Study: More Than Half a Trillion Dollars Spent on Welfare But Poverty Levels Unaffect

Bal,

The criticism being? And can you try and stay within the confines of the current thread topic?

 

Indie

To repeat

You are once again asking me to repeat things that you haven’t addressed before but here is my dilemma – if I repeat something that has been posted one thousand times only to have it evaded by you what is to stop you evading it for the one thousandth and once time?

So now here is an idea how about this - I’ll start up the arguments once again but if you use one of your evasion tactics I can ban you for a time?

 

I believe he said you seem unable to address the many outstanding criticisms of your ideology.

 

Bal,

What criticism exactly do you feel you've presented which requires further attention? You accuse me of wanting to grant greater power to wealth, while I propose limiting the powers made available for sale, and you seem to desire concentrating even greater power in the hands of a central government which only enhances the ability of wealth to control and apply it universally over the society as a whole.

I've told you previously you are welcome to exercise your power to ban me any time you wish, however I only ask that if you do so to make it permanent as I'm too old, and have better thigs I could do than to play childish games.

 

outthere2,

Perhaps you and Balbus both seem, in my opinion, to support an ideology which has proven to fail over and over again, and if you look at the debt of nearly every Nation in the world where it is being or has been applied, it is only leading to more hardships upon those who are poorest, while increasing the wealth of those who are the richest, while stagnating or diminishing the mobility of the middle classes.

 

I believe you mean neoliberal economic policy has caused debt.

 

You're entitled to believe what ever you wish, but all I mean is irresponsible government spending and borrowing.

 

Irresponsible government spending and borrowing is neoliberal economics. exactly

 

Do you feel a greater need for the application of a label than a need to resolve a problem? It often appears that many here go to great length to apply labels to something that can be defined in ways that allow them to be used for little more than perpetuating an argument.

No matter what label you wish to apply, do you then agree that irresponsible government spending and borrowing is the problem that needs to be solved?

 

Indie

Hell man, many have been repeated hundreds of times, over two years - pretending you don’t know what they are is just more evasion.

Then you say you conveniently never look back so you can’t remember them, Then you say they are not valid (without addressing them), then you say you have addressed them (but can’t produce any evidence) then you ask what they are again and the whole damned cycle starts again.

Yes I do and have explained at length and in detail why I thing that, criticisms of your ideas that you continually evade addressing.

Again those proposals have many outstanding criticisms levelled at it that you continually evade addressing.

No I haven’t as I’ve explained many times and I’ll ask you the same thing I’ve done all the other times you’ve made this unsubstantiated accusation, can you actually substantiate it?

Again you restate assertion that so far you’ve never been able to actually substantiate.

I don’t want to ban you, I really want to work out why you hold and promote ideas that you seem totally incapable of defending from criticism. As to childishness well isn’t it childish to hold views you seem totally incapable of defending from criticism? I mean a child can be unquestioning and just accept ‘stories’ as truth but most grow up and begin to question and dismiss stories that don’t seem able to stand up to rational and reasonable scrutiny.

I’d really wish that you would read peoples posts.

I’ve never said that there cannot be irresponsible government spending or borrowing in fact a lot of my posts argue against policies that I see as irresponsible in that way.

But as I (and others) have explained at length and in detail much of the problem was free market/neoliberal thinking that has so often led to what we see as irresponsible actions.

 

Bal,

Your only purpose appears to be winning an argument, NOT solving a problem. Try joining into a civilized conversation as most problem situation I've seen discussed here could probably be made less a problem by looking for solutions that appeal in a way that the vast majority would accept. If there was but a single right answer and all other answers were wrong, then it would be worthy of debating as you seem to wish to pursue, and I find that a waste of time and effort. If that's what you're looking for, then look to engage with someone who is like minded and go at it.

 

Indie

Oh god Indie we’ve been through this many times over the last couple of years – I have some ideas for solving what I see as problems and I’ve presented them and defended them from criticism, you have presented ideas THAT YOU SEEM INCAPABLE OF DEFENDING FROM CRITICISM.

A civilised debate, is one that is open and above all honest and you are not honest (as explained above) and as for being open most of the replies you give are evasions.

Above all solutions need to be examined to see if they can stand up to scrutiny. This is done through criticism.

Many times your only argument against someone else’s viewpoint seems to be that it isn’t your viewpoint and as I keep pointing out you seem incapable of defending your ideas from criticism.

An a number of occasions you seemed to have told use that despite being unable to defend your ideas we must just have to believe you that you are right and your opponents are wrong.

To me it seems ridiculous to promote solutions that cannot be defended in any rational or reasonable way however appealing they may seem to the promoter.

But how do you know if your ideas are ‘right’ or even credible when you seem incapable of defending them in anything like a rational way? I mean if an idea doesn’t seem to stand up to scrutiny and can’t even be defended from criticism by its own supporters wouldn’t that strongly suggest it was deeply flawed if not actually wrong?

If defending your ideas is such a waste of your time and effort, why are you trying to promote them on a debating forum? In fact if you are not willing to engage in any honest debate why are you here? It sounds a lot like you are saying you are only here to troll not to debate.

I mean as long as you come here promoting what many see as deeply flawed ideas then you are going to get people wishing to debate them, and pointing out what they see as the flaws.

I for one want to know why you promote political ideas that you can’t defend from such criticisms.

 

Bal,

Once again, and again, and again, you simply pontificate rather than communicate.

 

Indie

Why have you jumped into another thread repeating things that you know have outstanding criticisms here?

Why not just address them here?

 

Bal,

The other thread is a totally different topic than this one, although it seems every thread digresses into a rich vs poor, have vs have not, elucidation of vitriolic anger, hate, envy and resentment.

It reminds me of lectures on early civilizations where city States would work and trad with one another peacefully, until one city State was no longer able to produce enough product or products of great enough value to acquire their needs from the other city State, at which time they would denigrate the more prosperous city State raising the anger and hatred level of the less prosperous city States citizens to a point where they would willingly go to war.

 

Rush doesn't lie either.

He just states facts.

 

Huh???

 

Indie

But you are just restating things in it that you know full well have outstanding critics levelled at them that you still haven’t addressed.

And again we have been through this many many many times – again your either/or mentality seems to cloud your mind – you keep trying to suggest that those that are trying to bring some balance to a system and seek to limit or stop the exploitation of the many by the few as only motivated by anger, hate, envy and resentment. Its simply smear tactics and just another form of evasion.

Yes once in the How Many Libertarians on this Board Were Born Into Poverty?thread you seemed to claim some great knowledge of ancient history but when asked to show it you evaded and I suspected then you were lying well your simplistic and ill-informed comments here would seem to indicate I was right.

 

Bal,

You can read my response in the other thread as it serves no purpose to repost it here.

And I never have claimed to have 'great kinowldge of ancient history', but have sat through many lectures on the subject by some who spent their life studying it.

 

honesty is the best policy