If this becomes reality I will move to another country. Immediately.

[Adam]

In that case, any economic argument regarding our economy and what will fix it is moot.

You can't have it both ways. Either the economic plans/regulations of the day have an impact on how our society fares in the global market, or it doesn't.

I can have it both ways, watch me! Economic arguments are moot because the system is too complex to distill down to an exact science. (Economics is a social science, not a hard science - don't let anyone tell you differently!) And we have no way of knowing at a macroscopic level how plans/regulations will impact the greater economy.

We do know that if you raise the price of beer, less people will buy beer.
We don't know what will happen to the 'greater economy' if less people buy beer. Does the reproduction rate fall because less ugly people are having sex? Do medicare costs skyrocket because of an increase in stress-related injuries?

The two major schools of thought (Keynesian versus Austrian) are based on ideological differences. It's all philosophy. And philosophical economics is basically modern day politics.

My preference is to let the free market determine winners and losers with regulation providing a level playing ground for consumers and providers. That's neither Keynesian nor Austrian.

Keynes would say the best government is the government that regulates everything.

Von Mises would say that the best government is the government that does nothing.

 

[Krisken]

Archaic morality? Please, explain how morality is archaic. I find this fascinating. Which form of morality are you speaking of, Gas? Normative or descriptive? And how can morality not be factored into any equation that involves how economics will effect people?

 

[GasBandit]

Archaic morality? Please, explain how morality is archaic. I find this fascinating. Which form of morality are you speaking of, Gas? Normative or descriptive? And how can morality not be factored into any equation that involves how economics will effect people?

I don't think you're quite understanding me.
ar·cha·ic/ärˈkāik/Adjective

1. Very old or old-fashioned.

The sentence in which I state:

... and either ... voting themselves largesse from the public coffers, or attempting to legislate archaic morality.

Is comparing democrats to republicans while showing that while their true aims are disparate, they are equally futile and reprehensible. In this case, the archaic morality attempting to be legislated are the effort to ban same-sex marriage, block the availability of abortion procedures, and the continued legal demonization of marijuana when it's less harmful than some other legal substances and frankly none of it should be government's business anyway.

I'll rephrase to clarify the point: Democrats would like to pick your pocket, republicans would like to declare martial law on your bedroom, and neither actually display any real interest in the economic future of the country.

 

[Krisken]

I see now what you are trying to say, but I don't agree with the premise. You posit that Democrats are only interested in taking wealth with no regard for its use. I would put forth that our society would suffer without the programs that have been put in place and with government regulations.

Besides being overly simplistic generalizations, I find your end result flawed.

 

[Cajungal]

You know, if he got elected, I could see the White House becoming a stage for a reality show. Every week, Trump stands before 3 celebrity judges, and they decide whether or not he's fired.

 

[Mathias]

More and more a reality...

 

[GasBandit]

I see now what you are trying to say, but I don't agree with the premise. You posit that Democrats are only interested in taking wealth with no regard for its use. I would put forth that our society would suffer without the programs that have been put in place and with government regulations.

Besides being overly simplistic generalizations, I find your end result flawed.

I don't think they have no regard for its use, but this entire line of argument is irrelevant. We're going off on a tangent, one that could easily itself be an 80-page thread if only work would let me post as much as I used to again.

The statement was made that someone "knows many intelligent conservative republicans..." to which I had said if they were really so intelligent, they'd be libertarians. My point here is not that liberalism is bad (though I do make that point in other places, granted)... here, all I was trying to point out is that the republican party completely fails as a vehicle for conservatism. At least for those of us who do not define "conservatism" as homophobia, abortion clinic violence, and repeating the mistakes of 1920's prohibition all over again with marijuana.

 

[Tress]

The statement was made that someone "knows many intelligent conservative republicans..." to which I had said if they were really so intelligent, they'd be libertarians. My point here is not that liberalism is bad (though I do make that point in other places, granted)... here, all I was trying to point out is that the republican party completely fails as a vehicle for conservatism. At least for those of us who do not define "conservatism" as homophobia, abortion clinic violence, and repeating the mistakes of 1920's prohibition all over again with marijuana.

See, here's where you completely fucked this thread up. I said I knew many intelligent Republicans. I said nothing about them being conservative. Now, that's not to say that I think intelligence and conservatism are mutually exclusive. It just means that I didn't say anything about being conservative. You assumed that, and that's what lead to your rant about true conservatives.

Go make your own thread next time.

 

[GasBandit]

See, here's where you completely fucked this thread up. I said I knew many intelligent Republicans. I said nothing about them being conservative. Now, that's not to say that I think intelligence and conservatism are mutually exclusive. It just means that I didn't say anything about being conservative. You assumed that, and that's what lead to your rant about true conservatives.

Go make your own thread next time.

My assertion stands, even without the conservative qualifier. Unless they just so happen to be intelligent AND homophobic etc.

 

[Tress]

My assertion stands, even without the conservative qualifier. Unless they just so happen to be intelligent AND homophobic etc.

I find those traits to be mutually exclusive.

I'll give an example of one of the people I was talking about when I made that comment. One of my best friends is Republican. He likes the idea of smaller government and lower taxes, because he does believe that people do better with smaller governments. He dislikes the libertarian platform of incredibly small government. He supports the EPA because he believes that environmental policies are not only good for the planet but good for business in the long run, but he hates the idea of welfare. He supports legalizing gay marriage, but he is pro-life. He supports legalizing marijuana, but he believes that all other drugs have a serious "social cost" and should be limited. He thinks some social programs have value, but it depends entirely on their purpose and scope. All others he would love to see shut down.

So, he's definitely a Republican. He usually supports moderate Republican candidates. Is he conservative? That depends on your definition. Self-identified liberals often think of him as conservative, but those on the right typically find him to be too liberal. He's incredibly smart, and I don't see how he would be better off joining the Libertarian party.

 

[AshburnerX]

That's the main issue with the Libertarian party: They are too far away on the spectrum. Their sort of like what Commies are to Liberals.

 

[GasBandit]

I find those traits to be mutually exclusive.

I'll give an example of one of the people I was talking about when I made that comment. One of my best friends is Republican. He likes the idea of smaller government and lower taxes, because he does believe that people do better with smaller governments. He dislikes the libertarian platform of incredibly small government. He supports the EPA because he believes that environmental policies are not only good for the planet but good for business in the long run, but he hates the idea of welfare. He supports legalizing gay marriage, but he is pro-life. He supports legalizing marijuana, but he believes that all other drugs have a serious "social cost" and should be limited. He thinks some social programs have value, but it depends entirely on their purpose and scope. All others he would love to see shut down.

So, he's definitely a Republican. He usually supports moderate Republican candidates. Is he conservative? That depends on your definition. Self-identified liberals often think of him as conservative, but those on the right typically find him to be too liberal. He's incredibly smart, and I don't see how he would be better off joining the Libertarian party.

Well, frankly, everyone would be better off joining the Libertarian party

But, snark aside, I think the word you were looking for is moderate. From there it only comes down to choosing which parts of his political belief system are most important to him, as none satisfies all of them obviously. But the main reason I denigrate the republican party is because the only part of their platform they staunchly, reliably pursue is their social agenda - IE, gays, drugs and abortion. They only start making noise about smaller government when it suits them, yet have no problem with the cognitive dissonance of growing government while talking about fiscal responsibility, as we've seen in the last decade-plus. The only time they start to walk the walk on their economic agenda is when tea party types hold a gun to their ballot box with the trigger cocked and safety off. Republicans presided over a huge increase in entitlement spending that was entirely conceived, produced, pushed and owned by them when they held sway in both the executive and legislative branches. Basically, it comes down to the track record of the republican party having more in common with the democrat party than the principles of conservatism, aforementioned social bugaboos aside.
Added at: 14:54

That's the main issue with the Libertarian party: They are too far away on the spectrum. Their sort of like what Commies are to Liberals.

We'll see what happens to that spectrum when the debt-meter rolls over.

 

[Tress]

Yes, I know he's moderate. I intentionally left the word out of what I was saying. The issue here is your assertion that any smart Republican would switch to the Libertarian party because the Republican party is somehow only for archaic social conservatives who want to regulate everything from how you have sex to who you can marry. I was just showing that intelligent moderate Republicans may still feel more loyalty to the Republican party, and don't automatically see value in the Libertarian party.

Now can we stop arguing over semantics and get back to bashing Trump?

 

[@Li3n]

How people aren't charging up the capitol steps with a battering ram and guillotine as we speak, I can't explain.

Actually, I can. Bread and circuses... or in our case, stimulus checks and reality television.

No, it's cake...

 

[Terrik]

Battering rams and guillotines are expensive and I'm all out of money. Torches and pitchforks on the other hand...

 

[@Li3n]

We'll see what happens to that spectrum when the debt-meter rolls over.

It's funny when someone actually thinks the country with the biggest military and still the only actual superpower is going to have real trouble with it's debts... next thing i'll hear is about how all those medieval kings where going to have problems paying back all those jew bankers...

 

[Covar]

It's funny when someone actually thinks the country with the biggest military and still the only actual superpower is going to have real trouble with it's debts... next thing i'll hear is about how all those medieval kings where going to have problems paying back all those jew bankers...

I always laugh to myself when someone starts going on about China calling in their notes. As if we would pay.

 

[sixpackshaker]

Like we would not dump China to go find another 3rd world nation to open our factories in... then dump them when their employees ask for a couple of rights.

 

[Espy]

Man, why does everyone gotta want rights?

 

[SpecialKO]

China's not going to do it anyway if they can possibly help it. Too much of their economy is tied up in ours.

 

[Necronic]

I think my favorite thing about this thread is Adammons post outlying the naivete of oversimplified ideologically based politics (as he said, economic philosophy = modern politics), which is then followed by....

wait for it....

a bunch of oversimplified ideologically based politics.

Seriously, the only real problem with the political process is that the people most outwardly passionate about it structure it into a system of mutually exclusive binary/trinary sets of absolutist statements about complex issues in a desire to reduce the whole thing down into sports.

Parties are at best overly sharp definitions of highly diverse viewpoints that end up overlapping in enough places that it's often illogical to dileneate them. Southern democrats became southern republicans. Libertarians often run as republicans OR democrats. The Tea Party is an awkard blend of Goldwater era fiscal conservatism and Reagen/dubya-esque moral majority. Arlen Specter.

And we all feed into this spouting off fallacies of single cause and other oversimplifications of highly complex issues because in the end it is so much easier to believe that solutions are simple, and that if only they did X then Y would happen. These are arguments made for, and often by, weak minds who want easy answers when we all know in the back of our heads that such things are impossible.

Argument can exist without blind passion, in fact argument literally can not exist with it, but maybe it is too much to hope that politics can actually be a system founded in argument. I will admit that my own passions in politics only exist in playing the devil's advocate, attempting to force people to shore their arguments with dispassionate structure. Maybe we need the Joan of Arcs leading charges not on the knowledge that their position is right, but simply faith. Worked out well for her.

 

[AshburnerX]

Libertarians often run as republicans OR democrats.

That's because Libertarian philosophy is compatible with both parties, and because Left Libertarians are VASTLY different than Right ones on many key points of their aims. For instance, I know some Left ones advocate the abolishment of privatized property, while most Right ones (like Gas) want everything from the roads to the rivers to be privatized.

The main difference is that there are relatively few Left Libertarians even compared to the small number of Right Libertarian.

 

[Necronic]

That's because Libertarian philosophy is compatible with both parties, and because Left Libertarians are VASTLY different than Right ones on many key points of their aims. For instance, I know some Left ones advocate the abolishment of privatized property, while most Right ones (like Gas) want everything from the roads to the rivers to be privatized.

The main difference is that there are relatively few Left Libertarians even compared to the small number of Right Libertarian.

From where I stand it looks like you are adding granularity in an attempt to defend discreet political ideology. Gas for instance, doesn't strike me as a "right" libertarian. He completely rejects moralization in government, which many people who claim to be libertarians do not. Ron Paul is a great example of this, as he is a libertarian that runs on a Pro-Life platform (which as another side not of the continuous/amorphous true nature of ideology, is a seemingly contradictory statement which I can see arguments for rationalizing.)

Gas also strikes me as a utilitarian. I am pretty sure that if I could show him that at a certain level a social service system actually saves the state money then he would stand behind it. This is an untested premise of course, but I would be very surprised if he stood behind the abandonment of the Poison Control centers, and if he did he is only backing my point of people forcibly sticking to their conceptual understandings of ideology in the face of reality.

Anyways, I just don't get why people get all *hulk mad* about politics. It's such a complex sociological system that taking a stance of "this is clearly right" is ironically the fastest way to identify yourself as a complete moron.

Edit: Actually I will concede that last statement is a bit of hyperbole. There are times when the tree of liberty needs to be refreshed with the blood of patriots/whatever, but we haven't seen an instance of that in our own country since McCarthy, and even then it turned out that one of the best responses was 'give him enough rope and he'll hang himself' which he ended up doing.

 

[AshburnerX]

Gas also strikes me as a utilitarian. I am pretty sure that if I could show him that at a certain level a social service system actually saves the state money then he would stand behind it. This is an untested premise of course, but I would be very surprised if he stood behind the abandonment of the Poison Control centers, and if he did he is only backing my point of people forcibly sticking to their conceptual understandings of ideology in the face of reality.

But your taking a similar stance in that very statement. You've essentially said "Gas would see the light of reason, or he is simply proving my point!" Isn't that an all or nothing position as well, merely because your precluding the option that your simply wrong to begin with?

I only commented on your position with Libertarians because they are a complex beast all of there own. It's not many groups that you could stick both free market absolutists -and- Ghandi into.

 

[Necronic]

I only commented on your position with Libertarians because they are a complex beast all of there own. It's not many groups that you could stick both free market absolutists -and- Ghandi into.

Ah, ok, I must have misunderstood your point, because that's what I was arguing. But not just for libertarians, pretty much any political identity is highly complex.

 

[Espy]

Anyways, I just don't get why people get all *hulk mad* about politics. It's such a complex sociological system that taking a stance of "this is clearly right" is ironically the fastest way to identify yourself as a complete moron.

The same reason people get mad when someone buys a Ford instead of a Chevy, or someone buys a mac instead of a Dell, or someone likes the Steelers instead of the Cowboys. Humanity needs someone to hate or look down on. When get so caught up in being on "our side" that when we perceive someone is on "the other side" we project all of the junk we associate with "the other side" on to them, which of course forces us to make a (probably) unconscious decision to ignore the complexities of a person and instead see our own pre-defined set of things we associate with someone "on the other side".
At least thats how I see it.

 

[Krisken]

The same reason people get mad when someone buys a Ford instead of a Chevy, or someone buys a mac instead of a Dell, or someone likes the Steelers instead of the Cowboys. Humanity needs someone to hate or look down on. When get so caught up in being on "our side" that when we perceive someone is on "the other side" we project all of the junk we associate with "the other side" on to them, which of course forces us to make a (probably) unconscious decision to ignore the complexities of a person and instead see our own pre-defined set of things we associate with someone "on the other side".
At least thats how I see it.

I was trying to make this same argument on FB the other day with a Tea Partier. Not sure he really got what I was trying to say since he lumped me in as a "Dear Leader Worshiper", or something along those lines.

 

[GasBandit]

Man, you guys always have the BEST discussions right when shit hits the fan at work and I can't even read, much less post >_<

I suppose you can say there are left libertarians and right libertarians, but you also have to remember that a lot of misconceptions are prevalent about libertarians in general. A lot of people think we want to privatize EVERYTHING, and are basically just capitalist-anarchists with a different name. That's not the case. We do not want the government abolished, we realize that there are certain services only government can provide... we just think that list is a HELL of a lot shorter than what government is doing right now. Poison control centers, good. Police stations, fire departments, sewage treatment, good. Most of what goes on at the local, or even the state level, not so bad (but not all of it. Don't get me started on the Texas ATF). Mostly we rail against the excesses of the federal government.

 

[Espy]

Stop wanting to privatize everything Gas. JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE.

 

[Krisken]

I'd like a list of the things that 'need privatizing' and is ok to have the government do.

 

[Espy]

I'd like a list of the things that 'need privatizing' and is ok to have the government do.

Ice Cream - Clearly a privatized commodity.
Frozen Yogurt - So boring only the government could handle it.

BOOM. DONE.

 

[GasBandit]

I'd like a list of the things that 'need privatizing' and is ok to have the government do.

It's not so much that there's a list of things that "need privatizing" so much as there's a great deal of things that nobody has business doing at all. There's also a list of things that need delegating, as in to the states or to local government. The department of education, for one. Then there's the list of things the government is doing that would be cause for multiple lifetime jail sentences if it were not done under the auspices of government, such as fannie/freddie, social security, etc.

We're now spending more than triple on the federal level than what we were in 1990. Have our woes decreased by 66%? Have they even gone down at all? Or have they either remained constant or gotten worse, while the bureaucracy expanded to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy?

Overall, it's a need for a shift in the thought process of problem solving in our country, where government intervention/regulation is the last resort instead of the first.

 

[Krisken]

See, and I feel that education on a state level is a massive failure. Having different regulations and requirements in each state causes a lot of the confusion and problems we encounter when applying to colleges. It's the same problem with health care- too many different regulations in each state makes oversight and cross state dealings more difficult, which in all business translates into more costly.

 

[GasBandit]

See, and I feel that education on a state level is a massive failure. Having different regulations and requirements in each state causes a lot of the confusion and problems we encounter when applying to colleges. It's the same problem with health care- too many different regulations in each state makes oversight and cross state dealings more difficult, which in all business translates into more costly.

One regulation does not fit all, is the problem. Remember NCLB? But I will also grant that different regulations in different areas can also impede productivity, such as in the umpteen-bajillion different fuel blends that gasoline refiners must produce for different areas.

But the problem of federal involvement is the intrinsic level of detachment and bureaucracy involved. We're spending more and more and more on education while the results are getting worse and worse and worse. Yet the only acceptable solution is "throw more money at it." Education is definitely an area where increased privatization would be a benefit. Note I said increased, not total. This is not a binary toggle, and shifting into reverse while driving over 60 won't do anybody any favors. The key here is to make a decision every day... do we want more government or less? Do we increase, or decrease?

Of course, it's almost a moot point since our government has never, EVER actually "decreased" in any identifiable trend with statistical significance. Government only ever gets bigger. Not only are we spending 3x as much, we're also collecting 3x as much in taxes (which speaks to the "we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem" sound byte being tossed around so much these days). The simplest way I can think of to start tamping down spending is to not pick and choose what can go and what must stay, at least at first. Call it a 5% cut on everything. Then, next year, another cut on everything. And once we gradually start to change momentum, we can start looking at deeper cuts into agencies that don't produce results or aren't necessary.

But until we acknowledge the problem and come to the decision to reduce every day, reduce every week, every month, every year... the line on that graph will continue to always only every go up. It goes up under republicans just as much (and in some cases, even more) as it does under democrats.

 

[Krisken]

Except that's not what really happens, now is it? The people who suffer will be the poorest and the weakest who rely on those programs which get labeled as wasteful.

Simply cutting funding for programs across the board doesn't adequately weed out wasteful spending, especially when the biggest spenders are often taken 'off the table'.