mind, a ex-police officer is serving a life sentence for killing two of his prostitutes who rolled on his drug business. You want me to tell you about the military industrial complex creating warfare for profit or the CIA and DEA involvment in Drug trafficing.
Gents, I’ve been studying this struff all my life. I think I have a pretty clear handle on the realites. It took me four year of debate before I signed the libertarian oath in 1992.
I draw my knowledge from years of experience and yes I also read many books so bring it on.
@skiprob: if government is allowed to compete with the private sector, lets say in mortgage finance, it can always beat out the private sector because it is not effected by market forces.
You mean “affected.”
In any case, it isn’t true; government services do not get infinite dollars. They have a budget, and their mission is to deliver as much care as they can within their budget.
This is identical to most divisions of a company (and for three years I managed an engineering division of a public company). You get a budget, you have a mission and goals to meet that you cooperated in detailing but were not set primarily by you, and you do the best job you can within that budget. You cannot count on more money magically appearing, and if significantly more money is needed, chances are good you won’t be the manager spending them, because you have proven yourself incompetent.
I have been a paid, expert consultant both to government agencies and public companies and they both work the same. Both ultimately answer to their owners; a government agency ultimately answers to Congress or a state legislature, a commercial operation answers to its board of directors or private owners. Beneath the C-level (Chief [function] Officer/Executive) 99% of the company is not working for a profit motive, they are working for an annual salary or hourly wage. Unlike entrepreneurs, if they double their productivity, or cut the goofing off in half, they get little or no monetary benefit.
So in the agencies and in the corporate world, 99% of the people work precisely the same, with the same incentive: Not getting in trouble with their supervisors, meeting their goals and tasks and deadlines that have trickled down from above and over which they have no control, so their performance review doesn’t threaten their job.
It is possible to compete against government, especially if one believes (as you do) that government is going to be inherently incompetent. Then they won’t be efficient or competent, so you can compete on that front: Fast service done right. They aren’t going to provide premium services or amenities, they are going to provide no-frills, spartan, long wait, Walmart style services that get the job done without any pleasantries, because that is what delivers the most service for the buck.
So companies can compete on that front.
The argument you are making is actually an argument against monopolies (which have essentially unlimited funds to crush any competition that threatens them and their monopolistic pricing).
Malisha,
Don’t sail through a tsunami.
Matt Johnson,
Your Admirals have not been capable of steering “the right course,” which is an argument for turning the ship around.
I frankly would LOVE to see the “right course” but you haven’t asked me what it was.
Malisha,
There’s no need to turn the ship around. Just put it on the right course.
Skiprob: “NAL” does not mean Norse Goddess (and I am not Norse) (and I only levitate by means of chocolate)(Please see Garcia Marquez, 100 Years of Solitude, Priest Chapter)(Gabo is also my friend). According to the guest blogs on the Turley blog, it means “Not A Lawyer.”
“The women have a natural inclination to control everything. They’re not communists, they’re dictators.”
See, that’s a good thing. I remember at one point Professor Turley put up some kind of an article about the Saudis, I believe it was, who wanted to make sure women could not legally drive in their country because if the women were permitted to drive, the culture would be destroyed, the morals in the country would go to Hell, there would be mass chaos and bad stuff, and ultimately there would be war. Then there were a bunch of liberals who disagreed with that and fussed about the unfairness to women and so forth but I believe, if I remember correctly, that I weighed in on that one.
Said I, the predictions about all the terrible things that will happen if women are allowed to drive should not be mocked; they are already proven and have been replicated over and over again. The proof: Men ARE allowed to drive and they have, as a consequence, already destroyed the culture, driven the morals of the country to Hell, caused mass chaos and bad stuff, and ultimately, brought on wars.
My point: This state of affairs that has resulted from men controlling everything for a few millennia is really piss-poor; it’s time to turn that ship around, man.
That was good. The ship is clearly going in the wrong direction and if we keep thinking like neanderthals, it going to go off the edge of the world.
People keep thinking that this public private partnership mixed economy model is going to work. The private sector and government come from such adversarial postions, that I do not see the ability to compromise, that would get us on the right course. Greece and Spain are really good examples and many other countries that have been working this model are in the same positions. Every culture thinks that it cannot happen to them, that they’re special and that their socio-economic system cannot bust. History tells a different story.
skiprob,
You’re a psychopath. Hope your cleaning lady doesn’t stab you in the guts with a knife. Then again, I hope she does.
Actually Matt, I’m one of five brother and I’m the one who takes care of our brother Brian who has a really severe cognitive disability, even though two of the others are in a better position to do so. You shouldn’t be so angry. My cleaning lady is my best friend and lover. I also call her my pool bitch, jokingly of course. I don’t think any of my freinds would call me a sociopath, however from what I understand 6% of the population are. If I were to consider someone in the group as being a sociopath or psychopath, it would be…….. What are we here for people? Just think, if we can’t come up with a decent idea, Congress is really screwed.