Ugg fine!
Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats
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Ugg fine!
GasBandit
Staff member
Sorry for my lateness in replying to the dogpile, work picked up. Anyway -
The "invisible hand of the free market" is what gets you 6 different cell phone providers to choose from, instead of being stuck with Verizon and whatever they feel like charging you (and without that invisible hand, trust me, they'd be charging several times more). It is only when there is competition that capitalism works. Literally all our current complaints about "capitalism" come from the fruits of eliminating competition. This is why medical costs are so ruinous - it was a completely free and open market, full of competition and low in cost, until government used wartime wage freezes to bring about the idea of medical insurance as alternate employer compensation. A few hundred backroom deals, mergers, takeovers, lobbyists, and campaign donations later, and we find that the frog is now in extremely hot water.
Granted, there are a lot of so-called libertarians that also forget that competition is the engine that makes capitalism (and libertarian economic theory) work, which is where you get the people Blots and Ravenpoe are talking about. I don't agree with those guys. I think the breaking up of Ma Bell and giving birth to the competition in the "long distance" telephone service market was probably the most libertarian thing a huge and powerful federal government could have done - made private enterprise compete against itself.
If that makes me have to forfeit my libertarian registration card, then so be it.
We've also seen what happens when the complete opposite is put into effect - when you consolidate all economic power and choice in the hands of a centralized government, you get the Soviet Union, or China. As Patrthom was pointing out, there's somewhere in the middle to be met.
The "invisible hand of the free market" is supposed to illustrate the effect that competition has on capitalism. Over the last 30-40 years, so-called capitalists in the republican party have actually done all they could to eliminate competition rather than foster it.
The "invisible hand of the free market" is what gets you 6 different cell phone providers to choose from, instead of being stuck with Verizon and whatever they feel like charging you (and without that invisible hand, trust me, they'd be charging several times more). It is only when there is competition that capitalism works. Literally all our current complaints about "capitalism" come from the fruits of eliminating competition. This is why medical costs are so ruinous - it was a completely free and open market, full of competition and low in cost, until government used wartime wage freezes to bring about the idea of medical insurance as alternate employer compensation. A few hundred backroom deals, mergers, takeovers, lobbyists, and campaign donations later, and we find that the frog is now in extremely hot water.
Granted, there are a lot of so-called libertarians that also forget that competition is the engine that makes capitalism (and libertarian economic theory) work, which is where you get the people Blots and Ravenpoe are talking about. I don't agree with those guys. I think the breaking up of Ma Bell and giving birth to the competition in the "long distance" telephone service market was probably the most libertarian thing a huge and powerful federal government could have done - made private enterprise compete against itself.
Well, there are a lot of people who say that there's a difference between Libertarians (capital L, meaning the political party) and libertarians (little L, meaning adherents to the political philosophy). And I'll be the first to admit I'm not as "radical" a libertarian as I once was, and I also see that in the short term, we're too far in one direction in some areas to just immediately toss everything and go back to private sector solutions in one step. For example, the aforementioned cost of medical care problem. The medical industry has been so deeply entrenched in anticompetitive practices at this point that even I can see single payer is inevitable and probably the only short term solution to improve things within the next decade or two - but I can also see further than that, where if we don't engineer a return to capitalism in an environment where competition forces all concerned to keep striving to deliver better service at lower cost to the consumer, we'll end up with a national health care system that rivals the VA for horrifying incompetence and inadequacy.
If that makes me have to forfeit my libertarian registration card, then so be it.
GasBandit
Staff member
Well, we have recently seemly decided, in the name of political money, that corporations are people.
So, it seems to me we'd already previously decided that it was illegal for people to buy/own one another.... so really the problem here is we just have insufficient enforcement of existing law, yes?
I see most of you saying that other parties/ideologies are corrupt, or inept, or power-hungry, etc. But when it comes to describing your own position, you immediately describe the “ideal” version of that political party.
“Democrats want to take your freedoms! Republicans only care about making the rich get richer! But Libertarianism is supposed to...”
Democrats suck because they tend to be spineless, and tend to push an oppressive groupthink. Republicans tend to favor corporate oligarchies and policies that screw over working class people. Libertarians become heartless anarcho-capitalists. Socialists crush innovation and motivation as they descend into authoritarianism or financially unsustainable social systems. Green politicians tend to be wildly unrealistic to the point of being ridiculous. I could go on and on.
The problem is people. Every one of these parties has an idea of how to help, and a genuine desire to make the world a better place. And each one falls short in some way because the people who run them are flawed, and those flaws taint the whole movement.
It’s not that the ______ Party is bad. The idea of ______ Party probably has merit. But as long as people are fallible and every party is made up of people, the ______ Party is going to fuck things up.
“Democrats want to take your freedoms! Republicans only care about making the rich get richer! But Libertarianism is supposed to...”
Democrats suck because they tend to be spineless, and tend to push an oppressive groupthink. Republicans tend to favor corporate oligarchies and policies that screw over working class people. Libertarians become heartless anarcho-capitalists. Socialists crush innovation and motivation as they descend into authoritarianism or financially unsustainable social systems. Green politicians tend to be wildly unrealistic to the point of being ridiculous. I could go on and on.
The problem is people. Every one of these parties has an idea of how to help, and a genuine desire to make the world a better place. And each one falls short in some way because the people who run them are flawed, and those flaws taint the whole movement.
It’s not that the ______ Party is bad. The idea of ______ Party probably has merit. But as long as people are fallible and every party is made up of people, the ______ Party is going to fuck things up.
GasBandit
Staff member
"Government didn't do this, people did this." - Simon
"A government is a body of people usually notably ungoverned. " - Shepherd Book
GasBandit
Staff member
I'd definitely entertain the idea of abolishing them.
Finally getting to the root of the problem, i see...
That would work as well as abolishing corporations, or any other assembly of people.
What you want to do is incentivize temporary groupings for clear goals instead of permanent ones for the sole goal of making sure you maximize your chance of winning elections.
Memorizing shit isn't what makes you smart, dumbass...
Or the smartest thing on the planet would be the biggest hard disk drive we have.
Which put you ahead of most people already...
And since we're talking smart and not genius...
I'll let you figure it out...
I get your point guys.
In my defense the smartest people I know are like walking computational mainframes, so my optics on the matter are skewed. I just don't see myself as vastly intelligent, but I guess in truth I got an average enough allocation of points into INT and might have skipped out on my WIS state instead.
In my defense the smartest people I know are like walking computational mainframes, so my optics on the matter are skewed. I just don't see myself as vastly intelligent, but I guess in truth I got an average enough allocation of points into INT and might have skipped out on my WIS state instead.
GasBandit
Staff member
IE, abolish first past the post in favor of Instant Runoff, yeah?
I'll call you a dumbass if it makes you feel better. It's one of my many services
On the one hand I agree. On the other hand, there's a dangerous path to "they're all equally incompetent" there.
All parties eventually either melt away into centrism or move to extremism, I guess, but there's still a difference between "we're going to plant a trillion trees and whoops, it backfired, we're all eating venison and pine cones for the next year" and "were going to kill off everyone with a skin tone darker than X, force all women into sexual slavery, and kill off as many species as we can because fuck 'm".
Mind that despite my example, I'm well aware an extreme left wing can be nearly as bad as an extreme right wing - and that neither Russia nor China are in any way left wing, these days.
Sure. We're an off ramp on one of the Berlin - Paris Autobahns
Well yeah, replacing FPTP is the 1st step.
But you also have to make sure people learn not to just vote for a party like they're supporting their sports team.
You know, as much as the Supreme Court getting stacked conservative bothers me, I actually have little fear they will overturn Roe v Wade. The Republican's have been using "Pro-Life" as a rallying cry for decades now, and the ones in power are never going to want to lose it as a motivator on their voters. It will always be close to being overturned, but then something will happen to delay or keep it and the cycle will repeat.
Could it happen? Well, yes, anything can, and I may be wrong, but I just don't see it happening. Most of them don't actually care about abortion outside of what it does for them politically.
Could it happen? Well, yes, anything can, and I may be wrong, but I just don't see it happening. Most of them don't actually care about abortion outside of what it does for them politically.
They 100% will overturn it if given the chance. Ignoring the fact that I'm betting many of them are anti-abortion, the Republcians have been dangling this for evangelicals for so long. If they don't deliver now that they have their ultra-conservative court, they could actually lose them. Overturning Roe V Wade just leaves it for the states. The next step will be a federal ban.
You may be right, I guess there is a diminishing return on how far it can take them, we just going to have to wait and see when the trigger gets pulled.
John Frederick Jeffords. The greatest hero the American right has ever had, the counter - MLK, the perfect combination of Hitler and JFK.
You've never heard of him, though, because he was killed in the womb by the left.
Only thing that comes to mind off the top of my head was the assassination of Leo Ryan on the order of Jim Jones at the beginning of the Jonestown Massacre in 1978. About as far left as you can get, but Ryan was a Democrat. The killings of Milk and Mayor Moscone were barely a week later. It was a horrific ten days in San Francisco.
They didn't use to care before, and they'll stop caring once their cult leaders let them again: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133
That's also why it's always different when it comes to their own abortions, when it shouldn't be if they really believe it's murder.
Most only care about being seen as righteous, not actually being so. That's why people like Trump and all those televangelists are so successful with them.
Bill Barr just admitted there is no evidence of fraud that would overturn the election. Rudy and company are already sending out press releases saying he only sees no evidence because he isn't investigating. Barr called to the White House. Trump supporters once again claim 6D Chess in that Barr saying there is no evidence of fraud means he is trying to make Democratic leaders put their guard down so "The Storm" can come and Trump named the winner. Add on the Michigan "hearing" where the Republican lawmakers are finally asking why the witnesses are not making their statements to court or the DOJ, plus the fact Trump is basically telling Republicans in Georgia not to vote, and this administration just keeps on imploding.
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figmentPez
Staff member
Fred Rogers can't be the only genuine pastor on television, right?
These days... He's the only one I've come across.
One the one hand my heart breaks because they shouldn't be going through that.
On the other hand, it reminds me how many people have already been dealing with stuff like this for years (AOC gets constant death and sexual threats, Gov Whitmer was going to be kidnapped and executed, etc.) and it's only seems to become a problem now that Republicans are doing it to each other.
On the other hand, it reminds me how many people have already been dealing with stuff like this for years (AOC gets constant death and sexual threats, Gov Whitmer was going to be kidnapped and executed, etc.) and it's only seems to become a problem now that Republicans are doing it to each other.