Oregon passes tax increases on corporations and the wealthy..

[PLC1]

Originally Posted by Mare Tranquillity
Noam Chomsky was hardly a communist.

Anarcho-Socialist then... Where has that system ever worked?

Where has it ever been tried?

 

[GenSeneca]

Where has it ever been tried?

Exactly my point... Perhaps I should tell Mare it's already failing so the point might actually sink in and have impact.

 

[citizenzen]

Limited government is the solution. Restrict governments role to the few specific tasks outlined in the constitution in hopes that with fewer obligations on their plate they may actually find the time to enforce laws already on the books.

The preamble of the constitution outlines the mission of the government...

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.​

This is not a limited government role. This is a mission statement for a very ambitious and involved government.

Perhaps you forgot to read this part.

 

[GenSeneca]

The preamble of the constitution outlines the mission of the government...

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.​

This is not a limited government role. This is a mission statement for a very ambitious and involved government.

Perhaps you forgot to read this part.

You probably still have me on ignore due to your complete ineptitude at dealing with opposing views, so hopefully someone will be kind enough to quote my reply in order that you may read it.

Since the courts decision in 1937, yes, the federal government has been seen as having completely unlimited power to tax and spend on absolutely anything it wishes. Prior to that coerced ruling, the general welfare was limited to only the enumerated powers specifically outlined in Article I Section 8 for the federal government.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Again, if it hasn't been tried, why do you insist that it has failed?

Did I say it has failed? I don't think it will work and you have provided not a single example of it ever working in human history. Pollyanna is the proper term for it. And since you are insistent that the process be started with a 90%/10% division of wealth, then I think its chances of working are reduced considerably.

Anarcho-Socialist then... Where has that system ever worked?

So, if you have a fancy name for someone that invalidates the truthfulnes of their statements? It's a cheapshot way of denigrating someone without addressing the things they actually said.

I have said repeatedly that it is NOT a level playing field but eliminating the governments legal ability to violate individual rights would level it. But you cannot discuss this, or any topic, without constructing strawmen (OUTRIGHT LIES) to buttress your case.

Calling me a liar and Noam an anarcho-socialist doesn't change the fallacy of your philosophy. Stopping the game with 90 points on one side of the score board and 10 on the other is not evening up the score. It simply ends the game with one team getting away with all the goodies.

Oh you mean you don't feel good about being "compassionate" with other peoples money? You don't derive some personal satisfaction from using government to force your altruist morality on everyone?

No more than you do with your attempt to force women to obey your moral values. I would derive satisfaction from seeing the suffering of others ameliorated--silly me. And if that can be done without causing suffering to the rich people that are required to pony up the money, then that seems like a win/win situation. No one deserves millions of dollars a year when others are hungry and homeless. Limiting the excesses of the biggest predators in our culture is hardly cruelty, while it IS cruelty to allow those predators to force others into grinding poverty.

And you want to do that through the use of force and the violation of individual rights. Or do you wish to deny that fact?

How will you make women stop having abortions? Will you use force and violate their individual right to control their own bodies?

Who was the funny looking guy? Not you, is it?

"water logic" that's a pleasant way of saying you want to violate individual rights with force under the guise of "compassion".

How exactly would your Utopian system be any different from Communism?

If people abuse their rights then we tend to curtail their rights, don't we? If you manage to steal enough that others suffer want while you sh1t in a gold pot, then you have abused your right to enrich yourself and you need to be reined in just like we rein in people who use physical force against others.

Until you define communism we can hardly discuss the details, can we? Are you refering to totalitarian communism like in Russia, or Chinese communism, or religious communism?

I have never said that "my system" would be Utopian, you use that term to be derogatory--a cheap shot. I don't think any system is going to be Utopian, but I think we can do a little better than the predatory stupidity that we live with now.

How exactly would your Utopian system be any different from financial anarchy?

 

[GenSeneca]

Did I say it has failed?

Here's what you said:

I don't think your pollyanna idea will work either. It's certainly not working for most of us.

How can it not be working when you haven't tried it?

So, if you have a fancy name for someone that invalidates the truthfulnes of their statements?

Like calling my philosophy "Pollyanna" in hopes that it invalidates the truthfullness of my statements?

It's a cheapshot way of denigrating someone without addressing the things they actually said.

Oh, like calling my philosophy "Pollyanna" to avoid addressing the things I've actually said?

Calling me a liar and Noam an anarcho-socialist doesn't change the fallacy of your philosophy.

You ARE a liar and he IS an anacho-socialist, denigrating my philosophy doesn't change those facts.

Stopping the game with 90 points on one side of the score board and 10 on the other is not evening up the score. It simply ends the game with one team getting away with all the goodies.

A totally equal distribution of all wealth is not a level playing field, it's Communism.

No more than you do with your attempt to force women to obey your moral values.

Shall we eliminate laws that make it illegal to kill people outside the womb? After all... We wouldn't want to impose our moral standards on anyone by making it illegal for people to kill each other at will, now would we?

I would derive satisfaction from seeing the suffering of others ameliorated--silly me.

As I said, you want the ability to violate the rights of others but you don't want others to have the ability to violate your rights.

No one deserves millions of dollars a year when others are hungry and homeless.

Why do you, Mare, deserve to have anything when there are people who are hungry and homeless? Why do you think you deserve what you have but people with more than you do not?

How will you make women stop having abortions? Will you use force and violate their individual right to control their own bodies?

They have no individual right to take the life of another human being that is no threat to their life.

If people abuse their rights then we tend to curtail their rights, don't we?

That doesn't make the practice moral, ethical or just, only legal.

My sig:

It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it. - George Washington

Until you define communism we can hardly discuss the details, can we? Are you refering to totalitarian communism like in Russia, or Chinese communism, or religious communism?

How do you make sure there is a permanent and complete equal distribution of wealth without a totalitarian government?

I have never said that "my system" would be Utopian, you use that term to be derogatory--a cheap shot.

Derogatory cheap shot... like calling my philosophy Pollyanna?

I don't think any system is going to be Utopian, but I think we can do a little better than the predatory stupidity that we live with now.

And it's a system you perpetuate because you want to be the predator.

How exactly would your Utopian system be any different from financial anarchy?

Because a Capitalist government respects and protects individual rights while Anarchy has no government. It would not be Utopian but it is the only system that respects and protects individual rights.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Your sophistries don't convince me, here's another article that points out what is being done and somehow your "vote for good people" concept will not fix it. And it is the rich and powerful people who are doing this to the rest of us. Sempiternal greed is not a virtue.

Understanding the Nature of the Global Economic Crisis

The people have been lulled into a false sense of safety under the ruse of a perceived “economic recovery.” Unfortunately, what the majority of people think does not make it so, especially when the people making the key decisions think and act to the contrary. The sovereign debt crises that have been unfolding in the past couple years and more recently in Greece, are canaries in the coal mine for the rest of Western “civilization.” The crisis threatens to spread to Spain, Portugal and Ireland; like dominoes, one country after another will collapse into a debt and currency crisis, all the way to America.



In October 2008, the mainstream media and politicians of the Western world were warning of an impending depression if actions were not taken to quickly prevent this. The problem was that this crisis had been a long-time coming, and what’s worse, is that the actions governments took did not address any of the core, systemic issues and problems with the global economy; they merely set out to save the banking industry from collapse. To do this, governments around the world implemented massive “stimulus” and “bailout” packages, plunging their countries deeper into debt to save the banks from themselves, while charging it to people of the world.



Then an uproar of stock market speculation followed, as money was pumped into the stocks, but not the real economy. This recovery has been nothing but a complete and utter illusion, and within the next two years, the illusion will likely come to a complete collapse.



The governments gave the banks a blank check, charged it to the public, and now it’s time to pay; through drastic tax increases, social spending cuts, privatization of state industries and services, dismantling of any protective tariffs and trade regulations, and raising interest rates. The effect that this will have is to rapidly accelerate, both in the speed and volume, the unemployment rate, globally. The stock market would crash to record lows, where governments would be forced to freeze them altogether.



When the crisis is over, the middle classes of the western world will have been liquidated of their economic, political and social status. The global economy will have gone through the greatest consolidation of industry and banking in world history leading to a system in which only a few corporations and banks control the global economy and its resources; governments will have lost that right. The people of the western world will be treated by the financial oligarchs as they have treated the ‘global South’ and in particular, Africa; they will remove our social structures and foundations so that we become entirely subservient to their dominance over the economic and political structures of our society.

This is where we stand today, and is the road on which we travel.

The western world has been plundered into poverty...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17736

 

[PLC1]

Your sophistries don't convince me, here's another article that points out what is being done and somehow your "vote for good people" concept will not fix it. And it is the rich and powerful people who are doing this to the rest of us. Sempiternal greed is not a virtue.

Understanding the Nature of the Global Economic Crisis

The people have been lulled into a false sense of safety under the ruse of a perceived “economic recovery.” Unfortunately, what the majority of people think does not make it so, especially when the people making the key decisions think and act to the contrary. The sovereign debt crises that have been unfolding in the past couple years and more recently in Greece, are canaries in the coal mine for the rest of Western “civilization.” The crisis threatens to spread to Spain, Portugal and Ireland; like dominoes, one country after another will collapse into a debt and currency crisis, all the way to America.



In October 2008, the mainstream media and politicians of the Western world were warning of an impending depression if actions were not taken to quickly prevent this. The problem was that this crisis had been a long-time coming, and what’s worse, is that the actions governments took did not address any of the core, systemic issues and problems with the global economy; they merely set out to save the banking industry from collapse. To do this, governments around the world implemented massive “stimulus” and “bailout” packages, plunging their countries deeper into debt to save the banks from themselves, while charging it to people of the world.



Then an uproar of stock market speculation followed, as money was pumped into the stocks, but not the real economy. This recovery has been nothing but a complete and utter illusion, and within the next two years, the illusion will likely come to a complete collapse.



The governments gave the banks a blank check, charged it to the public, and now it’s time to pay; through drastic tax increases, social spending cuts, privatization of state industries and services, dismantling of any protective tariffs and trade regulations, and raising interest rates. The effect that this will have is to rapidly accelerate, both in the speed and volume, the unemployment rate, globally. The stock market would crash to record lows, where governments would be forced to freeze them altogether.



When the crisis is over, the middle classes of the western world will have been liquidated of their economic, political and social status. The global economy will have gone through the greatest consolidation of industry and banking in world history leading to a system in which only a few corporations and banks control the global economy and its resources; governments will have lost that right. The people of the western world will be treated by the financial oligarchs as they have treated the ‘global South’ and in particular, Africa; they will remove our social structures and foundations so that we become entirely subservient to their dominance over the economic and political structures of our society.

This is where we stand today, and is the road on which we travel.

The western world has been plundered into poverty...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17736

What a scary scenario, made even more scary by its plausibility. So, how do we know that the author knows what he is talking about?

Take all of the world's economists and line them up, they would still all point in different directions.

 

[GenSeneca]

here's another article that points out what is being done

I've stated right here on this forum that the "recovery" is an illusion, that the Stimulus is a slush fund, that TARP was passed as one thing but used to funnel money to the banks which were "too big to fail" so they could buy up their weakened competition, that the Toxic Assets were still out there, that the PIIGS, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain, are all in dire straights due to the loose fiscal policy that we are now following...

somehow your "vote for good people" concept will not fix it.

That was not the solution I offered.

We need to eliminate governments ability to legally violate the rights of any individual.

And it is the rich and powerful people who are doing this to the rest of us.

Is the government protecting your rights from these people or is it allowing them to legally violate your rights?

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

I think that this article says it all.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/26/liberals.atheists.sex.intelligence/index.html?hpt=C2

 

[GenSeneca]

I think that this article says it all.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/26/liberals.atheists.sex.intelligence/index.html?hpt=C2

That's supposed to say what about the topic?