Government can't help, it can only hurt

[Classic-Xer]

(01-31-2018, 12:35 AM)1948 Wrote: If the freedom of speech be taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

Live and let live ends up penning people up like sheep to the slaughter.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-30-2018, 09:43 PM)nebraska Wrote: Americans used to believe in free speech.

I don't have an issue with free speech. I have an issue with the way you've been using it and abusing it and piling on posts. I don't believe free reign unless you happen to own the place.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-30-2018, 10:59 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Obama did not cut and run from Iraq. Iraq made it impossible for the USA to keep a military presence in Iraq.

Well, now we're back and now we'll be staying. He believed that America was the problem just like every other blue American believes America is the problem. You're an academic. How many closet commies are there in academia and who taught/indoctrinated them? Do you think Russia/ the old Soviet Union may have had something to do with them?

[Classic-Xer]

(01-30-2018, 04:11 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The communist and fascist labels are overused in my opinion.  In their heyday they properly defined authoritarian states with expansionist tendencies.  They often in the case of communism pretended to follow Marx.  Modern US  personalities are often mislabeled.  This doesn't mean they are not flawed.

Extreme partisans often follow simplistic principles that are well outside of observable reality.  My own view favors balance between opposing principles.  If Nebraska sees regulation as always bad, while the blue world view favors regulation to criminalize abusive behaviors, I will seek balance between the two.  

So, yes, I have endorsed many of Nebraskas principles and causes, but disagree in having some faith in representative democracy.

I think the labels are old and outdated. One's dead and the other is clinging to life. I think capitalist and socialist are more accurate labels to use and to go by in today's America. Look at it/ think of it as being this way, I'm a capitalist who is on the capitalist side and you're a capitalist who is on the socialist side. Does it look, do you think that's pretty accurate? I'm not going to be offended if blues call me a capitalist because that's what I am and what I've always been since I was a little kid. The American reds are all American capitalists. The American blues are a mixture of American capitalists and European minded American socialists. Pretty accurate?

[Classic-Xer]

(01-30-2018, 04:11 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Nebraska is not mine or yours, but himself.  If you see him as blue, I see him as more red.  The lack of government favors the elites and corporations.  A lack of government regulation is a Republican talking point and tugs in the direction of the wealthy elites.  Still, Nebraska is with neither you nor me.  Reds often see the government as bad, while the blue sees corporate power as often bad.  I see both as grey. both as part of the balance.  The optimum comes from balancing FDR and Reagan, not fighting one or the other.

Both parties bases are not thrilled by their establishments.  They are not thrilled by the strong influence of the elites and corporate interests.  Right now the urban / rural spit is more dominant than class divides.  I'd as soon see the parties back off using the government to force cultural change, and push the economic divide.

But that is me.

I'd say that reds view the government as both good and bad. Government can get in the way of progress. Government can slow down the economy and stall advancement. Government can ignore it's own laws and play ignorance or make excuses. Government can call/label you a racist or a fascist or deplorable without any proof. I'm not sure what you can do to address the income gap between me and another fifty year old who makes half as much and owns half much as me. Obama was elected to fix that issue with a Democratic super majority in place.

[Eric the Green]

(01-31-2018, 06:57 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-30-2018, 10:59 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Obama did not cut and run from Iraq. Iraq made it impossible for the USA to keep a military presence in Iraq.

Well, now we're back and now we'll be staying. He believed that America was the problem just like every other blue American believes America is the problem. You're an academic. How many closet commies are there in academia and who taught/indoctrinated them? Do you think Russia/ the old Soviet Union may have had something to do with them?

Why do you suspect Russia has something to do with liberals who question American policy?

It seems a fair bet that Russia had something to do with installation of Trump and the Republicans instead.

You also question American policy when it's blue. It's the American way to question American policies. It's the communist way to say they should not be questioned.

Reds call blues commies without any proof, just as you say blues call reds (today's reds in the USA) fascist without any proof.

I say it's fascist for Trump's ICE gestapo to rip families apart without any due process.

I'm not sure the USA will stay in Iraq after the final defeat of the Islamic State there. The Iraqis will probably order us out again soon. But....

Bush opened that can of worms by invading Iraq in 2003 when we should not have done so and had no basis for doing so. It's anyone's guess how many more times we will return to Iraq because of the can of worms we opened, or as Gen Powell said, the pot we broke so that we owned it.

We seemed to have taken on Syria now too, and we're not leaving there anytime soon.

[Eric the Green]

(01-31-2018, 08:07 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-30-2018, 04:11 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The communist and fascist labels are overused in my opinion.  In their heyday they properly defined authoritarian states with expansionist tendencies.  They often in the case of communism pretended to follow Marx.  Modern US  personalities are often mislabeled.  This doesn't mean they are not flawed.

Extreme partisans often follow simplistic principles that are well outside of observable reality.  My own view favors balance between opposing principles.  If Nebraska sees regulation as always bad, while the blue world view favors regulation to criminalize abusive behaviors, I will seek balance between the two.  

So, yes, I have endorsed many of Nebraskas principles and causes, but disagree in having some faith in representative democracy.

I think the labels are old and outdated. One's dead and the other is clinging to life. I think capitalist and socialist are more accurate labels to use and to go by in today's America. Look at it/ think of it as being this way, I'm a capitalist who is on the capitalist side and you're a capitalist who is on the socialist side. Does it look, do you think that's pretty accurate? I'm not going to be offended if blues call me a capitalist because that's what I am and what I've always been since I was a little kid. The American reds are all American capitalists. The American blues are a mixture of American capitalists and European minded American socialists. Pretty accurate?

American blues can only be called democratic socialists, and that does not even include a majority of blues who voted for the Establishment "corporate" liberal candidate Hillary Clinton. Even the democratic socialists like Bernie admit a strong role for capitalism in his idea of "democratic socialism." Strictly speaking, socialists hold that the state should own and run the means of production, and the only enterprise should be publically owned. American liberals do not stand for this; probably only about 1% of them do. 

"The American reds are all American capitalists. The American blues are a mixture of American capitalists and European minded American socialists. Pretty accurate?"
That does seem close. European-minded socialists also are capitalist to a degree, not strict socialists. Cuba would be closer to being under pure socialism, but Cuba is not democratic, and even pure socialism can also be democratic. Communism, probably not.

"Socialism" in America is a watered-down version, and so for that matter is European socialism, which is more socialist than the American version. Socialism in the USA consists of the idea that the government should run some businesses (e.g. the post office, public schools, maybe energy companies or banks), others should be regulated when necessary, and taxes should support a safety net that protects everyone in case business casts us aside. Capitalists would not necessarily disagree with any of those things; ask Warren Buffet or Bill Gates. 

But far-right capitalists (I would put you roughly in that category, even though it includes more than a third of Americans, along with some rich capitalists like the Koch Brothers and the Mercers, etc.) include people who resent taxes to pay for welfare which they think goes to undeserving, frequently non-white folks. Some of them think these folks are competing with them for jobs, or imposing affirmative action on them. Others of the right wing (such as nebraska, galen, and other libertarian-economics believers, Ayn Rand/Friedman, Mises, Hayek followers, etc.) think that economic relations are properly just contracts between owners and employees, and that government interference in this relationship slows down the economy. Blues counter that unregulated capitalism with no safety net leads to severe inequality, injustice, injury, pollution, and increasing poverty.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-31-2018, 08:07 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I think the labels are old and outdated. One's dead and the other is clinging to life. I think capitalist and socialist are more accurate labels to use and to go by in today's America. Look at it/ think of it as being this way, I'm a capitalist who is on the capitalist side and you're a capitalist who is on the socialist side. Does it look, do you think that's pretty accurate? I'm not going to be offended if blues call me a capitalist because that's what I am and what I've always been since I was a little kid. The American reds are all American capitalists. The American blues are a mixture of American capitalists and European minded American socialists. Pretty accurate?

A vast improvement.  Still, when one sticks with one word labels, you will fall short.

I don't think the division of wealth should be as large, that division in health care (and some of the other UDHR 25 rights) should be as extreme, and that the elites have enough votes to be immune to the people.  I tend to see our military adventures abroad failing and/or having unintended consequences.  I put the people ahead of corporations right now, but it is possible to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.  We can't be too hard on corporations.  I think global warming should have been addressed when there was time, and that there will be a day of reckoning come the next awakening that will shake the past values and bring about some sort of post scarcity values.

All of the above leans me blue, but I am reluctant to speak for all blues.  A label is only a start.

[pbrower2a]

(02-01-2018, 04:14 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-31-2018, 08:07 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I think the labels are old and outdated. One's dead and the other is clinging to life. I think capitalist and socialist are more accurate labels to use and to go by in today's America. Look at it/ think of it as being this way, I'm a capitalist who is on the capitalist side and you're a capitalist who is on the socialist side. Does it look, do you think that's pretty accurate? I'm not going to be offended if blues call me a capitalist because that's what I am and what I've always been since I was a little kid. The American reds are all American capitalists. The American blues are a mixture of American capitalists and European minded American socialists. Pretty accurate?

A vast improvement.  Still, when one sticks with one word labels, you will fall short.

I don't think the division of wealth should be as large, that division in health care (and some of the other UDHR 25 rights) should be as extreme, and that the elites have enough votes to be immune to the people.  I tend to see our military adventures abroad failing and/or having unintended consequences.  I put the people ahead of corporations right now, but it is possible to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.  We can't be too hard on corporations.  I think global warming should have been addressed when there was time, and that there will be a day of reckoning come the next awakening that will shake the past values and bring about some sort of post scarcity values.

All of the above leans me blue, but I am reluctant to speak for all blues.  A label is only a start.

A few comments on what both of you have said:

1. The word 'socialism' describes so many variants of political and economic ideology that it means nothing. In America, the word 'socialism' is a political cuss-word, and even people on the Left have used it to disparage some right-wing tendencies, as in the phrase 'socialism for the rich'. Socialism can mean government ownership and operation of  productive business (in the Marxist-Leninist sense and in its variations including Trotskyism, Stalinism, Maoism, Titoism, Juche, and the insane nightmare of Pol Pot) or a welfare state; in practice these are incompatible. The recent 'socialist states' of central and Balkan Europe typically sold off government enterprises not natural monopolies to create the welfare systems characteristic of such a 'social market state' as the German Federal Republic, by 1990 a favored model for liberal democracies for economics..

Government ownership and operation of a productive business may be by a right-wing government; Shah Reza II Pahlavi nationalized the Iranian oil industry. Capitalists may prefer that natural monopolies, a bane of competitive industries because monopolies bleed everyone else if they get the chance.

2. A welfare state can aid capitalists in some of their own objectives, including the reduction of petty crime such as shoplifting. Welfare can turn shoplifters into paying customers; Wal*Mart is arguably the company that most profits from food aid. Welfare can put an end to malnutrition and medical neglect. A consequence of SNAP and Medicaid (or even Medicare) is that some capitalists, including retailers, professional practices, slumlords (most Section 8 housing) and medical suppliers can develop an interest in politicians on the Left side of the political spectrum. Those who make their money through a welfare state can have an economic interest in the liberal side of American politics even though they fit patterns (such as having high levels of formal education, owning a business, and being in upper tax brackets) that typically put one in the Republican bloc in the Eisenhower era. 

3. Capitalism is not evil in itself. Capitalism goes bad when owners and managers get away with imposing their vilest tendencies upon businesses. The most basic rule of ethics in most businesses is "Do not hurt your customers", which explains why street drugs are illegal, and Kellogg's Corporation took revenge upon executives of Peanut Corporation of America, a company that sold grossly substandard peanut butter to many food processors. The bad peanut butter could have hurt Kellogg's customers, and criminal courts agreed. Executives of Peanut Corporation of America and salespeople who sold the tainted peanut butter to Kellogg's  and its Keebler division have become jailbirds. Indeed any human activity, especially sexuality, becomes evil when it becomes exploitative and abusive or even harmful. Above all, a well-functioning welfare state needs a successful capitalism to generate the taxable income and consumer activity necessary for the welfare state.

4. Government, like business, is no better than its leadership. Although incompetently-run businesses (unless guaranteed profits no matter how poorly they perform) generally meet the economic equivalent of the Grim Reaper in bankruptcy, liquidation, and certain forms of mergers, such an evil as slavery could exist within a capitalist context for a very long time. Rapacious plutocrats and semi-feudal big landowners of Germany funded the rise of Hitler because he promised lucrative profits from rearmament and maintenance of the lowest industrial wages in Europe (union officials in Germany were heavily Jewish) -- and the elimination of small-business competition (which was largely Jewish). For the safety of democracy even at the expense of some opportunities for solving a few problems quickly it is best to keep the public and private sectors separate.

OK, so a business as corrupt as Enrob Corporation can destroy itself despite having had a good model of economic activity at one time; Braniff Airways could go under because it went into unprofitable operations to generate revenue growth without looking into the costs; Borders Bookstores failed because it made bad decisions in merchandising; Montgomery-Ward followed an obsolete model for its industry and tried to shake itself out of its doom only too late. But none of those ended in mass death or apocalyptic war. Really-bad governments can stay alive through mass murder and often die in wars and revolutions that they start, provoke, or drift into.

5. Profiteering without stewardship has its temptations for plutocrats, executives, and their favored politicians. Great wealth can insulate people from the consequences of their bad behavior just as poverty brings swift judgment for any personal mistake. At the worst, economic elites can follow the dictum that no human suffering can ever discredit their gain and indulgence. Think of Leopold II, King of Belgium, for his nightmarish "Congo Free State" founded in the Congo to exploit a rubber boom. On a lesser level, consider that such a novel as Uncle Tom's Cabin would have had no impact had there not been real-life equivalents of the horrid villain Simon Legree. I put much of the fault for the horrors of Nazi concentration camps upon the plutocrats who found the inmates a ready source of labor to be worked to physical limits for starvation rations under conditions unfit for livestock and whose lives were forfeit if they could no longer work. That was Auschwitz, the closest approximation to Hell that some species of genus Homo could ever create. Leadership of any kind is no better than its moral compass.

Now -- on global warming:

Rapid global warming a real danger. The world's most precious real estate -- the coastal lowlands that contain the cities where much of the non-agricultural activity of the world is, and even worse, most of the world's most productive farmland lies, can be inundated.  OK, so the giant centers of finance, education, and creative activity can move. Maybe such cities as New York, St. Petersburg (both the cities in Florida and Russia) , London, Cairo, Mumbai, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Singapore can build into the sky as the sea rises, much as did Venice when the land upon which the city sits sank.  But there is no obvious capital fix for the inundation of prime farmland.

Every person needs to get this straight: agriculture is the foundation of all human existence. When the agricultural system fails, then so does everything else in society. Yes, economic progress has allowed people to delve into activities other than peasant farming, but if one starves to death one can no longer be a concert pianist, attorney, surgeon, stockbroker, film star, or software engineer. Such people will be the least vulnerable, of course. This said, multitudes will be in grave peril should the great food-producing areas typically in low plains abutting the rising seas be inundated as ice caps melt.  Should that happen gradually, people will be able to adjust as soils suitable for agriculture start appearing in what are now boreal areas. But if it happens quickly, then the mass death at the hands of thoroughly evil people like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Tojo, and Genghis Khan will seem slight in numbers if not offense.

China, which is still largely a land of peasant farmers even if cities like Shanghai and Tianjin suggest otherwise, and it has hundreds of people living in its lowland plains. The majority of such people are farmers. Where do they go? Hilly country is not so well suited for farming as are low-lying plains. People will not be able to catch enough fish to replace the grain crops (most people have grains as their primary source of food) that will no longer be grown where they grew so copiously. We of course all know about Denmark and the Netherlands, both of which will practically disappear, but the Dutch and the Danes will probably have the funds with which to relocate. But unspeakable tragedy awaits the people of not-so-glamorous, and of course, very poor Bangladesh.

In view of the generational cycle, I can already predict the time of the next Crisis Era -- roughly the year 2100, about eighty years from now. Global warming will have caused inundations that will make people desperate for survival and with few means of securing survival for themselves and their posterity. The potential for economic collapse, war, and genocide will be so high that there will be no need for any Timur Lenk to make it happen. There will be no easy adjustment to huge cuts in food supplies from either inundations of lowland plains or possible desertification of what is now prime farmland. In spirit Man does not live by bread alone -- but he certainly needs bread. There is no techno-fix for famine.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-31-2018, 11:27 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Why do you suspect Russia has something to do with liberals who question American policy?

It seems a fair bet that Russia had something to do with installation of Trump and the Republicans instead.

You also question American policy when it's blue. It's the American way to question American policies. It's the communist way to say they should not be questioned.

Reds call blues commies without any proof, just as you say blues call reds (today's reds in the USA) fascist without any proof.

I say it's fascist for Trump's ICE gestapo to rip families apart without any due process.

I'm not sure the USA will stay in Iraq after the final defeat of the Islamic State there. The Iraqis will probably order us out again soon. But....

Bush opened that can of worms by invading Iraq in 2003 when we should not have done so and had no basis for doing so. It's anyone's guess how many more times we will return to Iraq because of the can of worms we opened, or as Gen Powell said, the pot we broke so that we owned it.

We seemed to have taken on Syria now too, and we're not leaving there anytime soon.

I've never called you a commie. I've associated you with having a similar belief system and a similar mindset. Whether you be fascist, communist, socialist or imperialist is unknown at this time. Questioning policy is normal and a right that we all have in common as Americans.

[pbrower2a]

Well, Classic X'er, you seem to be mellowing out a bit.

That is very welcome.

[theory]

The free market doesn't enslave you. If you don't like your job, quit.

[Bob Butler 54]

Some of the jobs that existed before government action regulated them were nigh on as bad as slavery.  It is preventing corporate abuse that results in the habit of slapping on regulations.  We are going to have both corporations and government.  Focusing them on not abusing the people is hard.

Obvious lies won't help you with anything.

[theory]

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

[Bob Butler 54]

(02-02-2018, 07:18 AM)theory Wrote: Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

There you lie again.  The deficit and division of wealth are both growing.  Regulation prevents abuse, which you keep a blind eye to.  Subsidy?  That needs to be watched, but again you lie.  I live in a house which does not move in any sense and is not subsidized.

Your absurd concept of libertarianism must upset most the real libertarians.

[theory]

The 1% control the media, Hollywood, Wall Street, and the government.

The regulations prevent the 99% from getting rich. The elites write the laws, have the relationships,
and have lawyers to help to protect themselves from regulations.

Government is not some kind of group of saints.

Asking the government to regulate corporations is like asking a robber to watch your house
when you go on vacation.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics...50624.html

Good men don't need laws. Bad men won't obey laws.

[pbrower2a]

(02-02-2018, 07:57 AM)theory Wrote: The 1% control the media, Hollywood, Wall Street, and the government.

The regulations prevent the 99% from getting rich. The elites write the laws, have the relationships,
and have lawyers to help to protect themselves from regulations.

Government is not some kind of group of saints.

Asking the government to regulate corporations is like asking a robber to watch your house
when you go on vacation.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics...50624.html

Good men don't need laws. Bad men won't obey laws.

Good men need laws so that they can identify the bad men for prosecution as criminals. Without a law there is no crime to punish.

[Bob Butler 54]

(02-02-2018, 07:57 AM)theory Wrote: The 1% control the media, Hollywood, Wall Street, and the government.

Well, it is not as simplistic as all that.  All four are different forms of elites who are often working to cross purposes, often even within the four obvious groups.  For example, I don't expect the late night TV comics to agree with the pundits of radio.  There is no control. The 1% are selfish, do not share a single world view, but are not necessarily evil, are not fans of mid 20th Century autocratic government.  To think otherwise seems foolish, and so you seem.

[Eric the Green]

(02-01-2018, 08:24 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I've never called you a commie. I've associated you with having a similar belief system and a similar mindset. Whether you be fascist, communist, socialist or imperialist is unknown at this time.

I'm similar to a socialist in some ways, and in some ways not. I'm closer to being a socialist than you are; that would be accurate. But I am convinced that a mixed economy is best, which includes capitalism. Small business and employee-owned business and coops and non-profits are good too. That is not socialism per se. Labelling me with any of those terms "fascist, communist, socialist or imperialist" would not be accurate, and there's not much reason to label me with those terms. I'm a liberal and a progressive and a green and a new age spiritualist; I accept those labels. I'm generally against neo-liberalism/trickle-down economics etc., and against social conservative and militarist views, generally-speaking. I am not similar to nebraska or whatever he calls himself, and don't identify with libertarian or anarchist views, generally-speaking.

Quote:Questioning policy is normal and a right that we all have in common as Americans.

I'm glad we agree on that.

[nom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-billion...ton-2015-9

https://finance.yahoo.com/video/did-bill...48059.html

http://www.desototimes.com/opinion/colum...ef309.html