A question to my friends (and enemies) on the right

reply to post by indigothefish


I agree.

There are only two classes of people:

Those who favor private property rights and voluntary trade of goods and resources

and

Those who favor government oppression, the destruction of private property rights, and coercive confiscation of resources.

Originally posted by mnemeth1
Those who favor private property rights and voluntary trade of goods and resources

and

Those who favor government oppression, the destruction of private property rights, and coercive confiscation of resources.

It's hard to be a painter when you have only black and white colors at our disposal. It's hard to understand anything about life if you practice same approach in studying it.

Originally posted by buddhasystem

Originally posted by mnemeth1
Those who favor private property rights and voluntary trade of goods and resources

and

Those who favor government oppression, the destruction of private property rights, and coercive confiscation of resources.

It's hard to be a painter when you have only black and white colors at our disposal. It's hard to understand anything about life if you practice same approach in studying it.

To me, right and wrong is black and white.

reply to post by buddhasystem


obama actions are a means to and end and the end is what he clearly wants more power over you.

less taxes, less regulations

what is so wrong with keeping more of what you personally make? whats wrong with that man.

taxes take take and take they never end they never stop and when your running a business taxes, and reguatlions are the difference between life and death.

go talk to a small business owner ask him exactly what it takes to run a successful business. how can you run a business hire people, pay insurance,pay taxes, pay for beneifts, pay for licenses the overhead they have.

you are essentially telling people who they can or can do how much they can pay how they can make a product to how they market a product.

less is more less is the difference profit and bankruptcy.

free market means it should be a free market. the federal government does not have the resposibilty to do everything for everyone in this country it doesnt.

why should someone in florida be paying for some stop sign in california for example why should they be paying for a road or intersection that they never will use it makes no sense.

todays mentality is the us federal government is the bank to pay for everything and anything that every state wants it simply does not have funds to do so.

the private sector is what built this country- private, private businesses private banking and private thinking in a way. this country was built on the fact that some individual saw a need and thought he could make a buck on it so he filled it.

that is what we need today that is what is clearly lacking people are looking to the wrong place for no other reason as any sane person knows everything thing the government costs taxpayers money and it doesnt create taxes that can be paid back in to it.

this is t he biggest problem with this country it is spending far too much than is being paid into it.


people should take care of themselves and so should the states take care of themselves and yes there will be some thing states will might need a helping hand with and people will need a helping with but the system we currently have has too much abuse and corruption.

and to quote regan the government is part of the problem so i will never be the solution

reply to post by neo96

Precisely. It's so hard for people to realize that wealth and money are not the same thing at all. Wealth is actual goods and services. Were it not for free markets, nobody would have invented cars, radios, televisions, iPhones, computers, etc. The more of this stuff in existence, the cheaper it is, meaning the more all our dollars are worth. Real wages go up when more is produced, regardless of dollar amount of wages.

There's a reason why you hear stories from the Soviet Union about how there were only a few types of bread, a few types of car, etc. Sometimes there was "variety", when the people lobbied the government to make different kinds of things. But it is absoutely impossible for a central government to produce the billions of different types of consumer goods you see in a market economy. A central authority simply cannot manage all that.

People like to forget that we are wealthy because of our market economy. That is what made America as wealthy as it is today.

It's one thing to rail against the corporate thieves who use their money to influence the government to give them sweet deals, which allows them to make themselves richer without actually providing a benefit to civilization. But so often people lump this behavior in with the market economy in general, which is the only economic system in all of human history that lifted the masses out of poverty and poured a horn of plenty upon them. No other setup has even come close.

My only reservation with the free market is that our current system of corporatocracy may have been inevitable from it. The market is no respecter of vested interests (just ask the railroads), but vested interests with a ton of money will spend much of that money to maintain their status in whatever way possible, even if that means bribing politicians. It may be that a free market economy inevitably produces a power elite in this way, if you take into account human nature. This may be the fatal flaw in capitalism.

It's hard to say. But people who rail against capitalism should get up to speed and rail against it for that reason, not the old rehashed "exploiting the workers" nonsense of socialism, that doesn't take into account the capitalism in its pure form benefits primarily the consumers, of whom the workers are a part.

reply to post by buddhasystem


For starters I would say that I was in your position at one point in time. I look at it almost as staring at the world and having the perspective to see both sides of a particular issue... I am not sure just how deeply you have explored this concept... but if you do any amount of research at all you will see the polarity of the interests and as they become apparent... You seem like the type capable to listen careful to both sides... and at the conclusion simply go... well WTF? Nothing gets done.... nothing gets better... and judging by these results it would even appear that nobody even knows what the hell the problem is (you would think if they did it would be fixed right now). So from that logic we are either A) incapable of discovering what that issue is (for SOME reason) or B) someone is intentionally manifesting whatever wool has been placed over the eyes of most people... and shifting and changing it to keep people guessing... to continue their thinking that something is wrong... but mired to much in entertainment and luxury that they dont ever question it and find an answer.

I am not a political person either... I personally dont get why people look at politics as some sort of football game with the huge rivalry being the democrats and republicans... first of all THOSE are our only choices... why? because thats who the news and media gives attention to... thats who you hear on the debates... the people controlling all the news and information you get to hear (the 5 people that own the mainstream media in this country who are themselves essentially lobbied by the monetary force of these 2 institutions) prevent anybody else from even showing up on game day. Think of how we are indoctrinated to think that out of the ruling class we can either pick the people who do most for big corporations and could give less than a sh1t about poor people (republicans) or people who think that taxes should go to the government which in turn go to the corporations (health insurance for everybody! yaa! well who benefits from that? HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES).

The fact of the matter is that what George Carlin referred to as the 'divisionary principal' is alive and well... this system that we live in only cares about the existance of itself (much like any system... human beings survival of the fittest is important right?) and making as much money while keeping things just the way they want so nobody is going to realize how much money they are making off of it. In a free market capitalist system there isnt any problem that is going to get solved unless someone can figure out a way to make money off the solution... which again according to Carlin is why there is no war on homelessness... no money in that problem...

If i touched on any insanity that you have been realizing... that this system is simply in place to keep us fighting amongst each other so the real owners can keep going to the bank I would recommend for further viewing Zeitgeist addendum... free watch on google video.

In a way almost how Morpheus describes Neo before he is out of the Matrix... there is a problem with the world... you dont know what it is but you have felt it your entire life... is much how the system operates. You have places like ATS where people think radical new ideas than what they have been taught in their life... just getting a glimpse of what its like to be a free/original thinker. A lot of them dont question what they hear and just go along with it because it suits their own 'status-quo' and makes the world easier for them to digest... I would recommend you break free of that... and realize how much better we could be doing if instead of fighting we were all working together... not as some dumb notion of "race"... A turkey... is a different 'race' of species from humans... its the Human RACE... (apparently our language holds us back as well).

Keep looking for answers man you will find them when you are ready...

reply to post by buddhasystem


QUESTION 1: OBAMA

Come on man, you, as a self described non-partisan should be able to figure this out immediately. America's electoral college and bifurcated party system herds 300 million citizens with widely divergent views into 2 camps. Well, 3 if you count 'other.' The point is, our parties are just coalitions, not parties in the European sense. So the fact that 2 people calling themselves Republicans or Conservatives say 2 completely contradictory things about the man they both hate in the other coalition, shouldn't surprise you.

Many liberals complain about Obama being in cohoots with big-business as well. The conservatives who complain about such things probably only call themselves conservatives because of social views that diverge with the liberals who share the same complaint. This is the whacky nature of a 2 coalition-party system.

However, either way you look at it. Obama has increased (or kept pace with Bush) the ties between government and private industry. Call it socialization of industry, call it corporatism, call it whatever. The cries of fear about either socialism or corporatism generally fall along the lines of what people fear most. That is, if you fear corporate control of government then you will look at greater ties between the 2 as a bad omen of corporatism. If you fear government control of industry then you will look at greater ties between the 2 as a bad omen of socialism. Either way, the two camps both within the conservative coalition dislike the behavior...that's why they don't support Obama.

And as to the question of hate. Hate for leaders is the normal course of human events. People hated Bush, they hated Clinton, they hated Regan, bla bla bla. Its all perception. We live in such a high stress, divided world, its a wonder we don't impeach every president 9 months into the gig.

QUESTION 2: can the free market fix everything?

Probably not. Please direct me to the people that you see calling for roads to be privatized, I think they'd be funny to play with. As for space travel, I'd have to disagree with you there, I think there's a good probability that sending up scientists and sattellites will someday be privatized. Its just a matter of opinion about what should be privatized and what should not. But again, who is saying roads should be privatized? And if they are they're obviously an outlier.

Most liberals don't call for all services to be socialized, but some do. That is a similarly absurd statement. Again, remember coalitions. There's extremes to everything. Even Adam Smith called for government monopolization of anything that could not be done for profit. My intuition tells me that the people you meet who call for privatized everything just misunderstand the concepts they speak about.

QUESTION 3: China

China isn't experiencing great growth because they're an autocratic regime, they're experiencing great growth because they're freeing up markets. How could nation with that kind of unity, population, and resources not grow so fast? There's nothing to be afraid of. China's continued success rests on them accepting the western style economy. If they someday eclipse us in every relevant economic category it'll come from emulating us, not slave driving their citizenry. I'm sure people worried about this same problem concerning USSR back in the day.

I remember when I was a kid watching PBS and someone asked a similar quesiton of Thomas Friedman. He said 'Never bet on a nation that censors google.' I still think this wisdom rings true. Autocratic rule causes stagnation, that's why people get scared when corporations and government unite in unholy ways.

In the end, China just wants respect and the only way they're going to get that respect is liberalization. They're not dumb people. They see North Korea and Cuba and know what the right path is. They just have to take it slow to avoid a collapse (see USSR).

If anything I've said is unsatisfactory, I'm free to clarify!

Originally posted by camaro68ss
reply to post by Sestias

 

One you can stop generalizing.

Then at the end of the thread:

Why do you love the government so much demarcates?

A little hypocritical if you ask me. I hate the whole left/right Dem/Rep system we have here in the US. Stated many times on this website, they're both sides of the same coin. People in general need to stop thinking in terms of absolutes and start thinking about how we can make this country back into what it used to be.

The US spends 43% of the total world spending on the military. $661 billion in 2009 alone! I would say that's the 1st place to start cutting spending. Do we really need military bases all over the world? I might be wrong but I thought the UN/NATO was the "world police".

Wold military spending