Question About Operation of Small Government

Individual

1-9

LOL in other words you have no counter arguments so you are just going to ignore it.

Also if you had read the pieces 9or even skimmed over them) you would have realised they were not related to the oligarchy question but to the class interests question. Could you please try and keep up.

OK – an oligarchy is where a few have power – you haven’t disputed that - in the main only 10% of the population had the vote and you don’t dispute that – and many posts had a higher property qualification so basically over 90 percent of Americans had no say in what the government of the time did, I think that could be described as an oligarchy if not what was it?

3, 4, 5, Lets see what were they about…oh yes you wanting to have a qualification on the right to vote

And you haven’t answered yet so yet again I’ll ask - what type of qualification would you impose on the right to vote?

LOL Maybe that’s the problem you have only the basic knowledge picked up at school -)

Seriously you need to approach the subject with more of an open mind rather than seeing it through the prism of bias and prejudice, take for example the links I gave you earlier rather than giving them due consideration you ‘skimmed’ them and then without even a counter argument dismissed them. And that to me seems to be your whole approach to these issues, rather lazy and slipshod

And here is another example of what I’ve just pointed out.

If you had actually read what I’d said rather than seeing it through the prism of your own prejudices and bias you would known I didn’t compare the Soviet constitution and communist form of government with that of the US.

What I did say is that both are examples of a republic with a constitution. I also pointed out that constitutional republics can be very different that they can be democratic or oligarchic for example.

But US history is full of examples of people being persecuted, slaves, black people after emancipation, native Americans, those with nonconformist political view, and so on.

You probably would and again it is an example of your deep seated bias and prejudice that makes you intolerant of differing views to your own.

Lets see what was 6 about… “And it can be exactly the same in a constitutional republic, I mean in a republic with a constitution that happens to be an oligarchy it would be ‘great’ to be part of the minority with power”

So you see the US as an oligarchy?

OH my giddy aunts – it was a quote, quite a famous quote actually about democracy and you were attacking democracy and I said that my view was similar to Churchill’s and quoted Churchill on democracy.

What was strange bordering on the bizarre was your statement implying Churchill wasn’t relevant because he wasn’t an American. A statement I’m still waiting for you to explain.

What did you find that in a fortune cookie? I mean come on its meaningless in the context of what’s been said (and out of it).

If you haven’t a counter argument shouldn’t you be asking yourself why you don’t, or is that bias and prejudice getting in the way again?

So you’ve basically a Social Darwinist?

 

Individual

9- 14

I think you should read The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby.

Here is a bit from a review –
On one level this is easy to answer. Ignorant politicians are elected by ignorant people. US education, like the US health system, is notorious for its failures. In the most powerful nation on earth, one adult in five believes the sun revolves around the earth; only 26% accept that evolution takes place by means of natural selection; two-thirds of young adults are unable to find Iraq on a map; two-thirds of US voters cannot name the three branches of government; the maths skills of 15 year-olds in the US are ranked 24th out of the 29 countries of the OECD(3).
But this merely extends the mystery: how did so many US citizens become so dumb, and so suspicious of intelligence? Susan Jacoby’s book The Age of American Unreason provides the fullest explanation I have read so far. She shows that the degradation of US politics results from a series of interlocking tragedies.
One theme is both familiar and clear: religion - in particular fundamentalist religion - makes you stupid. The US is the only rich country in which Christian fundamentalism is vast and growing.
Jacoby shows that there was once a certain logic to its anti-rationalism. During the first few decades after the publication of The Origin of Species, for example, Americans had good reason to reject the theory of natural selection and to treat public intellectuals with suspicion. From the beginning, Darwin’s theory was mixed up in the US with the brutal philosophy - now known as Social Darwinism - of the British writer Herbert Spencer. Spencer’s doctrine, promoted in the popular press with the help of funding from Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and Thomas Edison, suggested that millionaires stood at the top of a scala natura established by evolution. By preventing unfit people from being weeded out, government intervention weakened the nation. Gross economic inequalities were both justifiable and necessary(4).
Darwinism, in other words, became indistinguishable to the public from the most bestial form of laissez-faire economics. Many Christians responded with revulsion. It is profoundly ironic that the doctrine rejected a century ago by such prominent fundamentalists as William Jennings Bryan is now central to the economic thinking of the Christian right. Modern fundamentalists reject the science of Darwinian evolution and accept the pseudoscience of Social Darwinism.
But there were other, more powerful, reasons for the intellectual isolation of the fundamentalists. The US is peculiar in devolving the control of education to local authorities. Teaching in the southern states was dominated by the views of an ignorant aristocracy of planters, and a great educational gulf opened up. “In the South”, Jacoby writes, “what can only be described as an intellectual blockade was imposed in order to keep out any ideas that might threaten the social order.”(5)
The Southern Baptist Convention, now the biggest Protestant denomination in the US, was to slavery and segregation what the Dutch Reformed Church was to apartheid in South Africa. It has done more than any other force to keep the South stupid. In the 1960s it tried to stave off desegregation by establishing a system of private Christian schools and universities. A student can now progress from kindergarten to a higher degree without any exposure to secular teaching. Southern Baptist beliefs pass intact through the public school system as well. A survey by researchers at the University of Texas in 1998 found that one in four of the state’s public school biology teachers believed that humans and dinosaurs lived on earth at the same time(6).
This tragedy has been assisted by the American fetishisation of self-education. Though he greatly regretted his lack of formal teaching, Abraham Lincoln’s career is repeatedly cited as evidence that good education, provided by the state, is unnecessary: all that is required to succeed is determination and rugged individualism. This might have served people well when genuine self-education movements, like the one built around the Little Blue Books in the first half of the 20th century, were in vogue. In the age of infotainment it is a recipe for confusion.
Besides fundamentalist religion, perhaps the most potent reason why intellectuals struggle in elections is that intellectualism has been equated with subversion. The brief flirtation of some thinkers with communism a long time ago has been used to create an impression in the public mind that all intellectuals are communists. Almost every day men like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly rage against the “liberal elites” destroying America.
The spectre of pointy-headed alien subversives was crucial to the election of Reagan and Bush. A genuine intellectual elite - like the neocons (some of them former communists) surrounding Bush - has managed to pitch the political conflict as a battle between ordinary Americans and an over-educated pinko establishment. Any attempt to challenge the ideas of the rightwing elite has been successfully branded as elitism.
Obama has a good deal to offer America, but none of this will come to an end if he wins. Until the great failures of the US education system are reversed or religious fundamentalism withers there will be political opportunities for people, like Bush and Palin, who flaunt their ignorance (George Monbiot)

So are you conceding that it is needed then or do you simply have no counter argument?

I think you should read The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do better by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett

“Income inequality, they show beyond any doubt, is not just bad for those at the bottom but for everyone. More unequal societies are socially dysfunctional across the board. There is more teenage pregnancy, mental illness, higher prison populations, more murders, higher obesity and less numeracy and literacy in more unequal societies. Even the rich report more mental ill health and have lower life expectancies than their peers in less unequal societies.” Will Hutton

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But your argument up to now is that people should only earn financial and other advantages through their own efforts and merit.

If you believe that people should be entitled to advantages they didn’t earn through their own efforts and merit, then your other argument doesn’t hold.

The thing is that many of the reasons why people have achieved things is a direct result of government action brought about through popular movements.

The indentured were protected by laws unlike the slave that replaced them but eventually slavery was ended, later a decent working weeks was fought for and won meaning people had a life outside of work, health and safely laws were fought for in such industries as coal mining so that people didn’t have to work in dangerous or unhealthy conditions, I could go on and on. But the point is many of the things that allow people to improve themselves and their lives come from government action of some type.

Basically the advantages to society outweighed the disadvantages to such people as coal mine owners.

As I said read The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do better by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett

I’m not sure absolute equality is achievable but a more equal society than currently in place in such places as the US could be possible.

Again you’re playing the misdirection card – I said
“This just means you concede that it doesn’t actually matter how big a government is the most important thing is that it governs well and that your only argument against ‘big’ government is not evidence based but all down to your personnel bias and prejudice.”
You stated that you haven’t conceded this but you seem to have done so.

So you’ve gone from one government that had ‘quite a bit of power over’ the inhabitants of the whole country to several ‘governing persons’ that only have some control over bits of the country.

LOL, do you know what back peddling means by any chance?

 

I ask if something is justified and your reply is ‘life isn’t fair’ so to you even if something isn’t justified its still ok because ‘life isn’t fair’?

Should people not have fought against slavery, child labour etc because although not justified they were just part of peoples unfair lives?

I haven’t proportioned any blame, you are the one that said it was the parents fault not me, I’m just pointing out that no person can choose who they are going to be born to, so the baby’s can’t be condemned or congratulated for being born into riches or poverty, it can’t even be blame for the decisions of the parents to have it.

But by the same token neither can if be commended.

A child born into poverty did nothing to deserve the disadvantages associated with it but also the child born into wealth did nothing to deserve the advantages it receives.

I would also commend such parents, but can you blame the baby for a parent’s mistakes?

Your answer at the moment seems to be yes.

Oh I wonder if that would stand up in court

‘Let my client off your honour since much of what occurs in life is not deserved, both good and bad and so things just happen you know, so what the heck it doesn’t really matter so he should just go free ok?”

So the answer to the question - is it justified for a person born into advantage to retain exclusive rights to advantages they didn’t deserve rather than share them with others who through no blame of their own are disadvantaged - Is yes?

So any unearned advantage is justified; anything anyone gets that has nothing to do with their own merit is justified.

The problem with that is it seems to go against a lot of what you’ve said and so deeply (if not catastrophically) undermine your philosophy.

You seem to be saying that things that advantage some are good and right but things that advantage others are bad and wrong? And you are going to base that around wealth, people that have it are entitled to every advantage it brings but those that don’t are not entitled to any advantage that may come from such things as the government programmes you have so often denigrated.

Is that it?

 

Could you narrow this down to a single item at a time, like the operation of small government as the title suggests?
Get one item out of the way and then go on to the next one.

Perhaps that way others may chime in as well.

 

Second grade Political Science Quiz:

There are two types of people in the world, compassionate and stingy. Long ago they formed political parties, name each of those parties?

Now we have a bunch of super stingy people who are pissed off that poor kids can now get their boo boo's fixed. Who are these people?

Extra points essay question: How many TeaBaggers does it take to make a cup of tea, and who pays for the ingredients? (for the first part of this question you will be graded on your imagination since they have never actually accomplished a full cup of tea)

.

 

Recognizing the fact that in any large society government is a necessary evil, my take on the Libertarian view is that governments function should be the protection of individuals from theft, aggression, and fraud. Obviously any government at all requires some funding, so limited taxation is recognized to be necessary.

Free market competition is the most efficient means of providing services, and much less likely to accumulate debt perpetually.
No matter who sponsors the military, the public (taxpayers) must foot the bill.

The problem with any form of government is in constraining it, and keeping it constrained. Who was it that said "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"?

 

Dftt

 

Individual

LOL

I can see why you don’t want to answer; I mean things aren’t going well for your arguments are they, with all the lack of any counter arguments and with your general philosophy fatally undermined.

But it once more begs the question of why you still believe in all this right wing libertarian twaddle, I mean if you can’t defend it from criticism why aren’t you asking yourself why, any rational person I think would be.

 

As pointed out before protection is a vague term that is open to interpretation.
Protection from harm, protection from exploitation, protection from hardship, protection in sickness (all can be argued to involve aspects of extortion and aggression).

I mean if someone is born into power and wealth which gives them protection from exploitation and hardship and another is born into poverty which opens them to exploitation and hardship, then there is in that society an inequality of protection.

The society is benefiting one over the other and if the ones getting the greater benefit are few compared to the others then that society is benefiting the few and not the many?

Again the term ‘limited taxation’ doesn’t explain what you mean, if taxation is so limited that ‘good’ government is impossible then to me you are defeating the object of the game which is the establishment of good governance.
Shouldn’t taxation be set at a level at which it brings good government?

The problem is that there never has been and never will be a ‘free market’ all markets need to be regulated or they can end up causing more harm than good. In public service the public interest should always come first.

The quote is attributed to John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, a rich and powerful nobleman (a Baron) who was a supporter of the Confederacy (and presumably the slave system) in the American civil war.

The thing is that if someone has power they may wish to preserve it, a member of a ruling class may fear something that might limit its power such as a more powerful person or a more powerful group. So they can misdirect people from their own power by warning of the absolute power of say a tyranny of one or of the people.

In a society there are competing interests and powers, in a monetary based system power can pool within wealth and wealth can use that power and influence to promote its own interests over that of other groups, in a democracy that influence is countered (is supposedly countered) by the voting power of the majority.

The problem here is that right wing libertarianism results in giving greater power and influence to wealth.

Try reading -
Free Market = Plutocratic Tyranny
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=353336&f=36

 

The whole ‘small government’ argument is a smokescreen, and once the smoke has been cleared it quickly become obvious that what its trying to hide is the same old right wing political agenda which is about preserving or increasing the power of those with advantage at the expense of everyone else.

It’s not about better government but cutting their taxes, it’s not about efficient government but about cutting the benefits going to the disadvantaged and it’s not about ‘freeing’ people but about trying to perpetuate their own wealth and influence.

Either the people that promote these ideas are incredibly unquestioning and gullible or they’re being dishonest.

 

I simply asked to not go off in so many directions simultaneously. I have other things to do, and can easily spend a few minutes now and then, but don't wish to make this an occupation.
Would you like to pick a subject to begin with?

 

Individual

Oh come on man, I think you are simply trying to get out of answering or addressing what’s been raised, I mean it is a tactic you’ve used before when things haven’t been going well for you.

And you seem to have a lot more time than me, in this thread you replies are virtually instantaneous most of the time while for me you often have to wait for when I have time and that can be hours or even days.

I mean some things are not that important and are just me trying to work out how you think, for example you thinking the Churchill quote was irrelevant because he wasn’t an American still has be scratching my head, but other stuff is very important because it reveals the underlying flaws within you ideas.

And if you can’t defend you ideas from criticisms then why do you hold them?

 

My next post is the one I'm waiting on a response to.
I respond as quickly to all emails, although I often have to interrupt something else in order to do so. Try focusing on one thing at a time instead of trolling for something to go off on a rant about.

 

Thing is that ‘hypothetically’ any rigidly dogmatic system can be made to work, the problem is that we don’t live in a hypothetically world filled with hypothetically people.

I mean how do you bring in ‘competition’ into such things as a social worker trying to spot child abuse? (But maybe this would be a service that would be scrapped by right wing libertarians like Individual who maybe see such abuse as just one of those unfair things that can happen in life and so don’t matter?)

The thing is that you can turn over utilities and services over to private firms but that doesn’t mean they are privately funded, which just means you are transferring public money from an accountable (and in a democracy changeable) public body to an unaccountable and undemocratic private corporation, and the costs may be not that different.

In the OP both Halliburton and Blackwater were mentioned.

Halliburton Overpricing
http://www.truth-out.org/article/halliburton-audited-overpriced-operations-iraq

And it is said that Blackwater charges the government some $1,222 per day per guard, "equivalent to $445,000 per year, or six times more than the cost of an equivalent U.S. soldier” House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Thing is that a corporation’s motivation is profit not public good.

 

Individual

WOW you are quick

Your next post is the one you’re waiting a response to.

You’re waiting for a response to a post you haven’t posted yet?

*

So you don’t give them much thought then for you it is more about the speed of the reply, maybe that’s your problem, I mean that could be why your ideas only ever seem half thought through.

*

As I’ve said this just comes across as a tactic to get out of answering anything.

But ok try

 

Let's just say that you have the "unjustified?" advantage of posting when I happen to be on the computer, and I get email notifications frequently as some are quite important.

Yes, the next post meaning the one I posted immediately after the one you responded to.

If this were a verbal conversation, we could easily cover a wider spectrum of topics quickly and efficiently, but as I said I confine the scope so that responses can be more concise and less time consuming. In the end it's not speed but an attempt to not get side tracked and off on a tangent from the original topic.

One question at a time please. Finish one and go on to the next. Even so, it is unlikely we will reach agreement on anything. But that's my philosophy, each person has a right to live their life as they see fit, including you.

So much on this one, let's pick up on your question of the justification of unearned advantages.

 

As I’ve said this just comes across as a tactic to get out of answering anything.

But ok try

LOL again this seems to be a tactic to stall or simple not answering questions. I mean it would be quicker and clearer if you just answered the questions, rather than spend all this time trying to dodge out of it.

So you are saying you will never accept any differing view or criticism even if you are unable to address or defend your ideas?

So you are not coming here to debate only to troll?

Come on then

 

It's just easier to deal with 20 questions sequentially, rather than simultaneously.

You're just wasting words now.

I haven't said that at all, I simply haven't found you to say anything that would justify my acceptance. Ideas are sometimes difficult to defend in a way acceptable to others.

I don't consider trying to stick to a subject trolling.

 

Individual

I’m sure I’m not the only one that’s noticed you don’t seem to be answering any questions, just bringing up excuses why you will not.

 

Instead of constant whining and complaining, ask a question.