Added: 2 years ago
From: j0hnwi11iams
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  • Excuse me but the only people I heard crying for ignoring or attacking the government were patently liberal hipsters who wanted us as students to 'stick it to the man'. That was during the Bush administration.

    Now that the government is largely liberal, it's amazing how we now must be good little citizens, and turn our ire away from the government towards the other progressive punching bags of religion and business.

    Coincidence?

  • The protests were against the Iraq Invasion and subsequent occupation. Bush and especially Cheney are truly despicable characters. They both belong behind bars for war crimes.

    I don't know how you get off calling this administration liberal. It is no where liberal enough if you ask me. It should immediately legalize drugs, gambling, prostitution. Criminalize bank fraud schemes involving derivatives. Restore civil rights and abide by our treaties, especially the geneva convention.

  • Well, I'm glad that you're not in charge. Our country would be under new management in a matter of days.

  • It would be BETTER management.

  • Funnily enough I agree in the current administration since Obama seems determined to either follow in Bush's footsteps or put into effect new programs that don't work.

    What I meant was hostile take over of our nation by other nations that are envious of our power. A new world order devoted to ending progress and leaping into untried or tried and failed ideas is sure to fail and drag the country down with it.

  • Why don't we take a good look at what is not working in this country, such as HEALTH CARE? No one on the right is willing to admit that anything is broken. They are all in denial.

  • Could it be the system is working and the reason you think everyone is in denial is because YOU'RE the crazy one? A madman believes everyone but himself mad.

    Also, would nationalizing the system really help? Anything the government takes full control of invariably goes into recession and then experiences short supply as companies stop manufacture (since they're paid to do nothing) and people start dying from the common cold, all because someone like you wasn't happy about his monthly bill.

  • Our health care system is nowhere near as good as other countries when you look at statistics like infant mortality and life expectancy. I am not in favor of nationalizing everything related to health care, but I think insurance companies are clearly broken and pharmaceuticals have too many toadies in government. Clearly we need to either impose some regulations limiting their power or we need to replace them.

  • Spoken like a true Liberal. It is necessary to labor under the delusion that the current system is flawed. Only then can unnecessary, untried or unsuccessful programs be put into place and give the institution more power. Regulations is a fancy way of saying 'You don't know how to run your business as well as I do, and if you disagree then I'm taking away that business and running it myself'.

    Now say with a straight face you aren't a socialist.

  • Liberals do not think they know how to run a business better. Those are your mischaracterizations, not what liberals think or desire. What liberals want is for the total cost of a product to be reflected in its price, not hidden by passing it off as an externality to society at large.

  • Is that all? That would explain why there's a constant push for nationalized everything: internet, healthcare, education etc...

    If all they wanted was 'total cost' reflected in the price of objects (so you want sandwiches costing 200+ due to shipping and farming costs?) then I'd only be mildly annoyed. It when the government seeks to control every aspect of my life I get furious.

  • Those things you mention are not "everything". The internet I believe is becoming a vital public infrastructure that needs to be protected from profit motivated corruption. Healthcare and insurance in general is proving to be a disaster in private hands. Education is a public investment in our children, one where everyone, especially the wealthy, benefit.

  • It is important to understand the total cost as opposed to the price. A product may have a very low price because it defers a lot of the cost on to the public through externalities. Walmart, for example, intentionally underpays it's employees so they will qualify for government assistance.

  • Would this be an issue if we didn't live in a nanny state which hands out money at the drop of a hat and drives up inflation?

    It seems you're complaining about the wrong ideology at work. Maybe corporations would clean up their act if they weren't taxed into bankruptcy, their businesses run for them by pointy headed intellectuals that never had to manage so much as a focus group, and weren't constantly called the epitome of evil.

    Nah. Corporations can do no right and should be destroyed.

  • I consider what Walmart does to be a sort of insurance scam. I consider social programs to be government sponsored insurance. Corporations get a more or less free ride in this country because there are so many loopholes in the tax code. I never said that corporations should be destroyed, that is just a misrepresentation of my views. My position is that corporations are too powerful. They have all the rights of a person, but are immortal and devoid of consciousness.

  • Isn't The Government a kind of corporation in itself, taking more then it's share to perform a service we need, but along the way royally messing everything up?

    Too powerful, so they must be...relegated. And by relegated you mean shrunk. Destruction is the end result of that because companies don't like to be shrunk and people will not work simply for the joy of working without compensation. By relegating companies you will cause them to fire more and more people, and eventually to quit.

  • The government is a public institution. It is controlled ostensibly by the people through elections and other means. You're using terms here that a too broad and imprecise in terms of what private enterprise does well and what government does well.

  • You're argument is a strawman, those who believe in small government believe that government should restrict it's power to things like courts roads, and defense. It's a far cry from letting corporations run around stealing everything that's not nailed down. Large powerful government only serves as a tool for politically influential corporations to divorce people of their assets and freedoms against their will. A corperation cannot exercise force of arms, or eminent domain except through gov.

  • The only corporations who have my property or time are those I choose to barter it with in exchange for something I deem to be of equal or greater value. The exception are companies like AIG, Ford, Dodge, etc who were bailed out by large government.  I always choose weather or not to by a product or service but I cannot always choose my government or what it does. If a corporation wants something of mine they have to offer incentive enough for me to trade.

  • But what would you do without food? As we specialize in different trades we depend upon other goods and services for our survival. We become dependent on the market. What is to prevent collusion of the market either intentional (monopoly or market power) or unintentional (bubbles and busts). When the market is made free, the participants are made not free. They are driven by the inescapable logic of the market, not the higher order logic that the human species is capable of.

  • This makes no sense to me. It's as though you've never taken a course in Economics and yet are trying to discuss the topic. Too much to write here but you're saying, paraphrasing, "don't be dependent on the marketplace providing your goods because shisters may pull the rug out from underneath and the transition to independence too difficult; choose independence from the get go and don't get used to receiving value." Hmm, don't be dependent on the marketplace but do be dependent on gov't?

  • Government has a legal monopoly on the use of force, they can take my property without my consent. The only real impediment from them doing this are the limits of what a majority of people will stand for (offering little protection to those in the minority, assuming they know or care about the problem) and constitutional limits on the scope of its power (government will often overrun or outgrow). Large government is a corporatist's best friend not worst enemy. Your argument is fallacy.

  • Government has the monopoly on the use of VIOLENT force, not all force. How funny it is that Reagan started the ball rolling down this path by saying that corporations were being needlessly regulated. Perhaps all the high rollers want is market instability because that is how they make their killings. Someone who is unemployed because of the economy has had his job stolen from him.

  • Violence is only one form of coercive power. Corporations collectively have the power to deprive you of a livelyhood. What difference does it make if they steal my retirement savings at gunpoint or by crashing the market?

  • What are you talking about. So far the gov. has taken more property than any other! Big gov. needs BIG RESOURCES that comes from the taxpayer. Small gov. doesnt need as much.

    REMEMBER Its cheaper to conserve than it is to spend.

  • Government gives back in public security and infrastructure. Private interests will systematically destroy public property by externalizing costs and problems. The government creates and supports an environment where an economy is even possible.

  • We dont miss the fact that both Washinton and business love to put hands in our wallets. As of today uncle sam in dipping in my wallet via taxes. The problem with sam taking my money is that I have no choice but to pay. I can close my account with Bof A. (I did) I can pull all funds out of stocks. (I did ) I can stop spending ( i did ) I can fix a car over buying new (i will) I cant stop working.  I cant stop uncle sam from dipping in my stock funds. I can help crash a business not Sam

  • If you have small businesses, then yes to the extent that you know what these businesses are doing (they keep their business dealings private) you can boycott. Whoopee. That does not help when a particular business is aligned either through monopoly, or market demands, or when the market acts in unison as it did in the housing bubble. The difference is that you have voice and can participate in government. With a business you may or may not have a choice depending on market conditions.

  • Give some examples of a natural non-governmental sanctioned monoploies.

  • How about the spot energy market that was run from within Enron headquarters? That was a service monopoly that was easy for the brokers to manipulate. How about exclusive contracts like AT&T and the iPhone?

    Also, it is not necessary for there to be an absolute monopoly for companies to be able to exert market power, all that is necessary is a small enough supply and a big enough demand.

  • dude you are so brainwashed. go kill yourself

  • It's just that the right wing is incapable of showing me HOW I'm brainwashed. I'm WAITING . . .

  • Big business is often boosted by big government. Those social groups you mention: corporations, churches, unions, etc, can only legally diminish your rights or private property *through* the government.

    Conservatives dont think government relationships are *always* antagonistic towards human rights, but only when it strays from protecting them.

    Your message is unclear as youre mixing classic liberalism with state welfare and corporatism.

  • If by ONLY you mean restricting the term power to mean only the use of coercive violence, then perhaps. However, these other social organizations do have other powerful means at their disposal, not the least of which is money and propaganda. As a laborer you may depend on them for your survival, as an advocate your voice may be drowned out by their marketing.

    When a corporation externalizes it is dumping what it wishes to disown on to the public. That is violating your public property rights.

  • This video makes some good points however, the state, corporations (a state charter), and churches are connected. Unions are also corrupted by the state.

  • I have stated elsewhere that I do not think government is the only solution, precisely because of the collusion that emerges. I do not trust government to do the right thing all the time. What I do HOPE is that government occasionally acts with inspiration to set up rules that empower individuals and make it more difficult for social organizations to undermine that power. I am counting on a few good apples spoiling it for all the bad ones.

  • You might recognize the voice.

    watch?v=7dD2mBr7O-Q

  • Nice try, but the firm argues that corporations should not be legal persons, because they make decisions on behalf of the consumer without ever making the information driving that decision public. It is called EXTERNALIZATION, the main point of the documentary. The corporation decides how much a life is worth and never tells the public. Got that?

  • Quotes from a terriic sci-fi writer, Robert Heinlein:

    "Seems to be a deep instinct in human beings for making everything compulsory that [which] isn't forbidden."

    "What I fear most are affirmative actions of sober and well-intentioned men, granting to government powers to do something that appears to need doing."

  • Many big businesses use government -- through political contributions to politicians -- to affect the rules of the game and to limit their own competition within the marketplace so as to secure profits. Conservatives might be okay with this but classical liberals (or libertarians) are definitly not. Conservatives typically suck but there's nothing wrong with being a consistent minarchist. I will not appologie for my default position being one of pro-liberty.

  • When corporations are given the kind of power they have today, they will definitely tend to create a positive feedback loop as they use that power to gain access to power. I don't think that government is the only solution, I think that the power of corporations needs to be reduced, and that they need an opposing force representing labor, possibly unions.

  • There's only two ways that a corporation receives any kind of power:

    The first way is to attract and retain customers through consistantly satisfying the customers wants at prices that they're willing to willingly pay while exceeding the costs. The second way is to manipulate the marketplace by using government to affect the competition the corporation faces. It just so happens that the return on investment of using the political process rewards handsomly.

  • Re-reading your comment, it strikes me odd that you use the word "power" that often. Then you follow that word up with the word "force". Is there any room for cooperation in your world or is it all just command and control?

  • There is also the power of persuasion. When people share the same goals and are persuaded to share the same goals then very often the result is organization, which is cooperation, which can be very powerful.

  • You have just provided the very reason why I am a minarchist: as long as an organization remains in the private domain, persuasion/cooperation has to be used. However, once an organization becomes an arm of government (after it is no longer vying for government) coercion replaces persuasion and cooperation replaced with compulsory.

    I'm guessing that you fear corporate 'power' but embrace governmnetal power; taking your feelings out of it for the moment, doesn't that strike you odd when read?

  • If you look at government as a means of enforcing social contracts then coercion is necessary only if you decide to back out of your obligations. Laws are a form of social contract and if you break them there are consequences. If you do not like the social contract you can either campaign to have laws changed or leave the country. Private corporations typically only create contracts between a limited number of parties, usually two, and let the government enforce them.

  • There are several advantages to government, the most significant is the level of public participation in the creation of policy and law. Corporations make any sort of contract they want. This is exactly he problem with private health insurance, that the contract is misleading and that they refuse to serve some individuals or honor the intent of insurance.

  • Granted, government needs safeguards to prevent it from becoming corrupt and the constitution institutionalizes those safeguards. Maybe there are not enough - we certainly need more transparency. Any organization that is allowed to operate in secret has the potential to undermine public welfare. Corporations are far more secretive than government and usually only reveal potentially negative information about their products when forced to by government regulation.

  • outstanding video and to the point. The fact that a Corporation is viewed as an individual in the eyes of the law is just ridiculous. I saw an excellent Doc called "The Corporation" which I believe was made by a Canadian group, excellent watch if you haven't seen it yet. It's free on Google Video.

  • excellent points, thanks for making this one :)

  • If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare... they may appoint teachers in every state... The powers of Congress would subvert the very foundation, the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America.

    - James Madison

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