Saffire

Haha, well the problem is they DO work together! Way too often. The parties are basically the same at this point, they only pretend to fight. It's like professional wrestling.

The problem is that empirical evidence shows this to be false - the more regulations and taxes a government imposes, the worse the economy gets for the average person. If you look at the most "economically free" countries in the world, they tend to have the highest quality of life in the world: http://www.heritage.org/index/ What you're describing here are academic distinctions, which are artificial. I'm a Rothbardian/Misesian Austrian, which is a branch of economics that doesn't make this artificial distinction. Only individuals act, and therefore only individuals have goals which are unique to themselves. When a person acts within a group to effectuate change, they are doing so because they think that change will help themselves in the long term. Right, and many jobs in the buggy industry were lost when Ford started mass-producing cars. Those workers shifted to producing other things that were more in-demand at the time, like oil and leather. You can't freeze time and force employers to keep unproductive jobs, in the same way you can't force employers to continue producing goods/services that aren't in demand. There's nothing "magic" about a market economy. It involves the individual decisions of millions of different people, all trying to provide things consumers demand. What you're trying to do is override these signals and replace them with government fiat. The government could employ everyone in America (in theory) by just printing up the money (or taxing it away from the productive class) and then using it to pay for workers to dig ditches and fill them back up again. But this work is unproductive - it's not actually in demand by consumers.

Exactly. All arguments in favor of bailouts are favoring the existing power structure. If the existing power structure doesn't add value to society, it isn't worth keeping around. There's an easy way to know if a business or institution is adding value to society - just ask yourself, "is it profitable?" If not, then it shouldn't exist. It's a waste of scarce resources that could be better-used in another way.

Why don't you listen to what people have to say instead of calling names? Do you even understand how bankruptcy works? Employees aren't always fired during a bankruptcy. And the goal of an economy isn't to create jobs. It's to produce goods and services that consumers demand.

There are currently only two Republican presidential candidates who can even tie with Obama in national polls (in theoretical matchups): Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. And they're the only two candidates that have the money necessary to continue their campaigns all the way to the Republican convention in August. Mitt Romney's top donor is Goldman Sachs. So is Obama's (behind the University of California). Ron Paul is an anti-war Republican who's consistently polling between 16 and 25% among Republicans. Think about that! He's tearing the party apart from the inside, and that's why they're desperate for him to associate himself with a third party. I suspect this isn't his plan. Even if Romney is the eventual nominee (which is yet to be seen), Paul likely won't run third party. And Romney likely (hopefully) will lose the general election to Obama. This will pave the way for his son, Rand Paul, to win the Republican nomination in 2016. Assuming we're still holding elections then.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR7aIzII5LU]NDAA Military Detention of US Citizens Breaks Through to Major Media. Not American One, the BBC. - YouTube[/ame]

Chuck, please don't view me as a total pessimist. I am a government-skeptic (anarchist, even) but I do think that decentralized government is superior to big, centralized government. So I look to a country like Switzerland or Liechtenstein as good examples of small governments. Even Denmark, with it's massive government-spending (as a % of GDP) is preferable to me over America's massive geographic area/population. Democracy is a "signal system" which doesn't work quite as accurately as the voluntary price system of the market, but it can... function (for a time). I believe it functions best on smaller scales.

I guess it's better than forcing people to pay for unnecessary wars, but it still amounts to a tax to be given directly to the political machine itself. Chuck, I find it interesting/ironic you're not a huge fan of Ron Paul. After all, he has raised the most money in individual donations. And he leads all the other candidates in military donations (times two!). Power to the people, as you like to say.

This guy is funny and smart, but he doesn't follow his own advice. He was burned by the MF Global collapse after telling everyone to own physical precious metals. I think the best indication that police-state fascism is inevitable in America is Ron Paul's treatment in the corporate-owned media. And now all indications are pointing to an effort to ensure he doesn't win the Iowa caucuses. For instance, the actual vote count will occur in Springfield, Illinois, in an undisclosed location.

Good point, there will always be those with different interpretations of laws. The key is perception about the role of government in society. Skeptics will always warn people about government overreach, while the faithful will always shrug it off.

No, because the government (all governments) are physically capable of doing whatever they want - they've got nukes, and a monopoly of force in their geographic area - but this law codifies their desired actions in an effort to "normalize" them, which helps governments avoid wide scale conflict with their subjects. Government actions are arbitrary because they are divorced from market demand, so they need rituals and symbols to convince the market participants (who abide by the social norms) that their actions are not arbitrary.

Correct, the way the government works here is thus: there needs to be a victim of a law/government action in order for there to be a case against the law/government action. So in theory, the government can write/pass whatever laws it pleases, and the people aren't allowed to challenge them unless and until someone actually has "standing" (a claim of victimization) to bring the case to court. I'm not sure how one would go about that when they're already in military custody, though.

Right, the US is currently setting up a marine base in Australia to protect us from China. We're paying for it with money we borrowed from the Chinese. I think the PATRIOT Act was mostly about spying and wiretapping, whereas this is mainly an effort to make it easier for the government to bypass due process (public trials, defense attorneys, etc).

Yeah berrywoman, it's frightening how these things slip by because the media is too busy talking about celebrities/sports/etc. Bread and circuses... "Keep Calm and Carry On"...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgKfS74hVvQ]Aim High: Using Thorium Energy to Address Environmental Prob - YouTube[/ame] This is pretty cool, he's got a PhD in High Energy Physics, so he's fairly reputable. And he explains it for non-nuclear physics majors.

This isn't true. There are many examples of libertarian policies being implemented and working effectively. For instance: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjuvXdqKM0M]Glenn Greenwald on Drug Decriminalization in Portugal - YouTube[/ame] and [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5bfQrfTZJM]When Governments Cut Spending - YouTube[/ame] [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo0h_AR_lJM]Does stimulus spending work? - YouTube[/ame] This is true, but we believe this is the case because it's a fallacy that the government is an "outside" agent. Government is comprised of individuals who are members of the society itself. So governments are just self-interested monopolists of coercion. We have a neutral view of the market itself. The "free market" is merely individuals trading. We have a negative view of coercion. There are no alternative "brands" of logic. Unless you use physical force against peaceful people in your own personal life, you are acting as a libertarian. You might espouse views in favor of statism, though. And taxation. Again: any argument in favor of coercion against peaceful people is just "might makes right". Only individuals act. Human beings are biologically independent, and economically interdependent. Wrong. Libertarians enjoy the idea of decentralization and sovereignty. We value experimentation in various types of governance and rule sets. Statists use force to squash those who wish to live under different rules. Pot calling Kettle black.

Right, it's much easier to just kill them with a drone. :) Aww traditions! Values! It would also break the law: the US Constitution. Oh, and now I've got two 4-star generals who agree with my interpretation of the bill. :)

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/with-reservations-obama-signs-act-to-allow-detention-of-citizens/ I'm feeling safer already.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbtVk8r6-3U]Charles Holden - Liquid Fueled Thorium Reactor 40 Megawatt Pilot Plant Outline @ TEAC3 - YouTube[/ame]

Then you convince others that your morality is correct and results in greater happiness for everyone. But it's not productive to make threats against peaceful people, because this arrangement is simply "might makes right". Efficiency at producing what? I do value efficiency (because I think waste is bad). But how do we know what is wasteful? How do we know what's efficient? We base these assessments on the end-goal of production. How do we know what to produce? We can know based on what people are willing to pay for (voluntarily). The second force enters into the equation (taxation, regulation, etc), the connection between consumers and producers is severed. The producers are rewarded for being wasteful, and end up spending a lot of money on attracting politicians and trying to get them elected.

Hey Michael, welcome to the forum. I took APUSH also in high school, there are a lot of really interesting things most teachers and textbooks don't cover... Lincoln's malfeasance ranks near the top.

The Constitution was written under the pretense that the Union was voluntary, not enforced. The states created the Federal Government. No state would have joined the union had it known in advance that it was not a voluntary union. But besides that, Lincoln conscripted young men (read: Enslaved) to fight for him in his war. Most Northerners believed the Southern states had a right to secede, so Lincoln imprisoned the newspaper editors who disagreed with him. He also suspended Habeus Corpus, and even sent a politician who disagreed with him overseas. He threatened to bomb the Maryland legislature if they voted to secede. Here's a good interview explaining why Lincoln wasn't such a great guy: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbFty9nZUac]Abraham Lincoln | Thomas J. DiLorenzo - YouTube[/ame]

Oh I completely agree, Kiame! I would only ask that you not advocate violence against peaceful people who disagree with you. :) EDIT: He was actually one of the worst violators of the Constitution in my nation's history.

These arguments appear to be semantical, rather than contributing to the ethics/economics discussion.