Murder - For the Greater Good

[GenSeneca]

Forget Capitalism and a Morality of Reason, an ideology and morality that are so strict as to expect the Rights of individuals to be respected and protected and not at all Progressive enough to consider murder a moral act - even when provided with a really good excuse!

I'd like to thank Bobby and Lag for showing the light, the Progressive ideology and morality aren't encumbered by such idealistic nonsense as individual rights - The individual is a powerless and meaningless cog in the wheel of the Collective, and should rightly be sacrificed when necessary for the good of the whole. Individual freedom leads to inequality, greed, and poverty. The Greater Good of the Collective requires sacrifice but those sacrifices are necessary to achieve a shared prosperity that eliminates greed, inequality, and poverty.

In light of these revelations, I have two proposals that are very Progressive... Only those who hold some kind of radical ideology or outdated concept of morality will have any objections. Such dissenters need to be ridiculed, incessantly, for their archaic beliefs, which have been proven throughout history to utterly fail in the goal of promoting, much less achieving, the greater good of society.
----------

Problem:

Our nation is so morally obtuse and ideologically unjust that we coddle convicted felons with everything they need to survive, and then some, yet we do not provide the same basic needs to innocent people who, by no fault of their own, find themselves victims of our run away capitalist system.

All the resources squandered on these convicted felons, food, clothing, shelter, transportation, employment and even medical care, could now be shifted from coddling convicted felons to caring for our nations homeless and poor, many of whom are children.

Proposal #1: Make every felony conviction immediately punishable by death. Execute every last one of the 1.6 million convicted felons currently serving time in US prisons. Anyone convicted of a felony and sentenced to serve time in jail will be executed immediately following the trial.

Benefits:

It would end homelessness in America - There are roughly 770,000 homeless in America while our prisons house 1.6 million, that's plenty of room to house all the homeless with room to spare. Never again would a single child have to sleep on the streets simply because the Free Market has abandoned them, and their family, to a life of extreme poverty.

It would end Hunger in America - Many of the people who suffer from food deficits are homeless or just outright poor. Our prisons currently feed 1.6 million people a day with 3 square meals, that's enough food to completely eradicate the food deficit and ensure that no child will ever have to go to bed hungry again.

No Repeat Offenders - Forget the 3 strike rule, one strike and you're dead. Our prisons are well known for having revolving doors, more than 80% of the criminals who go to prison end up returning within a year of being released. It's sheer lunacy to allow felons three opportunities to commit felonious acts before finally, and permanently, removing them from the public.

A Real Deterrent to Felonious Crime - Crime rates would plummet drastically. Since there are no more repeat offenders, they won't be driving up the stats and would be criminals will see that getting caught is an automatic death sentence.

Free Medical Care - Rather than wasting all those valuable medical resources on keeping rapists, child molesters and murderers healthy, those resources would be shifted and made available, still free of charge, to our nations homeless and poor. How anyone can defend using those resources on criminals, instead of innocent people who really need it, is beyond comprehension.

No Additional Costs to the Taxpayers - The billions of taxpayer dollars currently spent on keeping criminal miscreants alive and healthy would simply be shifted to doing the same, only now for the least fortunate among us.
---------
Continued Below
--------

 

[GenSeneca]

Continued
------------

Problem:

The current wealth gap is the greatest it has ever been and it's only getting worse. The rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. Every Progressive knows this trend cannot continue and must be stopped.

The widening wealth gap will eventually lead to the collapse of the entire country as only a small percentage of greedy rich people will own all of the nations wealth and the rest of us will be living in cardboard boxes and digging through the dumpsters of rich people just hoping to find some scraps of food.

Proposal #2: Create a truly egalitarian society by making Greed a felonious crime punishable by death. We would define "Greedy" as being among the top 1%. At the end of every fiscal year, we execute the top 1% of the nations wealthy and redistribute all their wealth, Progressively, starting with the poorest of Americans.

Benefits:

Eradicates All Poverty The Very First Year - The top 1% has 35.4% of our nations estimated $188 Trillion in total wealth, that's $66.5 Trillion (with a T) in wealth concentrated in the hands of just 330,000 people!!! Just to give you an idea, if we divided that money equally among the 46.2 million people who account for all the nations poor, each of them would get $1,439,394... That's nearly a million and a half dollars for every single poverty stricken man, woman, and child in the country! Now that's Progressive!

(As I said though, the money should be distributed Progressively so that the poor get the greatest share and so on as we move our way up the chain of wealth - that way this rising tide [which would be more of a tsunami] will lift all the boats at the same time, bringing even the poorest into the middle class. Now that's some trickle down economics that every Progressive could support!)

Charitable Giving Would Explode - Once the top 1% are executed, those who are currently in the 2% would be next. They, and indeed all the wealthy anywhere close to the top, would be scrambling to sell their assets and give their money away, literally by the truckload, to escape the death sentence that comes with being in the top 1%. Charities would have more money than they'd know what to do with.

Better Pay and Benefits for Employees - As every Progressive knows, profit primarily comes from underpaying employees for their labor. Now that siphoning off the profits of their employees productivity puts them at risk of being executed, wealthy people who own companies would have a strong incentive to avoid keeping those obscene profits for themselves. Employees would finally get paid their fair share of wages for the goods and services they produce.

Lower Costs of Goods and Services - Wealthy employers not only make profits by underpaying employees but also by overcharging for the goods and services their employees create and provide. Avoiding the gallows would be a compelling reason for wealthy employers to lower prices and bring them in line with reasonable, rather than obscene, profit margins.

Government Tax Revenue Would Skyrocket - As any knuckle-dragging Conservative will tell you, only about half the country actually pays income taxes. As every Progressive knows, the poor would love to pay their fair share in taxes and now they'll be able to do so because their once greedy employers will now be paying them their fair share in wages. More pay for employees means more tax revenue for our beloved government. The deficits our anemic and underfunded government is running today would be quickly replaced with massive surpluses, which could be used to repay the massive national debt created by the inequities of unfettered capitalism.

A Shared Prosperity For All - With the explosion of charitable giving, higher wages, better benefits, lower costs for goods and services, and government tax coffers overflowing with revenue, our nation would see the greed of a few individuals replaced with a new shared prosperity for all. Roads, bridges, schools and all of the other crumbling infrastructure could finally be updated and properly maintained. Alternative energy projects of the future could finally be funded and fully operational, thus ending our nations addiction to the dirty forms of energy that are killing the planet and keeping us hostage to oil rich countries. With the criminalization of greed, even the poorest American would have ample disposable income, and a deadly serious incentive to spend it, so the economy would grow exponentially year after year, decade after decade.

The Realization of An Egalitarian Society - After just a couple of years, having so much as a penny more than your neighbor could literally be the difference between life and death. As a result, Americans would voluntarily police themselves to ensure that everyone prospered equally. The class divides between the rich, middle class, and poor would disappear completely, taking all the animosity between the classes with it. Every American would be equal in wealth and equal in the opportunities that having wealth provides.
--------
The benefits of these policies are so numerous and profound that nobody could logically, or rationally, argue that it would be immoral to execute a tiny and insignificant fraction of our population in order to serve the greater good of the collective.

If you're one of those rigid ideologues who doesn't recognize these proposals and their benefits as great excuses for mass executions, then your ideology/morality is simply too strict and inflexible to deal with the circumstances of life in the modern world, and you're clearly incapable of understanding simple logic and reason.

 

[Lagboltz]

^^^^ My gosh you certainly a person of black and white extremes. I know you are presenting your above scheme as a hyperbole. But you feel you have to go to the other extreme of murder to express your point. No gray area thinking.

What is your goal of your post? To get a chuckle from everybody? For people to take sides and start ridiculing each other?

Your opening sentence seems to refer to our previous dialog where I say morality is way too complicated to be modeled by one short sentence from Ayn Rand. There is a lingering question on that previous thread ... would you save a bus load of kids about to die by sacrificing one druggie. I'm sure you answered the question to yourself, but you never answered that question openly in the forum because it places you in a no-win situation. .... Yes, then you murder somebody and violate Ayn Rand. .... No, then you allow dozens of kids to die, but you save Ayn Rand's dictum.

Rather than tweek your black and white simplistic idea of Ayn Rand morality, you react with a ridiculous hyperbole. So black and white.

 

[Cruella]

Excellent post GenSen

 

[GenSeneca]

I know you are presenting your above scheme as a hyperbole.

[Prog On]

I assure you that I am dedicated to the cause of achieving the Greater Good of society through Progressive policies. As individuals we have a difficult task before us but working together, as a Collective, we can make the tough decisions and build a better, safer, more prosperous America - not only for future generations but for current generations as well - and we can do it all in just a few short years.

We Progressives have been trying for several decades to eradicate poverty and homelessness and build a stronger middle class but always by tinkering around the edges of public policy with this-or-that proposal, never breaking free of our comfort zone and taking the bold steps necessary to achieve that Greater Good. What we have to remember is that we have the moral high ground in this battle. Anyone who disagrees is placing the lives and well being of convicted felons, and a small group of greedy elites, above the lives and well being of the overwhelming majority of everyday Americans.

We need a fresh, bold platform supported by strong leadership that's not afraid to sweep the roadblocks aside and push forward to a Progressive future. For far too long the Republicans, and their fat cat corporate cronies, have stood in the way of any real progress. Their dogmatic adherence to a run-away capitalist system and unfettered free market has placed profits ahead of people. Their radical ideology pushed for the disastrous deregulation that collapsed, and continues to cripple, our once thriving economy. And they've chosen to fight for tax cuts for the wealthy while ignoring their obligations to provide for the basic necessities of our nations poor and disadvantaged.

I realize my proposals may seem extreme at first glance but we have to remember that we're all in this together. We cannot create a shared prosperity without also sharing in the sacrifices that are necessary to make it possible. We've all been called upon to make sacrifices now and then for the good of the country, some of us more than others. We ask our nation's men and women in the armed forces to make huge sacrifices, sometimes even make the ultimate sacrifice, to secure our freedom here at home. Those hero's deserve to return to a country that appreciates their sacrifice by honoring it's duty to provide for them once they come home.

Many of our homeless are those same veterans who fought to keep us free and we, as a society, have abandoned them. It's morally unconscionable that they would be called upon to sacrifice so much only to come home to a public that sacrifices so little. Some of us recognize this travesty and work tirelessly to correct it, only to have our efforts stonewalled by Republicans who would rather provide tax cuts for the wealthy than provide food, shelter, and medical care to our nation's veterans.

The top 1% of our nation's wealthy are kept free by the sacrifices of our son's and daughters in the military. The US government has provided these wealthy elites with the infrastructure that made their wealth possible, with the police and fire departments that protect them, their homes, and their obscene bank accounts. The wealthy have been provided with everything necessary to prosper in a free society... And prosper they have. It's high time they gave something back to the people who've made all of that possible.

The wealth gap in this country is the largest it has ever been and it's only getting bigger. We've watched as the share of wealth held by the top 1% has swelled to epic levels and it's leading us into a crisis. The existence of this wealth gap threatens the very social bonds that hold this country together and make us strong, not only as a people but as a nation. But when we ask these wealthy elites to make a small sacrifice of their own, when we ask them to pay just a little bit more in taxes, they kick and scream and pull the strings of their puppets in the Republican party who employ obstructionist tactics to block any real attempts at progress. As a result, a mere 1% of our population is holding the other 99% of us hostage to their greed.

The passage of two simple laws is all that stands between accomplishing, in less time than any Progressive ever though possible, what has been denied us for nearly a century - A fundamental transformation of America.
-----------
We Progressives want to end homelessness this year, my proposal does that in spades. Not only will the homeless have shelter, they will also have food, clothing, and medical care - Not only does the first proposal accomplish all of this without additional cost to the taxpayer, it actually saves the taxpayers a great deal of money.

Faith in Values: Resolve to End Homelessness in 2013

Steve Berg, vice president for programs and policy at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, suggests ways that all of us can help. “Pay your taxes and don’t complain,” he said in an interview. The money is going to programs that work.

Remember, Berg says, we are the richest country in the world. Nobody should have to live on the street. Not only is it morally wrong but it ends up costing us more in the long run.

The 1.6 million felons crowding our nations prisons are costing taxpayers $32,000,000,000 a year. Permanently housing the 770,000 homeless would cost about half as much, $15,400,000,000. But the savings don't end there.

A study from Los Angeles, CA – home to ten percent of the entire homeless population – found that placing four chronically homeless people into permanent supportive housing saved the city more than $80,000 per year.

Providing just 4 chronically homeless people with permanent supportive shelter (a place to live and access to medical care) saved the city $80,000! Here's a graph that shows many of the other savings that would result from the proposal:

The overall cost savings of my first proposal are simply astronomical. And let us not underestimate, much less forget, how much safer the streets will be for the American people without the possibility of repeat offenders as well as the massive reductions in felonious crime rates due to having an effective deterrent.
-----
Next, we Progressives also recognize the serious threat that income and wealth inequality pose to this country.

Income Inequality in the United States Fuels Pessimism and Threatens Social Cohesion

[T]he effects of inequality on social and political cohesion may lead to negative economic outcomes. Polarization has already made it difficult for the leaders of the two political parties in the United States to reach accord on budgetary issues, which have clear consequences for the economy.

Policymakers should be concerned with the negative consequences of rising inequality and pessimism for the American dream. We are a society in which people have a fundamental belief that things are going to get better and that everyone will have a chance to succeed if she works hard enough. This dream—or promise, as most Americans interpret it—seems further away for many people.

My second proposal eradicates ALL poverty in the very first year. ALL not some, not most, ALL. As a result, the wealth gap will immediately shrink to pre-WWII levels and continue to fall as all of America becomes one gargantuan middle class society that simply explodes with wealth and prosperity. Also, the additional revenue to the local, state, and federal governments cannot be overstated. Releasing the 66.5 Trillion dollars that's currently locked into the hands of just 1% of the American people, and putting it back into the hands of the average American, would literally turn the entire financial situation of the country around the first year. The richest nation in the world would grow even richer, with liberty and prosperity for all.


So while my proposals might seem harsh to some, it's undeniable that they accomplish all the largest goals Progressives have been working to achieve for decades and do so in an incredibly short time frame. If anyone would like to offer comments on these proposals, I welcome your questions and critiques.

[Prog Off]
Scary good, isn't it?

 

[Lagboltz]

^^^ Naw, not scary. Just hyperbole.

 

[Cruella]

I think Krugman has the answer.

Paul Krugman: There Is No Debt Crisis

We don’t have a debt problem, and we don’t have a deficit problem. In fact, since our economy is in depression, the government needs to run a deficit. This isn’t the time to be cutting spending. We need to increase spending. And don’t worry. We won’t run out of cash trying to “fix the economy” because the government can just print the money.

See how brilliant he is? We can just print money for everything we need. Just give everyone a few million on an EBT card and that will fix everything. No need to pay taxes, no one would need to be poor or homeless or need welfare, social security etc. Dang, no need to work either, we would all be 1% ers and just vacation, shop and play the stock market.

 

[Gipper]

I think Krugman has the answer.

Paul Krugman: There Is No Debt Crisis



See how brilliant he is? We can just print money for everything we need. Just give everyone a few million on an EBT card and that will fix everything. No need to pay taxes, no one would need to be poor or homeless or need welfare, social security etc. Dang, no need to work either, we would all be 1% ers and just vacation, shop and play the stock market.

Krugman is a complete idiot, yet the Left thinks he is a genius. He makes millions spewing his foolishness.

If deficit spending and ever increasing national debt will 'fix' the economy, then why is it not fixed by now, or at the every least, improving? I suppose leftist/Keynesian fools will say "we need MORE deficit spending and money printing to fix it." Yeah that's the ticket....do more of the same thing expecting a different result. These people have lost their minds, if they ever had one.

In a sane nation, Krugman and fools like him would be roundly discredited. But in a nation infected with liberalism, sanity is a scarce commodity. Liberalism could not survive otherwise.

 

[dogtowner]

Krugman is a complete idiot, yet the Left thinks he is a genius. He makes millions spewing his foolishness.

If deficit spending and ever increasing national debt will 'fix' the economy, then why is it not fixed by now, or at the every least, improving? I suppose leftist/Keynesian fools will say "we need MORE deficit spending and money printing to fix it." Yeah that's the ticket....do more of the same thing expecting a different result. These people have lost their minds, if they ever had one.

In a sane nation, Krugman and fools like him would be roundly discredited. But in a nation infected with liberalism, sanity is a scarce commodity. Liberalism could not survive otherwise.

its worked so well for Zimbabwe, why not here ? /humor

 

[Gipper]

its worked so well for Zimbabwe, why not here ? /humor

Yes...and so many more....

List of sovereign debt defaults or debt restructuring

The following list includes actual sovereign defaults and debt restructuring of independent countries from 1800 till 2012:[15]
Americas

• Antigua and Barbuda (1998–2005)[16]
• Argentina (1827, 1890, 1951, 1956, 1982, 1989, 2002-2005[16] (see Argentine debt restructuring))
• Bolivia (1875, 1927,[16] 1931, 1980, 1986, 1989)
• Brazil (1898, 1902, 1914, 1931, 1937, 1961, 1964, 1983, 1986–1987,[16] 1990[16])
• Canada (Alberta) (1935)[16]
• Chile (1826, 1880, 1931, 1961, 1963, 1966, 1972, 1974, 1983)
• Colombia (1826, 1850, 1873, 1880, 1900, 1932, 1935)
• Costa Rica (1828, 1874, 1895, 1901, 1932, 1962, 1981, 1983, 1984)
• Dominica (2003–2005)[16]
• Dominican Republic (1872, 1892, 1897, 1899, 1931, 1975-2001[16] (see Latin American debt crisis), 2005)
• Ecuador (1826, 1868, 1894, 1906, 1909, 1914, 1929, 1982, 1984, 2000, 2008)
• El Salvador (1828, 1876, 1894, 1899, 1921, 1932, 1938, 1981-1996[16])
• Grenada (2004–2005)[16]
• Guatemala (1933, 1986, 1989)
• Guyana (1982)
• Honduras (1828, 1873, 1981)
• Jamaica (1978)
• Mexico (1827, 1833, 1844, 1850,[16] 1866, 1898, 1914, 1928-1930s, 1982)
• Nicaragua (1828, 1894, 1911, 1915, 1932, 1979)
• Panama (1932, 1983, 1983, 1987, 1988-1989[16])
• Paraguay (1874, 1892, 1920, 1932, 1986, 2003)
• Peru (1826, 1850,[16] 1876, 1931, 1969, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1984)
• Surinam (2001–2002)[16]
• Trinidad and Tobago (1989)
• United States (1779 (devaluation of Continental Dollar), 1790, 1798 (see The Quasi-war), 1862,[17] 1933 (seeExecutive Order 6102),[16] 1971 (Nixon Shock)
  • 9 states (1841–1842)[16]
  • 10 states and many local governments (1873-83 or 1884)[16]
• Uruguay (1876, 1891, 1915, 1933, 1937,[16] 1983, 1987, 1990)
• Venezuela (1826, 1848, 1860, 1865, 1892, 1898, 1982, 1990, 1995–1997,[16] 1998,[16] 2004)

• Europe

• Albania (1990)
• Austria-Hungary (1796, 1802, 1805, 1811, 1816, 1868)
• Austria (1938, 1940, 1945[16])
• Bulgaria (1932[citation needed], 1990)
• Croatia (1993–1996)[16]
• Denmark (1813)[16] (see Danish state bankruptcy of 1813)
• France (1812)
• Germany (1932, 1939, 1948[16])
  
  • Hesse (1814)
  • Prussia (1807, 1813)
  • Schleswig-Holstein (1850)
  • Westphalia (1812)
• Greece (1826, 1843, 1860, 1893, 1932, 2012 [18])
• Hungary (1932, 1941)
• The Netherlands (1814)
• Poland (1936, 1940, 1981)
• Portugal (1828, 1837, 1841, 1845, 1852, 1890)
• Romania (1933)
• Russia (1839, 1885, 1918, 1947,[16] 1957,[16] 1991, 1998)
• Spain (1809, 1820, 1831, 1834, 1851, 1867, 1872, 1882, 1936-1939[16])
• Sweden (1812)
• Turkey (1876, 1915, 1931, 1940, 1978, 1982)
• Ukraine (1998–2000)[16]
• United Kingdom (1822, 1834, 1888–89, 1932)[16]
• Yugoslavia (1983)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_default

/QUOTE]

 

[cashmcall]

[Prog On]

I assure you that I am dedicated to the cause of achieving the Greater Good of society through Progressive policies. As individuals we have a difficult task before us but working together, as a Collective, we can make the tough decisions and build a better, safer, more prosperous America - not only for future generations but for current generations as well - and we can do it all in just a few short years.

We Progressives have been trying for several decades to eradicate poverty and homelessness and build a stronger middle class but always by tinkering around the edges of public policy with this-or-that proposal, never breaking free of our comfort zone and taking the bold steps necessary to achieve that Greater Good. What we have to remember is that we have the moral high ground in this battle. Anyone who disagrees is placing the lives and well being of convicted felons, and a small group of greedy elites, above the lives and well being of the overwhelming majority of everyday Americans.

We need a fresh, bold platform supported by strong leadership that's not afraid to sweep the roadblocks aside and push forward to a Progressive future. For far too long the Republicans, and their fat cat corporate cronies, have stood in the way of any real progress. Their dogmatic adherence to a run-away capitalist system and unfettered free market has placed profits ahead of people. Their radical ideology pushed for the disastrous deregulation that collapsed, and continues to cripple, our once thriving economy. And they've chosen to fight for tax cuts for the wealthy while ignoring their obligations to provide for the basic necessities of our nations poor and disadvantaged.

I realize my proposals may seem extreme at first glance but we have to remember that we're all in this together. We cannot create a shared prosperity without also sharing in the sacrifices that are necessary to make it possible. We've all been called upon to make sacrifices now and then for the good of the country, some of us more than others. We ask our nation's men and women in the armed forces to make huge sacrifices, sometimes even make the ultimate sacrifice, to secure our freedom here at home. Those hero's deserve to return to a country that appreciates their sacrifice by honoring it's duty to provide for them once they come home.

Many of our homeless are those same veterans who fought to keep us free and we, as a society, have abandoned them. It's morally unconscionable that they would be called upon to sacrifice so much only to come home to a public that sacrifices so little. Some of us recognize this travesty and work tirelessly to correct it, only to have our efforts stonewalled by Republicans who would rather provide tax cuts for the wealthy than provide food, shelter, and medical care to our nation's veterans.

The top 1% of our nation's wealthy are kept free by the sacrifices of our son's and daughters in the military. The US government has provided these wealthy elites with the infrastructure that made their wealth possible, with the police and fire departments that protect them, their homes, and their obscene bank accounts. The wealthy have been provided with everything necessary to prosper in a free society... And prosper they have. It's high time they gave something back to the people who've made all of that possible.

The wealth gap in this country is the largest it has ever been and it's only getting bigger. We've watched as the share of wealth held by the top 1% has swelled to epic levels and it's leading us into a crisis. The existence of this wealth gap threatens the very social bonds that hold this country together and make us strong, not only as a people but as a nation. But when we ask these wealthy elites to make a small sacrifice of their own, when we ask them to pay just a little bit more in taxes, they kick and scream and pull the strings of their puppets in the Republican party who employ obstructionist tactics to block any real attempts at progress. As a result, a mere 1% of our population is holding the other 99% of us hostage to their greed.

The passage of two simple laws is all that stands between accomplishing, in less time than any Progressive ever though possible, what has been denied us for nearly a century - A fundamental transformation of America.
-----------
We Progressives want to end homelessness this year, my proposal does that in spades. Not only will the homeless have shelter, they will also have food, clothing, and medical care - Not only does the first proposal accomplish all of this without additional cost to the taxpayer, it actually saves the taxpayers a great deal of money.


The 1.6 million felons crowding our nations prisons are costing taxpayers $32,000,000,000 a year. Permanently housing the 770,000 homeless would cost about half as much, $15,400,000,000. But the savings don't end there.


Providing just 4 chronically homeless people with permanent supportive shelter (a place to live and access to medical care) saved the city $80,000! Here's a graph that shows many of the other savings that would result from the proposal:

The overall cost savings of my first proposal are simply astronomical. And let us not underestimate, much less forget, how much safer the streets will be for the American people without the possibility of repeat offenders as well as the massive reductions in felonious crime rates due to having an effective deterrent.
-----
Next, we Progressives also recognize the serious threat that income and wealth inequality pose to this country.

My second proposal eradicates ALL poverty in the very first year. ALL not some, not most, ALL. As a result, the wealth gap will immediately shrink to pre-WWII levels and continue to fall as all of America becomes one gargantuan middle class society that simply explodes with wealth and prosperity. Also, the additional revenue to the local, state, and federal governments cannot be overstated. Releasing the 66.5 Trillion dollars that's currently locked into the hands of just 1% of the American people, and putting it back into the hands of the average American, would literally turn the entire financial situation of the country around the first year. The richest nation in the world would grow even richer, with liberty and prosperity for all.


So while my proposals might seem harsh to some, it's undeniable that they accomplish all the largest goals Progressives have been working to achieve for decades and do so in an incredibly short time frame. If anyone would like to offer comments on these proposals, I welcome your questions and critiques.

[Prog Off]
Scary good, isn't it?

You know..It just might work!..You the MAN..The Liberals have nothing on y0u

 

[GenSeneca]

^^^ Naw, not scary. Just hyperbole.

[Prog On]
What is it about my proposals that you disagree with? Please be specific... does it not go far enough? Is there some reason you believe we couldn't, or shouldn't, enact such propositions into law?
[Prog Off]

 

[Lagboltz]

[Prog On]
What is it about my proposals that you disagree with? Please be specific... does it not go far enough? Is there some reason you believe we couldn't, or shouldn't, enact such propositions into law?
[Prog Off]

Look, I know you spent a lot of time on your "proposal", but I'm sorry I just can't get interested in the details at the level you laboriously wrote out. We both know you are not serious, and there really is no point in batting around ideas at that level of fantasy.

 

[cashmcall]

Gensenca...This guy know's how to get you attention...Libertarianism
By
David Boaz
I give a lot of speeches and interviews about libertarianism. Often I have to begin simply by explaining what libertarianism is. Always I’m looking for effective ways to convey the essential libertarian ideas. So today I’m just setting out very briefly my Top 10 Ways to Talk about Libertarianism.
10. When I talk in the broadest terms about Americans who hold libertarian views, I often use the popular journalistic phrase “fiscally conservative and socially liberal” — as in my new ebook with David Kirby and Emily Ekins,The Libertarian Vote: Swing Voters, Tea Parties, and the Fiscally Conservative, Socially Liberal Center.
9. I’m also partial to Adam Smith’s lovely phrase, “the simple system of natural liberty.” Set up a few simple rules, protect people’s rights, and liberty is what happens naturally.
8. The most eloquent piece of libertarian writing in history is Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, and “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is a great statement of the libertarian vision.
7. I like this rarely quoted line from Ayn Rand:

If men of good will wish to come together for the purpose of upholding reason and establishing a rational society, they should begin by following the example of the cowboys in Western movies when the sheriff tells them at the door to a conference room:“Gentlemen, leave your guns outside.”​

Exactly. Civilized people rely on persuasion, not force.
6. Sometimes I organize a speech around three key ideas of libertarianism:

Spontaneous order: the understanding that most of the order in society, from language and law to the economy, happens naturally, without a central plan; Natural rights: the rights to life, liberty, and property that we have inherently, not as a gift from government; and Limited government: the political system that protects our rights without infringing on our freedom.​

5. At Tom Palmer’s urging, I created a speech, or at least a speech opening, around the theme that “Libertarianism is the application of science and reason to the study of politics and public policy.” That is, libertarians deal in reality, not magic. We know that government doesn’t have magical powers to ignore the laws of economics and human nature.
4. Inspired by Robert Fulghum’s bestsellerAll I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, I like to tell people that you learn the essence of libertarianism— which is also the essence of civilization — in kindergarten:

Don’t hit other people.
Don’t take their stuff.
Keep your promises.​

3. Another pithy explanation I like came from a highschool libertarian newsletter some 20 years ago: Smokey the Bear’s rules for fire safety also apply to government — keep it small, keep it in a confined area, and keep an eye on it.
2. In Libertarianism: A Primer, I described the fundamental libertarian principle this way:

The corollary of the libertarian principle that “Every person has the right to live his life as he chooses, so long as he does not interfere with the equal rights of others” is this: No one has the right to initiate aggression against the person or property of anyone else.​

This “non-aggression axiom” is perhaps most associated with Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard, but its roots go back to Spencer, Mill, Locke, Pufendorf, and even Epicurus.
1. And finally, the number 1 way to talk about libertarianism — or at least a sentence I found effective when I was talking about Libertarianism: A Primer on talk shows: “Libertarianism is the idea that adult individuals have the right and the responsibility to make the important decisions about their lives.” Every word is important there: We’re talking about individuals. We’re talking about adults; the question of children’s rights is far more complex. Responsibility is just as important as rights.
Of course, today government claims the power to make many of those decisions for us, from where to send our kids to school to what we can smoke to how we must save for retirement. And that is why it’s important for us to promote the ideas of liberty and to do so as effectively as we can.

I like this guy...

 

[Cruella]

Look, I know you spent a lot of time on your "proposal", but I'm sorry I just can't get interested in the details at the level you laboriously wrote out. We both know you are not serious, and there really is no point in batting around ideas at that level of fantasy.

Won't or can't?