09-18-2018, 09:25 PM
(09-18-2018, 08:22 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(09-17-2018, 07:26 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(09-17-2018, 07:10 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Government has a role in a democratic society for facilitating useful investments that private industry could never do well or equitably. An example is K-12 education. I know, I know --- manor lords and slave-owning planters did train their serfs and slaves ... to be serfs and slaves. We all benefit from mass literacy and competence with arithmetic. Who would pay -- except us all? Civics? The problem is that what might be good for us all (an electorate that can reject demagogues like Hugo Chavez or Donald Trump) is hard to link to any personal gain. We generally think democracy a good thing, as non-democracies almost invariably treat the masses badly. But if you are to rely upon employers to do the education for limited purposes -- serfs and slaves do not vote and must never be allowed to vote if they are to remain serfs and slaves.
There are many other examples, Provide road and airport infrastructure. Maintain standing armed forces. Etc... Fund these through taxation. It doesn't matter if you have no children, owned a car, didn't own a plane, or disagreed with the recent wars. It is traditional to not ask those questions, to tax anyway.
One way of looking at money is as a prize, as a reward. If you contribute to a society, you are rewarded by wealth. Regulation by government to make labor safer, to lesson the division of wealth, anything, is viewed negatively. The less regulation done, say many reds, the better off everyone is supposedly.
The other perspective is that of an economist. Money is akin to a lubricant. It exists to replace barter as a means of exchange and distribution. Like a lubricant, it is possible to have to little or too much. The government, as producer, consumer and distributor of money, has as part of its job to distribute money as needed. Giving more than enough to some and nothing to others is not ideal, is not productive.
That is one difference between red and blue. The red do not care about the uneven distribution. They only care that they and those like them get as much as they can. The blue (or many of them) would like to see the system inclusive, all folks contributing, to make the system itself work as well as possible.
I'd say there's a difference between earning one's money with the use of ones particular skills and talents and one receiving an equal portion of money distributed to them by government officials regardless of ones skills and talents. How many factors contribute to the difference's between people, peoples wages and peoples over all wealth/net worth?
Even the Commies found that they had to reward people for productivity (piecework pay) as well as for working under necessarily harsh or dangerous conditions (such as mining), and different levels of skill. What the Commies rejected was the idea of people getting paid for simply owning the assets.
Quote:OK, Mr. Blue, your job is to bring poor old PB up to par with me financially and emotionally.
If I am not up to you financially that is my fault for career choices that did not pan out and failing to make the most out of some of the stopgap opportunities that I had.
Quote:The issue with blues is that blues seem to actually believe that reds are STUPID.
No, Red America is grossly hypocritical about claiming to love freedom yet accepting despotic management, crony capitalism, and pay-to-play government. Red America has far less ability to see through the bad character of political figures, which explains why they, and not Blue America, fell for Donald Trump.
Red America, and not Blue America, is responsible for Donald Trump, a dreadful person, an entrepreneur successful only at collecting rent and putting out schlock entertainment, and a politician so bad that he has torn at the fabric of American democracy.
Red America may be more adept at the nuts-and-bolts aspects of American life, but it is poor at establishing a morality other than rigid identity and harsh moralizing.
Quote:Who are going to be the ones in charge of redistributing our wealth and who are going to be the primary recipients of our wealth being redistributed? I'm thinking the blues because it makes sense knowing the blues and the way the blues only tend to think about themselves and what other blues want and so forth.
People associated with the color Red:
No, that was a horrible failure because of the body count. Anyone who thinks that simply redistributing the assets will solve all problems is a fool. Marxism-Leninism is a catastrophic failure, unable to innovate, poor at making production meet human desires, tending toward military expansion, violating human rights as badly as feudal lords and fascists... all Communism was really good at was blood-letting and repression.
A market economy rewards people for taking reasonable chances with assets -- their own and others -- developing useful skills, and putting others' needs above their immediate desires. A market society gives signals that it might be a good idea to learn how to do HVAC installation and repair instead of being a poet.
Quote:I'm sorry to tell you this but the blues have actually earned some of their so-called stereotypes. Bob, there was a day when Henry Ford owned Ford Motors and walked around his plant and socialized and directly communicated with his employees. Well, all I have to say is that that time was a LONG, LONG time ago.
Socialized with his workers? He was a harsh taskmaster! He held that people exist only to make people people already filthy rich even more filthy rich.
Quote:Bob, I have never been able to go to a government bank and receive free government money just by asking a government banking official for more money. Have you? If you have, please tell me where the bank is located.
The one government bank now in existence is the Federal Reserve Bank, and it exists to lend money to banks. There were lots of government banks, so to speak, after many commercial banks failed to become government owned during the 'receivership socialism' that Dubya blundered into. Obama did a fine job of selling off the 'socialized' banks to private investors.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.