Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The Political Discussion Thread

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    #31
    Originally posted by jmoz View Post
    Yea, I agree with you on that, overpopulation and such. There you go another topic of discussion: overpopulation.

    Sorry, hasty reply. I have to disagree with some things though. If some advanced aliens saw us as animals, by your reasoning, its ok for them to hunt us as long as it doesn't effect our species as a whole. I guess the discrepancy comes when one attempts to set parameters of effecting a species as a whole.

    Sorry the market/economy/charity stuff is too dense for me. I'll just offer an opinion. Free market works initially, but then it becomes more totalitarianistic. You get the rise of rich and wealthy individual. And you try to say that they earned it through their own hard work and whatnot. Sure, some actors and entertainment related people earned their wealth through hard work. But vast majority earned their wealth due to their vanity, inheritance, and whatnot. You honestly cannot be arguing that they earned their wealth.

    And the whole concept of materialistic wealth is not very moralistic, now is it? What does wealth imply? It essentially means you have more than someone else. There will always be that discrepancy. You having more than someone else if wealth exists. In order for you to have wealth, someone has to have less than you to give rise to the concept of wealth.

    And about charity, I'll bring up Peter Singer. He's a prolific philosopher. In one of his works, he establishes what moral duty is:

    If you see a child drowning, you would save the child, would you not?

    That's your moral duty. And he goes on further to say that moral duty should not be limited to your proximity or immediate physical exertion. You can fulfill your moral duty by donating money. That is akin to saving that child.

    And the point he makes is that charity is going beyond your moral duty. It is going beyond just saving that child. It is finding out why that child was drowning, giving that child swimming lessons, etc. He definitely makes a distinction between what our moral duty should be and what charity should be. Charity should be going beyond what is and already should be our moral duty. So what you're describing as charity is not really charity according to Singer, that's just your moral obligation.
    who's to say that the person that gave away the wealth to inherit didn't work for it? as laborers who produce wealth it is the laborer's right to do with it as he pleases.....if he wants to pass it on to his son....esp. for the purpose of paying for things like college....who are we to stop him.....so yeah....while the person who inherited the wealth didn't work for it......the person whom he inherited it from most likely did....and what I was describing as Charity is almost exactly like what Singer describes......in short singer is describing charity the same way I was....helping the needy help themselves.....giving the needy assistance in basic needs while also doing what you can to teach them skills which they can take to the job market is equivalent to what singer says about first saving the child and then addresing why the child was drowning in the first place

    and the free-market is never totalitarian......the more you labor the more wealth you produce.....nothing totalitarian in that concept....yeah...some people become very wealthy.....but having wealth is not in and of itself intrinsically evil as long as they came by it honestly...either by working for it or by inheriting it from people who worked for it honestly (i.e., stolen wealth would be very wrong to possess).....and the only thing we have the right to do in terms of a nation based on civil liberties is strongly ENCOURAGE, not DEMAND, that if a person is able to financially, to help the needy. Yeah most religions treat giving to the poor as a moral obligation, but again an obligation you only need to fulfill if you are in a fiscal position to do so....and while one may not have financial wealth they may have a wealth of time and/or talent....which are also good tolls in helping the needy.....it's why the biggest donors financially tend to be church-goers....but because of the prevailing notion that the needy don't deserve help, but a livelihood handed to them on a silver platter, the government confiscates more and more of what wealth we produce...leaving such church-going people with less and less in their pockets for charitable endeavors

    Comment


      #32
      Originally posted by jmoz View Post
      Sorry, hasty reply. I have to disagree with some things though. If some advanced aliens saw us as animals, by your reasoning, its ok for them to hunt us as long as it doesn't effect our species as a whole.
      Can you give a real life example of this? What if scenarios this unrealistic tend display weakness in a position.

      Originally posted by jmoz View Post
      I guess the discrepancy comes when one attempts to set parameters of effecting a species as a whole.
      Do you eat fish?
      sigpic

      Comment


        #33
        Originally posted by Womble View Post
        And therefore, logically, free market supplemented by regulation to mitigate the downsides is the best option.


        Yes, but do they give enough to actually offset the need for government-sponsored healthcare?

        If you're going to claim that private charity is a viable substitute to government welfare, it's not enough to merely show that people donate money. You have to prove that the amount of wealth privately donated to charities would exceed the amount currently invested in government welfare. But is that the case? If the conservatives had their way on welfare and taxes, would they actually donate as much to charity as they currently pay in taxes?

        The problem with your first post is that you're trying to free-float between the economic and the moralistic arguments, and even throw political arguments into the mix. "The world doesn't owe you a living" is not an economic argument that shows free market as superior; it's a sanctimonious proclamation that people who are poor and starving should get over it, go out and get a job. The talk about how "in this system control lies with the citizenry" is not economic talk; it's purely political talk. So let's quit the misdirection and separate the steaks from the flies, shall we?

        Economy wise, unregulated free market is superior... for a while. Wealth is invested (mostly) based on economic merit, initiative is (mostly) rewarded, social mobility is (mostly) encouraged, intelligent and hardworking people (sometimes) get rich. So long as the market factors are the only factors in play, it all works more or less smoothly. Then what?

        Then wealth begins to accumulate in the upper tier, and the free market begins to undo its own advances. You can't start small anymore. With exceedingly rare exceptions, it is no longer possible to succeed by opening a coffee shop or a bookstore, because the market is saturated and big companies control most of it. They can take more losses than you can, and that allows them to force you out of the market by lowering their prices long enough for you to go bankrupt, then crank the prices WAY up and recoup their losses at the consumer's expense. Suddenly you need money to make money. If you weren't born into money, your chances of making it into the first tier are slim to none. There goes the social mobility.

        Then there is the employer-employee conflict. Employers want maximum profit for minimum investment, so they want to pay workers less and invest less into maintaining safe and proper working conditions. They also want to be able to fire anyone, for any reason, at any time. During the Industrial revolition- the height of laissez-faire, unregulated industrial freedoms- it made children the ideal workers because they could be paid 20% of an adult's wage, they ate less and they were easier to control as a workforce. In the early 1800-s, for 30% of all British families, children aged 4-13 were the breadwinners, working up to 16 hours a day in factories, agriculture and coal mines. In some industries- like cotton mills- up to two-thirds of all workers were children. Eventually, the British government intervened and put legal limits on this mess. Which was terrible, of course. Nobody owed those children a living. Those meddling government regulators never let the free market work its magic, do they?

        Or, for that matter, take the phenomenon of mining towns, entirely dependend on a single large company for livelyhood.

        Then there's the increasing cost of professional education, which prevents people from getting even into the second tier. When education is treated as a commodity that must be bought at a fair market price, it creates a self-perpetuating cycle of poverty and kills social mobility on the spot. I know an American family- a white, non-immigrant family- whose child is the first member of the family to go to college- because they are the first generation of their family who can afford the costs of education. When you start off poor and all your sweat, blood and tears doesn't earn enough to send your children to college, your society has a big nasty problem that cannot be handwaved away as "nobody owes you a living on a silver platter".

        Bottom line is, free market only truly works when government intervention provides and maintains a fertile soil for it to grow in. Healthcare, education, workers' rights, defense and welfare cannot be left to the mercy of the market because without them, the free market runs itself into stagnation and drags the society into the abyss.
        it's not a sanctimonious argument.....earning your own money is the natural antidote for poverty.....you'd be correct if the free-market capitalism were based on greed, like the economic system on Ferenginar is....to use a sci-fi example....their free-market system does not allow for the rise of businesses whose business it is to provide for basic humanitarian needs, education being one of these basic needs....our free-market system DOES allow for the rise of these non-profit businesses....and most likely once unshackled from government welfare, church-goers and other conservatives probably wouldn't even need to donate as much to provide the same level of service....because a lot of non-profits use volunteers on their staff....so that's less people to be paid....some people in the non-profit....like the person who started it might take away a stipend for themselves but only because it's their full-time life's work whereas volunteers tend to be part time.....government by contrast uses a bunch of very-highly paid czars to accomplish the same task...or try to anyway but usually a politician's natural longing for power winds up getting in the way

        some non-profits are very well-prepared already....like Catholic Charities, they already have one of the largest, if not the largest, nationwide presence and even an extensive international presence.....and the list of services Catholic Charities provide may vary slightly from area to area but it still usually tends to be as long as my arm.....just think how much more they could do if the people who would like to donate weren't shackled by costly government mandates....simply put....we need to receive tangible fruit for our labor.....this is a concept as old as the time depicted in the Book of Genesis.....because of the Fall of Man....we blew our shot at a utopian paradise on earth.....now the only way we can get something is to work for it

        Comment


          #34
          and the argument that the wealth tends to become heavily concentrated amongst a small elite population is disingenuous at best....yeah...I won't deny that there exist people who subscribe to Ebenezer Scrooge's way of thinking....but thankfully the Scrooges of the world tend to be in the minority......the majority of the wealthy are surprisingly generous.....when given the chance to be generous on their own terms, not on the government's that is

          Comment


            #35
            Originally posted by mad_gater View Post
            and the argument that the wealth tends to become heavily concentrated amongst a small elite population is disingenuous at best....yeah...I won't deny that there exist people who subscribe to Ebenezer Scrooge's way of thinking....but thankfully the Scrooges of the world tend to be in the minority......the majority of the wealthy are surprisingly generous.....when given the chance to be generous on their own terms, not on the government's that is
            Indeed... of the top of my head, you would be surprised (or not) to find out how much money Bill Gates gives to charity. I mean, for starters, there's the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
            sigpic
            Don't touch Lola

            Comment


              #36
              and therefore, logically, regulation would make matters WORSE......because government involvement in the private sector only serves to eventually increase the cost of goods and services.....this is because the government does not produce nor innovate, it only regulates....and it costs the government money to enforce such regulations.....so companies by necessity would eventually have to start increasing the cost of their goods and services to pay for this government oversight....frankly a system where were free to conduct business knowing that both parties, company and consumer, are held accountable to the same set of fair and just judicial laws is all the regulation we need

              but in the end people like you are just content to repeat history.....cuz if you actually learned from it you would understand that socialism has no place in any society...every country that has tried it grinds to a halt and collapses on itself

              Comment


                #37
                Originally posted by mad_gater View Post
                but in the end people like you are just content to repeat history.....cuz if you actually learned from it you would understand that socialism has no place in any society...every country that has tried it grinds to a halt and collapses on itself
                "People like you?" ...
                sigpic
                Don't touch Lola

                Comment


                  #38
                  Originally posted by Rickington View Post
                  "People like you?" ...
                  not you personally, but the people here that act like Brezhnev-era Apparatchiks just touting the party line that government is always good and the bigger government gets the better it is for everyone...even when faced with undeniable common sense truth to the contrary

                  Comment


                    #39
                    Originally posted by mad_gater View Post
                    it's not a sanctimonious argument.....earning your own money is the natural antidote for poverty....
                    Two words: working poor.

                    you'd be correct if the free-market capitalism were based on greed, like the economic system on Ferenginar is....to use a sci-fi example....their free-market system does not allow for the rise of businesses whose business it is to provide for basic humanitarian needs, education being one of these basic needs....our free-market system DOES allow for the rise of these non-profit businesses...
                    "Non-profit business" is a contradiction of terms.

                    Yes, businesses donate to charities. No, not all of them and not most of them. Nor do they always, or usually, do so out of the goodness of their heart. Most do so because they get tax breaks for it (in other words, because the government stimulates them towards philanthropy), often while getting rid of substandard products or stuff they couldn't sell by donating it and thereby cutting disposal costs. Another reason they donate to charity is public relations: Gates, in particular, was largely forced to establish the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation by the mounting public pressure.

                    Still, how does what Gates donates to charity compare to what he pays in taxes?

                    some non-profits are very well-prepared already....like Catholic Charities, they already have one of the largest, if not the largest, nationwide presence and even an extensive international presence.....and the list of services Catholic Charities provide may vary slightly from area to area but it still usually tends to be as long as my arm.....
                    And it is still not enough to cover all the needs of the needy. It never was, not even when the Church was infinitely wealthier than it is today.

                    just think how much more they could do if the people who would like to donate weren't shackled by costly government mandates
                    Why the need for guesswork? Let's look back in history, to the fairly recent time when those evil government regulations were not yet in place. Back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, or to the Old West that libertarians so love to fetishize. Were the poor better off than now, or were they worse off? Did more people starve to death or did less? Did charity cover the basic needs of all people, or did it not?

                    The very reason why Marxist ideas spread like wildfire in the late 19th century and why the superpowers of that day were nearly swept away by worker revolts was because the lassez-faire attitude was approaching the point of disaster. Marx was as mad as a hatter when it came to predicting the future, but he did a decent job describing the state of things during his own time.
                    If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.- Abba Eban.

                    Comment


                      #40
                      I never said I was against labor laws.....cuz the free-market system we use is one in which we're free to conduct business as wee see fit as long as no crimes are being committed.....and what those people way back when did was a crime by any stretch of the imagination....although even the free-market would help in this instance too.....if a company commits such crimes what we're free to do is conduct a boycott of the business which would directly attack this company's bottom line....and in general boycotts tend to be pretty successful.....so basically a company that works its employees to the bone and doesn't give them a reward proportionate to their investment of time in the company usually goes out of business eventually as potential consumers catch wind of it and refuse to do business with said company......as less and less people of good will simply refuse to purchase the company's goods/services, the company will eventually go belly-up....so we really don't need the government to deal with that kind of crime either.....the solution is much more simple than that if you know of any companies that are doing such things to their employees.....organize a boycott

                      Comment


                        #41
                        basically you think us conservatives are against any type of government regulation whatsoever which is false....us conservatives are not into anarchy...we recognize that we need a certain amount of government in order to fairly and justly keep the peace....and to that end fair and just labor laws that prevent employee abuse would constitute a measure of fair and just government regulation I'm comfortable with......our society is unique.......quite possibly the only one left that holds businessmen, consumers, and employees all to the same set of fair and just laws that are there to provide for the natural dignity of human persons

                        Comment


                          #42
                          so yes I'm all for labor laws as long as they don't reach beyond the scope of their intent, which is to prevent employee abuse and to prevent minors from being exploited as a cheap labor source

                          Comment


                            #43
                            that should be the only extent to which government is involved in business....government should not tell ANY people how much money they are allowed to make.....this goes for both employers and employees....and they should not be telling employer how much to pay employees.....how much money an employer pays an employee should be the result of a fair negotiation between employer and employee........with the requisite documentation showing that the wages were a result of mutual agreement

                            Comment


                              #44
                              Originally posted by Rickington View Post
                              "People like you?" ...
                              This is a common enough practice in any sort of debate, but one I've seen used more frequently in political debates. I've taken it to mean "people that don't agree with my position" and it seems to get levelled wholesale at everyone the particular debater sees as being, rightly or wrongly, on "the other side". It's seldom anywhere near being accurate, if that helps

                              Originally posted by Womble View Post
                              ...

                              The very reason why Marxist ideas spread like wildfire in the late 19th century and why the superpowers of that day were nearly swept away by worker revolts was because the lassez-faire attitude was approaching the point of disaster. Marx was as mad as a hatter when it came to predicting the future, but he did a decent job describing the state of things during his own time.
                              There's a lot of truth in that. If everything was just going along swimmingly, there wouldn't have been the environment where Marxism (or whatever ism we're talking about in whatever era, running the gamut of the spectrum) would take hold. I'm sure a small section of the population was doing just fine
                              sigpic


                              SGU-RELATED FANART | IN YOUNG WE TRUST | FANDUMB

                              Comment


                                #45
                                Originally posted by mad_gater View Post
                                and therefore, logically, regulation would make matters WORSE......because government involvement in the private sector only serves to eventually increase the cost of goods and services.....this is because the government does not produce nor innovate, it only regulates....and it costs the government money to enforce such regulations.....so companies by necessity would eventually have to start increasing the cost of their goods and services to pay for this government oversight....frankly a system where were free to conduct business knowing that both parties, company and consumer, are held accountable to the same set of fair and just judicial laws is all the regulation we need
                                So, should the British Factory Acts I wrote about earlier have been repealed?

                                but in the end people like you are just content to repeat history.....cuz if you actually learned from it you would understand that socialism has no place in any society...every country that has tried it grinds to a halt and collapses on itself
                                "You people"? What the heck do you know about me that allows you to make wild assumptions and lump me together with God knows whom?

                                I was born in the former USSR. You think I don't know the flaws of the Socialist system? I could tell you any number of horror stories about it that would blow your mind. Some of the stuff my parents tell me is hard even for me to believe.

                                But you know what? I still call horse manure at your fetishization of free market. When I talk to my American friends, the stuff they tell me horrifies me no less than what I witnessed in Russia. One of my friends is currently ill, has been for a week, and she still won't go to the doctor because it's too expensive. She isn't an illegal immigrant, she isn't on welfare, either; she is a university-educated, fully employed citizen of the world's only superpower with lower middle class income level. That, my friend, is bloody insane. You can extoll the virtues of market freedom for hours and it will still be insane.

                                I live in Israel, mad-gater. We have socialized healthcare. Smarter organized than in Britain, but socialized nevertheless. Our life expectancy is three years longer than yours, our infant mortality is lower than yours, and we spend several times less on healthcare than you do. That makes your private healthcare woefully inefficient in market terms. Even the biggest fans of free market here- and I am quite a fan of economic freedom within reasonable limits- don't believe that healthcare should be a commodity one buys at market price. It just doesn't make economic sense.

                                We weathered the recession much better than the US did, too. You know why? Because we had strict banking regulation. Our government is headed by a US-educated Prime Minister who is a committed advocate of privatization- but he is also a committed enemy of over-concentrated wealth because he knows that it suffocates competition. Most of the losses Israel took was because of the decline of the US economy, since you happen to be our most important trading partner and your banks were having fun with their freedom.
                                If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.- Abba Eban.

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X