"Clean coal" more republican lies

That's why I added the word viable, "viable coal reserves" as in not economically viable to use for mass energy consumption.

 

I'm not denying that... I agreed with you that corporations and wealthy interests manipulate the government. Where we differ is that you somehow think that the solution to the government being manipulated, is to be found somewhere inside that same manipulated government. And I think that as long as the government has the power to grant those corporate and wealthy interests what they want, they will always continue to be manipulated by them. You live under the fantasy that somewhere around there exists a set of selfless benevolent leaders that if only we could find and give unlimited power over us to that all of humanities problems will somehow be solved. I don't know if you've ever taken a peak at the Soviet Union's constitution, but it covered pretty much EVERYTHING you're suggesting. Was that system a success? It clearly states that every citizen is entitled to health care, every citizen is entitled to a job and a "living wage", and that the government will be ruled not by the exploiters, but the common man, and all the other fabulous things that you seem to believe the government can give us.

I wasn't talking about the Healthcare Reform Act. I was talking about the government intervention that created the "need" for further "reform" such as that act. It actually started in 1910 with the Flexner Report, commissioned by the AMA, and used as justification to pass licencture laws and regulations that essentially cartelized the healthcare industry. I'm not going to go too much into detail, but the resulting legislation put many doctors, and hospitals out of business. It's the stringent laws and requirements to practice medicine that has created our current "doctor shortage", and which created the need for even further intervention resulting in our 3rd party payer health-insurance system in the 1950s (Another product of government). I agree that the system needs reform, however I'd like to go in the opposite direction than we've been going the last 100 or so years. I'd like a more market based system, with less government control, not more. Where competition, and individual consumer choice decides which doctors practice medicine, not "wise" government overseers writing laws and regulations (which we both agree are controlled by insurance companies, and other interests anyway).

I mean the bribery you speak of is already illegal. There are already laws against such thing, and yet you think that if only there were MORE laws that it would somehow magically stop? As far as me being wealthy, if I was would that make me a bad person? Would it somehow entitle you to some of it? I've dealt with health insurance companies, and they haven't treated me too rough. I agree the service could potentially be much better, however in order for that to happen we'd need the government to stop restricting competition.

http://www.libertariantee.com

 

But corporations can not and will not regulate themselves... Neither will a free and open market regulate itself.


Don't get me wrong, I don't want huge government either, but letting the "fox watch the hen house" isn't going to cut it either.


Bottom line is this... People can not regulate themselves, it will always end up with anarchy until people actually evolve past this stupid shit...

 

The cons say they don't want big government, but that's bull shit. They just want big con government, which is more money for the pentagon, more money for corporations, more money for prisons. The only things they want to cut are aid to the poor, education, social security, and regulations for Wall Street banks.

If you really want to cut government, how about cutting congress in half. One Senator and one representative per state. I'll bet you anything neither party will go for that.
How about banning the military from all foreign countries, so they only protect American borders. How about cutting all foreign aid. How about cutting all subsidies to all corporations. Those things alone would cut the budget by two thirds, but we all know it's not reality. Big government is here to stay.

 

The best regulator IS the open and free market. Supply examples to support your claim... What industries or situations could not be regulated by consumers making educated decisions? Interactions between consumers and corporations are voluntary... which means that both parties expect to be benefiting. Many crises' we face are not from lack of regulation, but because of it. The idea that the government can somehow protect us with laws, and ensure we all make wise decisions is absurd. It gives people a false sense of security. And besides, how well has the government done at successfully regulating ANYTHING? You can see that not only the amount of regulations have been increasing, but the rate of increase of regulations has been increasing as well. Yet, you fellas claim that the current system is getting worse right? What catastrophies, if any, did all these added regulations advert? They certainly didn't prevent the financial crises. They haven't solved pollution... They haven't gotten rid of drug use.. poverty... or any other problem that plagues humanity. In fact, I'd argue that they've only made things worse. Do we just need wiser regulators? If you think thats the solution, than you're also living in a fantasy. Government, throughout it's history, has proven itself to be horribly inept when it comes to social problems. What it HAS proven to be good at, is oppression, warfare, giving unfair advantages to the well-connected, etc etc..

Also, I think we've agreed that currently the Fox IS watching the hen house.

 

Just a different fox...

 

There is no such thing as a free market. The haves will always manipulate trade and commerce to benefit themselves at the expense of the have-nots. They'll do it with, or without government. You either have laws and government or you have feudal land/resource owners. This notion that the free market can exist without government regulation is a fantasy. It won't work, ever. The merchant class would not and could not have come into existence in the first place without government. You say that historically government has proven to be inept at addressing social problems, but the alternative you seem to be suggesting would literally send us back to the dark ages, quickly and violently. This market cannot function without the willingness of the people who actually do the work and if you take away just a few of these regulatory measures that you think hamper the market, the market will cease to operate altogether. Again, the people who actually do the work will not suffer a corporate state. They will not work unless they at least believe in part that the people who they work for in the grand scheme of things actually answer to them, via government.

Finally, the financial crises was an artiface. It didn't just happen, it was orchestrated. It was a banking coup and it's no accident that it coincided with a real estate bubble. It was a land grab. It happen not because of regulation, but because of a lack of regulation, of the market, by the government as a direct result of profiteers interfering with government. You must stop thinking of the market as this autonomous force in the universe that transcends the grubby hands of mankind. I know that this is what economists are taught to believe, but it's bullshit and borders on superstition, alchemy and fanaticism. You cannot deregulate your way out of corruption. I do believe that corruption can be addressed with legislation, but first you have eliminate the influence of profiteers from the legislative process -vcompletely and with extreme prejudice.

The myth being perpetuated from the right is that it's good to have corporations representing their employees by meddling in government - but here's the kicker, they rarely do anything that benefits the people who actually do the work, who make the product, who recover the resource. Some might offer profit sharing, but that's quickly falling out fashion. 401K? Not so common as it once was. Mutual funds? Tall order for someone scrapping by on subsistence wages. Again, the misguided theory of trickle down economics - the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the working class is really just wealth consolidation economics, and if left unchecked it will lead to a feudal corporate state and there's no going back to a feudal system. People will not stand for it. They'll drop out of the supply and demand hamster wheel entirely. There is no supply without demand, and demand can be eliminated tomorrow if people perceive that they are enslaved by a market that no longer exists to serve them, but only to exploit them. Keep privatizing government and that's exactly the result we'll get. I guarantee it. Why? Because the "market" is incapable of regulating itself, because it operates off the infinite growth paradigm and therefore will eat itself, when there's nothing left, just to keep going a little longer. It's driven by boundless greed, and boundless greed is unsustainable.

They haven't gotten rid of drug use? WTF are you talking about? No one wants to stop drug use. The government uses illicit drug use exactly the same way that pfizer uses prescription drug use. The war on drugs is nothing more than an attempt to create scarcity in much the same way, and for the same exact reason that pfizer makes certain legal drugs scarce to drive up prices. The DEA exists because of private weapons manufacturers and the corporate prison industry. Guns, drugs and prisons are among the chief domestic products of the United States, a fine example , maybe the finest, of how "free" market is being subsidized with public money, thanks to the influence of privateers on government. Now you can call this "big government" if you like, but I call it "privatization of government" and deregulation is not going to curtail this kind of thing, in fact it's a damn fine way to open the flood gates to more of this kind of bullshit. I'm telling you that everything you dislike about government inefficiency and corruption can be traced directly to the "free" market's obsession with infiltrating and using government to mitigate risk, maximize profit and undermine democracy.

Without environmental regulation, privateers will scorch the earth. This bad regulation - and it is bad, because it is constantly under assault by privateers who have successfully used government to suppress it to the point of being ineffective and then people like you point to this as evidence of how government doesn't work? Government (we the people) are all that stands between energy companies literally rendering this planet uninhabitable. Don't think they'd do it? Think again. You see there is a point of no return, a point in which MORE can no longer keep the whole thing from falling off the cliff - but a profiteer won't see it, or will refuse to acknowledge it, until he's in free fall, plummeting towards his (and everyone's) certain doom - and by then it doesn't matter. This is the inevitable conclusion of this philosphy of deregulation. Am I being melodramatic? You tell me what's to prevent this from happening? You tell me how supply and demand is going to spur enough innovation to create free energy from happy thoughts.

 

There are five lobbyists for every congressperson and Senator. End lobbying and stop special interests from buying the government. Overturn the Supreme Court ruling that money is free speech, and corporations are people. End corporate America.

 

The governments of the dark ages were far more pervasive and powerful than they are now. You clearly don't know your history very well. The merchant class emerged when the burden of the ruling class (government) was finally lifted and people were more freely permitted to pursue their own self-interests and own their own property. Were you absent in middle school when they taught about the "classical liberal" movement? Property and the means of production were entirely controlled by the state in feudal societies. What in gods name are you talking about? It's you who are advocating for a return to a system more closely resembling that of the "dark ages", where governments had unlimited power and private property was non-existent.

As far as drugs go... you're likely right about the governments true motives. However they publicly claim to be trying to end drug use. My point was that government has not succeeded in curing any of the social ills that it claims to be fighting. Whether it be drugs, poverty, education, healthcare, etc. Whatever they've gotten involved in has generally gotten worse, and in direct proportion to level of involvement.

 

While government is inept and corrupt the finantial crisis we are now in is due in a large part to banking DE-REGULATION...


DIG!

http://moneymorning.com/2009/01/13/deregulation-financial-crisis/


And if you don't like this writeup google it for yourself...


Free market does not work!

 

Property and the means of production were entirely controlled and owned by feudal lords in fuedal societies. You would exchange lords with CEO's and boards and you would yield the same result. Whether or not you choose to see it, does not change the fact that the kind of society you imagine is just a new version of feudalism where nobility is replaced by big business. Instead of lords vieing for power, you will have corporate lords. And under this system, "healthy" competition becomes an even greater farce than it currently is.

The Magna Carta allowed mercantilism to blossom - it limited the power of the throne and brought about the end of the largely local feudal economy. It also set the stage for English Common Law, the very precurser of the Big Government you now criticize. The aspects of government that you describe as being ineffective can all be attributed to the misuse of corporate personhood and the subsequent and very logical, inevitable, but nonetheless unethical and exploitive, efforts of profiteers to manipulate and influence government and common law to protect profit and mitigate risk, all at the expense of protecting individual rights. This is where the "free market" ceases to be free (and where I arrive at the term (selective laissez faire capitalism), not, as you suggest, as a result of government regulation. So, we've come full circle. The King's Deer has become (or will certainly become) Monsanto's Deer, if we accept your misguided theory of prosperity through de-regulation.

Here's a nice little 101 level outline that you can use to brush up on your History: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/mercantilism.htm

And here's a quote:

"What is called 'capitalism' is basically a system of corporate mercantilism, with huge and largely unaccountable private tyrannies exercising vast control over the economy, political systems, and social and cultural life, operating in close co-operation with powerful states that intervene massively in the domestic economy and international society. That is dramatically true of the United States, contrary to much illusion. The rich and privileged are no more willing to face market discipline than they have been in the past, though they consider it just fine for the general population." ~ Noam Chomsky

And here's a quote that includes a quote from . . . Noam Chomsky:

"The enthusiasm for the "free market" since the 1970s is in fact the product of the extended boom, which in turn was a product of a state co-ordinated war economy and highly interventionist Keynesian economics (a boom that the apologists of capitalism use, ironically, as "evidence" that "capitalism" works) plus an unhealthy dose of nostalgia for a past that never existed. It's strange how a system that has never existed has produced so much! When the Keynesian system went into crisis, the ideologues of "free market" capitalism seized their chance and found many in the ruling class willing to utilise their rhetoric to reduce or end those aspects of state intervention which benefited the many or inconvenienced themselves. However, state intervention, while reduced, did not end. It simply became more focused in the interests of the elite (i.e. the natural order). As Chomsky stresses, the "minimal state" rhetoric of the capitalists is a lie, for they will "never get rid of the state because they need it for their own purposes, but they love to use this as an ideological weapon against everyone else." They are "not going to survive without a massive state subsidy, so they want a powerful state." [Chomsky on Anarchism, p. 215] "

source http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchism/faq/secD1.html

 

I think we're getting a bit confused here. What are fuedal lords, or the "throne" if not a form a government? I think you've agreed with me. You just said that limiting the power of the throne (government) brought an end to feudalism. Do you know what "government" means? Here is a quote for you simply from the dictionary, "Government: a branch or service of the supreme authority of a state or nation, taken as representing the whole". Does that not accurately describe what a king and his local Feudal lords are?

In the case of Mercantilism, that system didn't produce very good results either for the common man did it? However it was still one in which was largely controlled by government, and not the individual. Here is a another dictionary definition for you, "Mercantilism is the economic doctrine that government control of foreign trade is of paramount importance for ensuring the prosperity and military security of the state."

The Classical Liberal movement that I mentioned came after, and did away with, these prior systems of extreme GOVERNMENT oppression. Largely led by people like Adam Smith, who wrote The Wealth Of Nations in 1776. It was the newly popularized belief that the individual was entitled to god given rights, including private property, freedom of expression, thought, etc that gave birth to Capitalism, the Industrial Revolution, and further the huge across the board rise in standards of living that we see today.

I pretty much agree with everything that was said in your Noam Chomsky quotes, except for it having anything to do with capitalism. "operating in close co-operation with powerful states that intervene massively in the domestic economy and international society. That is dramatically true of the United States, contrary to much illusion. The rich and privileged are no more willing to face market discipline than they have been in the past, though they consider it just fine for the general population." This part is accurate, however powerful states intervening to bail out the rich and privileged is completely contradictory to what capitalism is. The state being involved in the economy is actually what you're suggesting, not me. Here is another dictionary definition for you: Capitalism, "An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit." So you see, government or the sate intervening in trade and industry, whether it be to benefit one group or another, is NOT capitalism, it's actually the complete opposite.

"As Chomsky stresses, the "minimal state" rhetoric of the capitalists is a lie, for they will "never get rid of the state because they need it for their own purposes, but they love to use this as an ideological weapon against everyone else." They are "not going to survive without a massive state subsidy, so they want a powerful state."

This is largely true as well (minus it's reference to capitalism). The large corporate oligopolies and monopolies you see today REQUIRE a large and powerful state in order to suppress competition and receive ill gotten subsidies confiscated through taxation. That is how they survive, and it's how they manage to get so big in the first place. If we agree large corporate interests LOVE a powerful state, as Chomsky said, than isn't that all the more reason to do away with it?

I'm not denying that rhetoric of all different sorts is abused, including the "minimal state" variety. Religion has been used to justify all sorts of violence, but that doesn't necessarily condemn it's original message. People connected with the government use any kind of rhetoric they can get their hands on that will justify manipulating the government in the way in which suits them. This includes getting rid of the parts they don't like, and adopting parts that they do... This is the nature of Government. It picks winners and losers, and has always done so to benefit the well connected, and at the expense of everyone else. Whether we're talking about Monarchs and Feudal lords, or Senators and "Representatives".

 

Yes, oligarchy could be said to be a form of government - I just personally draw a distinction between being "ruled" and being "governed". An oligarchy does not "represent" its subjects in any real sense. So I can't agree entirely that term "government", as you defined it, ("Government: a branch or service of the supreme authority of a state or nation, taken as representing the whole") can be applied to a feudalistic system. It's a fine distinction and certainly debatable.

Where is this "Capitalism" that you defend then? The Classical Liberal movement model that you describe, is just that, a model. It certainly doesn't describe the reality of the Industrial Revolution. Whose standard of living did it improve? The plantation slave in 1776? Or the Chinese and Irish rail builders? Coal Miners with their company stores? How much property and freedom of expression was awarded to indigenous Americans? Is that the model you want to return to? Child labor in textile mills? It's certainly the price of de-regulation. Your nostalgia for these good ole days is misplaced and troubling. No doubt it brought us a great speed to where we are today, but at what cost for this expedience? Have we repayed that debt to the satisfaction of all parties that were involved? Never.

I see little evidence of this pastoral vision of Capitalism. It's telling, that you draw comparisons with the rhetoric toward religion, because I think you are approaching this notion of "Capitalism" with the same leap of faith that religion requires. You've successfully provided ample evidence of how government intereferes with it, but what you haven't shown is how it could possibly exist at all, without heavy handed government. And you certainly won't convince me that it would work without violating the personal liberties of the people who actually sell their labor, always at a loss.

You say that the Government picks winners and losers, and I say that powerful profiteers pick, choose and mold governments. You say that this is the nature of government, but it is not the purpose of government, certainly not this government, and it's high time we start holding this government to its purpose, because government is needed and that need will only increase as the world's population grows. If government, as you suggest, hampers capitalism, then why do profiteers not only tolerate, but actively pursue its politicization?

Capitalism cannot self-regulate, and when any institution goes unregulated, it may flourish for a short time, but it will inevitably destroy itself, and, in this case, it has the very real potential to inflict irreversible harm to the planet and its inhabitants once it has been given free reign to run its destructive course unchecked.

 

Maybe so. But there also is the very real potential for great improvement.

Ford built a car that was almost completely biodegradable (all except the frame came from all natural plant products). Even the fuel was derived from plant matter. And it was big government that stepped in and put a stop to it. A free(er) market could create the atmosphere needed for alternative energy to flourish. But for now the government makes sure to keep the oil and coal industries happy. No one has a chance to do anything different while big government has a hold on the industry, forcing the public to use the fuels they deem best.

 

Again, what you're describing is not Big Government. You're describing Big Business (in this case big energy) puppeteering Big Government.

 

^^^ This! ^^^


It was actually Big Oil that killed that car.

 

Well, it's kind of a "chicken or the egg" argument. Big oil couldn't have killed it without big government doing the work on its behalf.

 

ok,, ok yeah america does a lot to promote global warming,, but has anyone forgot about china??? they use coal for almost all their energy needs!! and they dont have an epa like we do

 

It's the lobbyists that buy the "big government", they won't let it end.

 

Have you seen Shanghai in the day time? Neither can the Chinese. They have to chew before they inhale.