A Long History

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I wanted to create my own thread because I didn’t want my response in the Washington Scandals thread to be considered what was frequently being called a “diversionary tactic.” Rather than divert attention away from issues that (with the exception of the Justice Department tapping phone calls) are comparatively trivial and have been adequately shown to be the groundless misconceptions that they are, I will place my central argument instead in my own thread. Aside from the “Comedy” thread, this will mark (as far as I can recall) my first actual thread created in The Sandbox.

Several of you will have read a good deal of this in one form or another before (and yes, a good deal is cut and pasted) but I think it is crucial to get it all in one space in order to illustrate the way these arguments are structured within a larger framework. I do think a useful jumping off point will be to address a central concern I have with the current political thread that is going and several others of that ilk created by the same poster. My central problem with them is that they come from a place that I consider to be seriously delusional and irrational and while the premise of the thread itself may appear to make some sense, it all comes from a pretty frightening place, in my opinion.

The poster in question begins with the premise that “our Rights come from God” (May 3, 2012). The poster makes it clear that he does not mean God in some abstract or symbolic sense. Rather, he notes that "God given" or Divine is important.  It's powerful” (May 4, 2012). For him, Obama goes against these God given rights. As a result Obama is “demonic” and “evil.” He suggests that Obama is “championing a demonic concept of Salvation called:  ‘Collective Salvation’” (May 4, 2012) and notes that he has “never heard anyone lie so openly like [Obama].  Yet be so openly radical and honest about his evil plans at other times” (January 7, 2013).

For this poster, then, this is not merely an argument between several political ideologies. Rather, this is, for him, a fight of Biblical proportions where Obama appears to be cast, quite literally, as some kind of real incarnation of a real Devil. The poster insinuates that these incarnations have manifested throughout history and anyone who goes against what he considers to be Divine power is essentially on the same level. For him, they are all genuinely demonic. This is how he is able to draw connections between Obama and Hitler, Stalin, etc. referring to the “Obama SS” for example (November 9, 2012). He has noted that “What's bubbling up in the world today is bad.  The same seed that lead to human suffering on the scale of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.  It always has.  Tyranny.  The opposite of YOU.  The opposite of FREEDOM.  They make the decisions.  And people are marching right along.” (November 16, 2012) Elsewhere, he has observed that “Whether you're a European Socialist or a Progressive -- it's all the same murky depths.  And I mean that, I'm not being flippant.  That's an important distinction many have come to accept.  All these systems result in failure and suffering.  Liberalism, Progressivism.  Socialism, Communism, Nazism.”

And so, because the poster seems to quite literally believe that Obama is some kind of Devil incarnate on the same level as Hitler and Stalin, he unsurprisingly supports groundless notions like “there will be death panels” (May 15, 2012). His solutions to these issues is equally troubling though not entirely unexpected when you have cast your opposition as demonic. He has noted that “The Left is so blatant and emboldened right now.  It's time to bring the hammer down, people.  Bring the hammer DOWN!!!” (December 19, 2012). What this means is unclear but he has noted that “there's no ‘negotiating’ with tyranny.  None.  They're whacked!” (December 18, 2012).

All this would be somewhat amusing if it weren’t for the personal remarks he has made in the past which were so offensive that I have ruled out responding to him at all. Nevertheless, it should be clear that when the poster creates yet another thread in the Sandbox that re-articulates whatever the talking points have been on right-wing radio that day or whatever source he goes to, that what is underlying this is an apocalyptic belief that Obama is a demonic force like Hitler and Stalin who is tyrannically working to destroy Divinely given rights and that this belief is apparently not metaphorical in nature. In my opinion, these views in particular should not be encouraged but I will leave it up to others if they wish to engage with them.

This is mostly Glenn Beck territory. Of course, it is widely understood that Beck largely promoted extraordinarily fanciful, delusional and hysterical positions and yet these positions still seem to enter into the realm of political discourse. The “Washington Scandals” thread, for instance, draws the classic Glenn Beck connection between Obama and Hitler. The central argument here is that because both Obama and Hitler used the government as a force of economic intervention that the inevitable conclusion must be that Obama is some sort of modern day Nazi. Again, this perhaps is the best representation of the kind of fanciful, delusional and hysterical positions that I alluded to above and speaks to just how disingenuous Beck really was.

Certainly it is true that Hitler was interventionist, though like I noted on the previous thread, what made Germany under the Nazis uniquely different from other western capitalist countries during that same time was their push to transfer ownership of firms to the private sector. As Claude Guillebaud noted it was a “cardinal tenet of the Party that the economic order should be based on private initiative and enterprise (in the sense of private ownership of the means of production and the individual assumption of risks) though subject to guidance and control by state.” Guillard’s observation about the economic strategy of Nazi Germany could in fact be applied to every first world country since the creation of the modern industrial age. So, yes, as Glenn Beck would note, Obama does believe in and carries through with government intervention as has every leader in American history, and every leader in England’s history since the Industrial Revolution.

In fact, the history of America’s economy is essentially a long story which illustrates the success of a public system, as is the case of just about every other successful economy since the Industrial period began. The U.S. economy from the beginning was stabilized by a variety of protectionist policies (trade tariffs, subsidies, etc.) enacted by Alexander Hamilton. In the 19th century, the U.S. Army, typically under the pretext of defense, took on the lion's share of managing the more complex industrial systems, one of which was the railroad, for example. This crucial intervention of the state into technological and industrial development in the 19th century was what, in effect, set the stage for and allowed for some of the major achievements of the early 20th century, like the automotive industry which itself relied heavily on years of publicly subsidized research and development. After WWII this system of state intervention was ramped up even further and what resulted was one of the most powerful periods of economic growth but it was very much a state sponsored growth: computers, electronics, telecommunication, aviation, all of these came under the domain of the State at one point of another - again, during the crucial risk period. The economic boom of the 90s was essentially the result of products such as the Internet, satallites, transistors, etc. which came directly out of the public sector. The private sector didn't want to touch the internet until it had passed the crucial risk period – namely after nearly 30 years of publicly funded Pentagon research and development. Bill Gates, for example, was publicly shunning the validity of the internet until a year before it was privatized. It was only when he realized that it could be profitable that he decided to take it over. And this is generally how the economy works in successful industrialized countries. It is understood in the private industry that the public should subsidize the risk and, therefore, provide a cushy welfare net for corporations who don't have to worry about making bad investments. Once the product has sufficiently passed the test that it can actually turn a profit, it is then placed into private hands. This is true of the major advancements in US economic history. The public pays for the development of the product and is then prohibited from sharing in the profits for that which wouldn't have existed without their crucial support.

And this is true even of leaders who are frequently praised by self-described conservatives (who are, in my opinion, about as far from conservative as it gets) for being the best proponents of a laissez-faire style capitalist system. Take, for example, Margaret Thatcher in England who gutted social services, all in the name of ending the “nanny state.” Yet regardless of these pronouncements of ending welfare, welfare for wealthy elite members increased and public spending under Thatcher remained the same as it had under previous Administrations (about 42.25% of GDP). Consequently profits escalated for the wealthy, while there was an increase in malnutrition amongst children, poverty on a scale unseen since the 30s in England wherein 1 in 3 kids were born poor, and a rise in diseases that had been quelled since the 19th Century.

Or take, say, Ronald Reagan, a current conservative darling who was anything but conservative but was rather a huge Statist reactionary for the wealthy. Reagan radically poured money into the business sector by handing out research and development funds and by using the Pentagon to subsidize the business world through programs like Star Wars. Military spending escalated significantly under Reagan and according to business journals at the time, a good deal of the money went into buying computers. Meanwhile, the Reagan Administration enacted more import restrictions than any other US administration combined since WWII, making him, according to Sheldon Richman “the most protectionist president since Herbert Hoover.” According to the same article, Reagan’s government “Forced Japan to accept restraints on auto exports; Negotiated to increase the restrictiveness of the Multi-fiber Arrangement governing trade in textiles and apparel; Required 18 countries, including Brazil, Spain, South Korea, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Finland, Australia, and the European Community, to accept 'voluntary restraint agreements' that reduce their steel imports to the United States; Imposed a 45% duty on Japanese motorcycles for the benefit of Harley Davidson, which admitted that superior Japanese management was the cause of its problems;” etc. (Ronald Reagan: Protectionist, The Free Market, Vol 6.5 May 1988). Furthermore, Reagan bailed out the Continental Illinois Bank, giving it 4.5 billion dollars to rescue it after becoming insolvent in what was at the time (before 2008) “the largest bank failure in American history.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Illinois

Indeed, why Obama takes so much heat for his State-ism and his Big Government when, in fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, he has slowed down government spending to a pace unprecedented in sixty years of US government, is unclear though my guess is any answer we get to such a question would be uncomfortable. Nevertheless such answers would also be deemed (and have been deemed on this site) “diversionary tactics.” We can safely assert, though, that Reagan never had to deal with criticisms of this kind despite the fact that his state-ism took a country that was the world’s largest creditor and plunged it into debt while Obama has actually shrunk the deficit at a rate faster than was predicted by the CBO, levelling it off to where it was in 2008 despite Fishmonk’s assertion on October 17, 2012 that “All the government does is hold our country back, the debt is going to go up, the deficit is going to go up.” So, yes, the point here is that Obama is a government interventionist though less so than others, but nevertheless in step with other first world countries.

Now, if you look at the third world, you get a different story. There, free market capitalism has been violently shoved down their throats. These countries, like Nicaragua and Haiti, don’t have the luxury of protectionism because they are the third world, typically producing for the interests of the first world and therefore have little say about how their economy operates. Consequently countries like Nicaragua and Haiti have become the poorest countries in the hemisphere. Other countries have been luckier – so, for example, South Korea managed to pull themselves out of economic crisis by reversing course on the Western-imposed free market system and upon refusing the advice of the IMF and the World Bank, incorporated a state-oriented Japan-inspired model which led to the creation of their highly efficient and successful steel industry and saved the South Korean economy from the brink of disaster. Free-market systems have typically been disastrous which is why no first world country has ever allowed them.

The same holds true in US history where periods of more lax laissez-faire capitalism led to disaster. Take, say, the Financial Crisis of 2008. Just about every serious study I've seen on the matter generally accepts as a given the conclusions of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission which cited “Widespread failures in financial regulation” as a leading factor in the crisis. And the reason why these conclusions are accepted is because it is the most rational conclusion one can reach. Remember that it was understood that a central factor behind the crash of 1929 was precisely the banks making too many high risk loans for securities speculation or as one bank President stated, "reaping the natural fruit of the orgy of speculation in which millions of people have indulged." The crash followed what was considered to be a "speculative boom" in which more than 8.5 billion was out on loan.

It was understood immediately that regulations were needed to distinguish commercial banks from investment banks and prevent banks from turning into hedge funds – hence the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and others in the same period. These regulations in fact worked and it is interesting to note what happened once neo-liberal policies came into effect which saw the general dismantling of these regulations. The US government had been deregulating the financial institutions on a wide scale in the 1970s, including the Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act which led directly to the Savings and Loan crisis in the late 80s. When the Clinton Administration repealed Glass-Steagall in the 90s he did so knowing full well of its effect in preventing major crises post-crash of 29 but they added some caveat about how these were different times and the economy was different now than it was then, or some sort of lip-service on behalf of the nation’s elite. What happened of course was perfectly predictable as the system very quickly reverted back to a pre-1929 status with the creation of yet another speculative boom. And, of course, the consequences of all this was perfectly predictable. These regulations which separated commercial and investment banks and placed limitations on interest rates and loans by banks would have outright prevented financial institutions from using off-balance sheet securitization and derivatives and creating shadow banking systems to mask the excessive risks being taken with mortgage lending which is precisely what caused the crisis.

Interestingly enough the same situation was going on in the population at large so as neo-liberal policies worked to dismantle New Deal welfare policies, the gap between the rich and the poor essentially worked its way back to pre-1929 levels as well. The New Deal essentially created the middle class as it was understood from around 1945 to the early 1970s. By 1938, several years after the New Deal policies were put in place, there began an overwhelming compression of income. The income share of the top one-tenth of households in the United States had dropped from 43 percent to roughly 32 percent and that remained consistent throughout the war and stayed that way until New Deal progams began being dismantled, at which point the gap between the rich and poor grew more steadily once again especially under Reagan who viciously cut these progams and allowed for the diminished role of the middle class in American society and essentially the power structure predictably reverted back to a 1920s model and the gap between the rich and poor has grown steadily since.

That the government is required to intervene to help the inevitable disparity that comes from a flawed economic system was understood by the very framers of the system. This is why Adam Smith, while advocating for a kind of laissez-faire style capitalism nevertheless concluded that government intervention would be necessary in a market structure. He noted that in any society where there is a division of labour, it is inevitable for the masses to become "ignorant and stupid" because in such a system, people are reduced to performing "a few very simple operations" and even then, those operations are basically dictated by a dominant force. Smith was acutely aware that when one’s “whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same” then one “has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur” and therefore “naturally loses…the habit of such exertion.” It is for this reason that Smith suggested the inevitable need for government intervention in a capitalist society, noting that "unless government takes some pains to prevent it" that this will be "the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall." The central philosophers behind capitalism, Smith included and as representative here, understood quite clearly the very nature of a market and profit-driven society requires the necessity of government intervention.

Those who now advocate for this neo-faux Libertarianism of total free market capitalist enterprise make their case based on several flawed assumptions. For one their assumption is that capitalism is always synonymous with free market. That is that free market capitalism is the real capitalism or the pure capitalism. Yet as the Smith quote above illustrates, this is far from the case, and in fact what distinguishes capitalism as an economic system is private control over the means of production. This is why the term “free market” is not only the domain of capitalists. Yes, there can in theory be free market capitalists but there can also be free market socialism, as proposed by John Stuart Mill and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Hence the usual claim (another crucial false assumption) that the free market capitalist system is, in fact, “the absence of a system” and is “an organic process of change and balance” (Fishmonk, now Dr. John Becker, September 6, 2012) largely neglects to take into account the far more crucial aspect of private control, which in my view does not suggest “the absence of a system” but rather the opposite. In fact, such a system is in reality tyrannical. In a capitalist system, a worker sells their labor to an owner who buys their labor from them at the lowest possible price so that they can make the highest amount of profit and the only people who are in a legitimate position to decide the terms of this relationship are the owners/shareholders, while the laborer gets absolutely no say, despite the fact that the owner is appropriating the product of their labor and selling it on the market for their own personal profit. This is textbook exploitation and entirely tyrannical in nature as the only power in this relationship resides with the owner. There are ways to make this less exploitative - so, for instance, there might be mechanisms put in place where labor has some kind of bargaining power (i.e. unions). This allows labor to play some role in deciding the terms of the relationship but whatever they get (pensions, vacations, etc.) the relationship will always be a shameful, exploitative, and altogether barbaric one, as long as labor does not get to profit off their own work.

Furthermore, the assumption that the free market is “organic” simply does not hold up to investigation. Let’s take what is by now a clichéd example given all-too frequently by free market enthusiasts: “If I want your watermelon (which you have twenty of) and you want my frisbee, then it is mutually beneficial for us to trade. This is the free market” (Grillo, November 12, 2012). The assumption behind this is that the free market is the most natural way to organize economically and that government only works to get in the way of what would be a naturally occurring process. Yet Grillo’s oft-heard example is, in fact, an example of what anthropologist David Graeber calls “The Myth of Barter” in his book Debt: The First 5,000 Years. As Graeber nicely observes: “It’s important to emphasize that this is not presented as something that actually happened, but as a purely imaginative exercise.” He goes on to note that “The story of money for economists always begins with a fantasy world of barter. The problem is where to locate this fantasy in time and space: Are we talking about cave men, Pacific Islanders, the American frontier?” Graeber goes on to show that there is no historical precedent for this kind of barter economy as it is often described and that the claims that this sort of behaviour is somehow in-born and natural is a product of the imagination rather than grounded in any real factual evidence.

And, in fact, that we don’t naturally behave this way is far more readily apparent in the way we conduct ourselves in our most basic human relationships. You don’t have a barter arrangement in a family structure but rather an arrangement where you care for each other first and foremost and put the needs of those who need the most help (like children or the elderly) at the forefront – they are not forced to fend for themselves and barter what they have. We know that there is no historical grounding to suggest that market systems are natural and what appears to be true is that the very opposite is the case. This is why the first market systems which were created by the State had to be imposed viciously on a largely communal public. As Graeber notes, “historically, impersonal, commercial markets originate in theft.”

Indeed, this is very much the case. The idea of private property in the capitalist sense is and always will be bound with actions that fundamentally robbed the vast majority of the English population from their means of subsistence. Recall that the industrial revolution and the rise of capitalism in England and throughout the general region was part of a long process that essentially began with actions carried out first by landowners, then by landowners with the backing authority of British Parliament to dispossess people of commonly shared land, often by force, seizing their land and placing under private ownership. Thus private property as we understand it comes into being specifically with an act of violent force that actively works to undermine and delegitimize the common rights of the population. Thus private property simply doesn’t exist without force. And, of course, this whole system which is now considered mostly by the fringe Libertarian movement as being “natural” and some sort of metaphor for a real and genuine human experience was resisted by large movements that simply had to be put down by the ownership class. Thus, you have movements such as Kett’s Rebellion of 1549, the Midland Revolt and Newton Rebellion of 1607 which was mostly peasant-based activist movements to try to reclaim the commonly shared land from which they were forcefully uprooted and dispossessed. The very beginnings of the industrial revolution are typically credited to this shift away from an agrarian-based economy which was operated commonly under an open field system to a machine-based manufacturing system. This could only, happen, though, once the common system had been destroyed and following that, once the active resistance to this destruction by those who were dispossessed, had been put down.

The inevitable consequence of the land being conquered by the wealthy elite and the creation of private property was, of course, the criminalization of the peasant class (since vagrancy was considered criminal) and therefore the rise of crime and pauperism as villagers lost their means of subsistence. But furthermore, it also provided a necessary labour class for the manufacturing industry to exploit in their need for profit. This is why the age-old argument by the right that “no one is forcing you, you can always find another job” is always painfully hollow and remarkably ignorant since this version of “freedom” is only a freedom that has been created for us on behalf of the ownership class, once they actually historically eliminated the kind of society that allowed people to have real genuine control over what they do and how they live their lives. Historically, then, capitalism (or, a system based on the private ownership of the means of production) simply could not have existed or lasted without the elite class forcefully and violently seizing land of the peasantry, actively suppressing resistance to this movement by force, turning their common productive space into privately owned land in order to make profit, and sending the peasant society into the city because they had no other option for their survival as legitimate citizens. And a similar story is true within the United States, with the history of the seizure of Native land. And furthermore, this is why the Libertarian argument in favour of freedom is so laughable since it so often refers to a freedom for property or a freedom for full control over property which was only achieved because of a history of depriving people from their traditional rights and dispossessing them of their own property.

I do think these observations are necessary. There are indeed very real concerns with the Obama Administration and they should be addressed. But it is crucial to understand that these concerns come from a larger systematic framework and if you don’t address that then you, in fact, don’t address these real concerns at all. It seems to me that the Party politics route that many fall into here and are rehashed again and again as thread after thread is created addressing Obama’s problems only perpetuates these systematic issues. Above all, you will not address any concern seriously if they are based on delusions. And you will not address concerns realistically if you do not understand the history that has led us to this moment which can also help in establishing a discussing on possible solutions.

[Dunderhead]

Markets are an advent of 18th century England, they have their roots in the coffee shop culture of the Augustan period where private individuals congregated at coffee shops to participate in auctions for fine art, literary copyrights, and financial instruments. Capitalism was hugely successful for Britain in the 18th century. It was the lapse of the Licensing Act in 1698 and the subsequent *de*-regulation of the press that caused the explosion of literary Grub Street culture from the time of The Tatler onwards. The Licensing Act had strictly regulated the printing industry in England and without it competition caused the price of printed material to decline sharply and precipitated a reciprocal rise in the literacy rate from below 10% in the 17th century to 80% by the end of the 1700s (even ~70% of women were literate by 1730). Scotland went from being on the absolute margins of modern society during the Augustan era to being a highly literate and successful culture thanks to free market ideas (It being no coincidence that Adam Smith was Scottish). The English middle class thrived during the Augustan era thanks to commerce. During the Augustan era Great Britain surpassed France and was seen all throughout the continent as being the most free, most egalitarian, most prosperous and most imitable culture in the Western world.

I simply cannot abide by the Marxist version of history.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Markets are an advent of 18th century England,

I refer you to the Bibliotheca Britannica which defines market as "a public place in which articles are exposed to sale" and places the date of this definition, to my eyes, at 1595:

http://archive.org/stream/bibliothecabrita01wattuoft#page/n11/mode/2up

This date puts it in close proximity to the enclosure of the commons.

Capitalism was hugely successful for Britain in the 18th century. It was the lapse of the Licensing Act in 1698 and the subsequent *de*-regulation of the press that caused the explosion of literary Grub Street culture from the time of The Tatler onwards. The Licensing Act had strictly regulated the printing industry in England and without it competition caused the price of printed material to decline sharply and precipitated a reciprocal rise in the literacy rate from below 10% in the 17th century to 80% by the end of the 1700s (even ~70% of women were literate by 1730). Scotland went from being on the absolute margins of modern society during the Augustan era to being a highly literate and successful culture thanks to free market ideas (It being no coincidence that Adam Smith was Scottish). The English middle class thrived during the Augustan era thanks to commerce. During the Augustan era Great Britain surpassed France and was seen all throughout the continent as being the most free, most egalitarian, most prosperous and most imitable culture in the Western world.

Can't go into too many details about your depiction of Industrial England though I certainly agree that there were many improvements in particular areas and for particular people in England throughout this period and never suggested otherwise. I would not suggest that everyone's life was improved by industrial capitalism - and certainly having your means subsistence and common rights violently taken away so that your were forced to work for others as a wage slave rather than for yourself is hardly an improvement. Nor does any of this do anything to suggest other than what is perfectly true that this capitalist system was entirely unnatural and forced onto a population and as Graeber points out, "commercial markets originate in theft.”

[Mendota Heights]

Capitalism is good.

[Mahalo]

This is why liberals run the university's... they get all cerebral talking about this "ism" or that "ism" ad infinitum.

How about working for your money and getting what you earn without being taxed to death... ESPECIALLY if you decide to open up your own business.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Capitalism is good.

This does not engage with any the points that I raised. In fact, as my post should suggest, a blanket statement like that one you just made is virtually meaningless since it does not address the fact that capitalism is a term bound to many historical definitions. By capitalism, do you mean the faux-libertarian understanding of the term that has no historical basis? If so, what's the difference between saying "capitalism is good" and "fairy elves are good"? Or do you mean the actual historical capitalism which originated in theft and depriving the mass population of their liberty and central means of subsistence and functions primarily as a form of tyrannical exploitation wherein a worker sells their labor to an owner who buys their labor from them at the lowest possible price so that they can make the highest amount of profit and the only people who are in a legitimate position to decide the terms of this relationship are the owners/shareholders, while the laborer gets absolutely no say, despite the fact that the owner is appropriating the product of their labor and selling it on the market for their own personal profit. If so, how does that qualify as "good"?

[Chocolate Shake Man]

This is why liberals run the university's...

I think you mean "universities"

they get all cerebral talking about this "ism" or that "ism" ad infinitum.

I don't think that I anything I talked about was particularly cerebral. All the words I used are pretty common but since you have neglected to actually provide an example, I can't really respond. But even if you did provide an example, I certainly don't think that your complaints about the words that I use (again, not sure what words would qualify) suffices to write off an entire argument.

Furthermore, I really take issue with this entire claim. First, I'm not sure what my post has to do with universities being run by liberals. If the insinuation is that I am a liberal, I can probably point to half a dozen posts from me on this board where I state emphatically that I oppose liberalism. This position, in fact, should be made very clear in my post above.

Second, are universities run by liberals? What is your source on that?

Third, if universities are run by liberals then I'm not sure what your issue would be with that? Because I can tell you if I believed that universities were run by liberals then I would have some very serious criticisms that extend far beyond the fact that they use words with "ism" at the end of it. Liberalism is a central philosophy within the ruling ideological position that I oppose.

How about working for your money and getting what you earn

That's a very nice idea that I agree with. Unfortunately, under capitalism it is, in fact, impossible to enjoy the fruits of one's own labour.

[Mahalo]

No, I meant "university's.... really? What difference does it make...this is a BB message board not the WSJ.


My issue is all the tax dollars that go to universitIES, and where it goes and what is taught...amongst other things.

Although implied, I never mentioned you or your post. It is well thought out and understandable. What I meant was while we can yap about this stuff with any research we can garner, we can also shut up and work... I deal with this every second of my life. I truly hate getting into these political debates online because it is a big waste of time. No one convinces anybody about anything...sometimes it's more for venting than anything else. I should be working on my art instead.

What I ultimately meant is that you and I are not going to agree on much. Why should I, as a conservative have any faith in anything that comes from D.C. whetehr R or D? This IRS thing is really fodaed up. I trust no politician with my money or my FREEDOM.

Are there too many phony conservatives? YES!! it drives me nuts. Was Reagan's SDI a really good thing? IMO, YES its was!! Even John Kerry touts it now, even if he demonized it during the 80's.

Obama and the deficit? Let's just see what happens when Big Ben ends QE2, or 3, or whatever one we're on now. I mean that wholeheartedly....or can I just trust the same CBO that said Obamacare was going to shrink the deficit...just like every other gov't program ever created...

under capitalism it is, in fact, impossible to enjoy the fruits of one's own labour.

I disagree.

Thus private property simply doesn’t exist without force

Exactly... the force of my labor. The BB's are wealthy.... did they take that from someone else?

You don’t have a barter arrangement in a family structure but rather an arrangement where you care for each other first and foremost and put the needs of those who need the most help (like children or the elderly) at the forefront

I agree....my problem is that Gov't wants do that for us instead of the family/community taking care of themselves.

I could go on and on, and so could you. When you have a solution to our mess please post it. If you already have I apologize for missing it. If you are interested in my ideas, I may just post those as well. If you know anyone that likes modern art and may be interested in viewing or purchasing some cool stuff, then please let me know. Otherwise, I need to use my "force" to better my life and hopefully enrich others too.


One idea I have though... VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

No, I meant "university's.... really? What difference does it make...this is a BB message board not the WSJ.


My issue is all the tax dollars that go to universitIES, and where it goes and what is taught...amongst other things.

Although implied, I never mentioned you or your post. It is well thought out and understandable. What I meant was while we can yap about this stuff with any research we can garner, we can also shut up and work... I deal with this every second of my life. I truly hate getting into these political debates online because it is a big waste of time. No one convinces anybody about anything...sometimes it's more for venting than anything else. I should be working on my art instead.

What I ultimately meant is that you and I are not going to agree on much. Why should I, as a conservative have any faith in anything that comes from D.C. whetehr R or D? This IRS thing is really fodaed up. I trust no politician with my money or my FREEDOM.

Are there too many phony conservatives? YES!! it drives me nuts. Was Reagan's SDI a really good thing? IMO, YES its was!! Even John Kerry touts it now, even if he demonized it during the 80's.

Obama and the deficit? Let's just see what happens when Big Ben ends QE2, or 3, or whatever one we're on now. I mean that wholeheartedly....or can I just trust the same CBO that said Obamacare was going to shrink the deficit...just like every other gov't program ever created...

under capitalism it is, in fact, impossible to enjoy the fruits of one's own labour.

I disagree.

Thus private property simply doesn’t exist without force

Exactly... the force of my labor. The BB's are wealthy.... did they take that from someone else?

You don’t have a barter arrangement in a family structure but rather an arrangement where you care for each other first and foremost and put the needs of those who need the most help (like children or the elderly) at the forefront

I agree....my problem is that Gov't wants do that for us instead of the family/community taking care of themselves.

I could go on and on, and so could you. When you have a solution to our mess please post it. If you already have I apologize for missing it. If you are interested in my ideas, I may just post those as well. If you know anyone that likes modern art and may be interested in viewing or purchasing some cool stuff, then please let me know. Otherwise, I need to use my "force" to better my life and hopefully enrich others too.


One idea I have though... VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET.

Ya know, I actually agree in spirit with most of what you said here and you come off as well thought out and reasonable rather than merely partisan as many of us often do.

However, on this point: "I agree....my problem is that Gov't wants do that for us instead of the family/community taking care of themselves" ..... I ask, why is it that families and communities largely fail to do so?

[Mahalo]

Thank you Pinder.

I'm sure there are a number of reasons why so many families/communities fail to so. Really, a whole host of reasons that is hard to quantify. I have examples and theory's, but not tonight. I have to tend to other business. I'll say this, though, with confidence: with freedom comes GREAT RESPONSIBILTY. From the top down. I will get into that another night.

I think about this stuff too much. WAY too much. Sometimes I wish I was blissfully ignorant... maybe I am. I think I'm going to listen to my SMiLE mix.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

No, I meant "university's.... really? What difference does it make...this is a BB message board not the WSJ.

The difference is that one is a possessive and one is a plural. And normally I don't particularly care (check my post history and you'll find that I have never corrected anyone's grammar before) but when someone critiques the education system and, then, in a subsequence post complains about what is being taught, I expect that person to know basic grammar or else I don't particularly take those critiques too seriously.

My issue is all the tax dollars that go to universitIES, and where it goes and what is taught...amongst other things.

I might agree with you, though it bears noting that the tax dollars that have gone to universities in the US essentially resulted in some of most significant products upon which the US powerhouse economic system of the 20th Century was built despite the fact that capitalist economists falsely attribute this success to the private sector.

Although implied, I never mentioned you or your post. It is well thought out and understandable. What I meant was while we can yap about this stuff with any research we can garner, we can also shut up and work...

What if a good deal of your work involves doing research?

What I ultimately meant is that you and I are not going to agree on much. Why should I, as a conservative have any faith in anything that comes from D.C. whetehr R or D? This IRS thing is really fodaed up. I trust no politician with my money or my FREEDOM.

Speaking as a conservative myself, I don't find this line of reasoning particularly productive nor very well thought through. This typical argument usually ends up with saying that we should reduce the role of government. Okay -- then what? Because what follows after that in ultra-capitalist societies which the US is, is that people end up becoming far less free because in fact the central authoritative power in the US is not the government and hasn't been for decades. Far more powerful and far more influential on our lives even now is the corporate and financial power institutions that essentially control day to day life in the country and the only thing holding them back from pure, unadulterated tyranny is the government, as badly as they do it. Go back to the age before corporations had to follow particular rules regarding labour and you had the worst exploitation in the most staggeringly awful working conditions in the country that you've ever seen. Conservatism, as I understand it, champions real genuine liberty and the notion of being able to do what you want with your life and those who currently refer to themselves as conservatives and simply rail against the government are, I think, severely missing the point to great danger, as a matter of fact. Recall too, that the tradition of labour rights and government reform is tied to a rich conservative tradition in the United States (before the term 'conservative' was hijacked by statist pro-big business reactionaries), stemming from a hatred of elitism. One of the first significant labour groups in the United States, the Knights of Labor were Republicans in the traditional sense and, as a consequence, championed free labour.

Also, the IRS thing is entirely a non-issue as far as I'm concerned and there are far more serious issues (or, let's say that there are actually serious issues, since the IRS issue isn't serious at all) that Obama should be criticized for than the IRS (but I've made that point on another thread). Tea Party groups sign up for a special tax status that would allow them to not pay taxes on the money they raise, and expect not to be scrutinized? Shouldn't everybody who signs up for a special tax status be scrutinized? But of course the real goal is that nobody who signs up for this special tax status should be scrutinized - a real scandal, in my opinion - and this is precisely going to be the very serious consequence of what amounts to a lot of hot air being blown.

Are there too many phony conservatives? YES!! it drives me nuts. Was Reagan's SDI a really good thing? IMO, YES its was!! Even John Kerry touts it now, even if he demonized it during the 80's.

Kerry is wrong, and not surprisingly nor should it be surprising that different members of the same ruling ideology should support the same program. And again, SDI was not a conservative position but, rather, on the contrary, a reactionary statist program that functioned primarily as a public subsidy to private corporations in order to keep US technology in competition with Japan. This was widely acknowledged at the time, and made clear in Congressional Hearings but largely kept from the public who were given propaganda messages about security despite top advisors noting that Star Wars was ultimately "only tangentially related to national defense." There was nothing conservative about this nor did it make good economic sense. Reagan's plan of cutting off the government to the public but expanding it radically to prop up and expand corporate power in protectionist efforts to compete with the East ultimately is what led to the country's plunge into debt.

Obama and the deficit? Let's just see what happens when Big Ben ends QE2, or 3, or whatever one we're on now. I mean that wholeheartedly....or can I just trust the same CBO that said Obamacare was going to shrink the deficit...just like every other gov't program ever created...

Actually, as studies have shown, if the United States socialized their health care, they would effectively end the deficit, not just reduce it. Your point regarding "every other gov't program ever created" simply doesn't hold up. If you take health care as an example, the US not only has the most privatized health care in the industrial world but they also have the most expensive and, in fact, traditionally it has been the private aspects of the US health care system that have been the most costly.

under capitalism it is, in fact, impossible to enjoy the fruits of one's own labour.

I disagree.

This is a little bit like disagreeing with the position that water is wet. This is not a debatable issue. It's a matter of fact. Unless one owns the means of production, they quite simply don't have access to the profit earned from their labour. If I work for, say, Ford and help manufacture a car and the car sells for, say, $60,000, I don't actually get any of that money. Rather, what I'm getting paid for is my labour time. This is, in fact, crucial as it goes back to the very beginnings of capitalist culture. Before privately run systems, people could essentially produce for themselves - raise their own food, build their own homes, etc. But the rise of privately run businesses led to people's common rights to resources taken away and they had no option but to produce for others rather than produce for themselves. Because people once would use their labour time to produce for themselves, owners of businesses would buy their labour time and do so at the lowest possible price. An owner would not decide what a labourer would get paid based on how much profit he earned from them. Rather, the decision was much like an owner of a company deciding how much money he or she is going to spend on a new photocopier. This is economics 101.

Thus private property simply doesn’t exist without force

Exactly... the force of my labor.

No. I suggest you re-read the OP to understand what I mean.

The BB's are wealthy.... did they take that from someone else?

The people who owned their music profited far more than The Beach Boys themselves did despite having nothing to do with making the music. Furthermore, many of the people who worked on producing that music, like say the Wrecking Crew or the engineers, do not get a regular pay every time that song sells. Ownership is what allows you to profit on a product, not labour.

You don’t have a barter arrangement in a family structure but rather an arrangement where you care for each other first and foremost and put the needs of those who need the mostI agree....my problem is that Gov't wants do that for us instead of the family/community taking care of themselves.

Can't government and community be synonymous? In many political ideologies, they are and in fact, in properly functioning democratic societies that's exactly how it's supposed to be.