Losing respect for Rand Paul

[vulcanlogician]

Yeah, I think libertarians are principled folks. Truly I'll take them over your average Republican dickhead any day, but they simply put too much trust in free market capitalism. It's tantamount to believing in unicorns to think that laissez faire capitalism will solve everything. We had that once: it seriously sucked, and we've been trying to replace it ever since. Why do you think unions came about in the first place? Greed? Hell no! Survival.

[Pat Mustard]

Yeah, 100% Socialists, 0% Libertarian.  The minute a Libertarian advocates for a good idea, they cease being Libertarian.

Look, I was trying to create a setup that most of the electorate would be happy with (ie something that could actually happen). 100% socialists ain't gonna ever happen in the US. Roughly half of the country is conservative.

45% of the country are idiots, 1% are rich, more like.

[shadow]

Yeah, but how do you fix government? The only thing that really impacts governments in NA seems to be cash, and in order to have a government-impacting amount of cash one must be a corportation. It's paradoxical. At least if we keep our cash as individuals, we can then spend it on the actual goods and services we value instead of it disappearing into a void of subsidizing whatever corporations got the incumbent government elected.

Lol you think your money directly used on things you value you want in a free market . And if you want more say in how money is spent then there is this thing called a democracy. Oh and small government can be just as corrupt as big government .

Yeah how's that working for you? Democracy is a joke - it's a cointoss as to whether you'll actually elect the candidate you voted for [for example, I've been alive for 4 American elections: 2 went to the person who won the popular vote, 2 didn't. So that's as good as random]. Not only that, but you're choosing between 2 corporate puppets in the first place. A corporation can always just... buy both parties. It's not that complex

I'm not putting any faith in democracy.

And sure, small government can be just as corrupt, but it has fewer resources so it's less powerful.

Corruption aside, I don't like having to pay for things that I don't value. I'd rather spend my own money buying the things I want and need than pooling all the resources of society and getting random stuff back. For example, apparently here in Denmark I'm supposed to pay a $300 charge for living here 6 months, to fund the Danish entertainment industry so they can make government subsidized TV programs. In danish - whoopdeedoo, I don't even speak Danish. I'd rather not spend my money on that because I don't value it - with smaller government, I wouldn't have to.

Again it's called a democracy . You get less say in a free market system because it not democratic .

I'm talking about real power, real change - democracy is far, far too imprecise. You look at how fast corporations can move things - money's what actually changes things.

Additionally, a more classic argument, when I work hard I want credit for the work. I have no qualms with the government taking a cut to structure society, but many socialist systems disincentivize people from working because it puts them into a higher tax bracket or whatnot. It's silly.

The disincentivization theory is psychological pseudoscience. Government taxation has never resulted in such a phenomenon. It''s trickle down voodoo economics created by the rich to give them tax breaks . 

No, I don't think so. Not only have I learned about this in multiple university classes (on both sides of the political spectrum), but I've seen it impact people. Have you really never met someone who works a specific amount to stay in a tax bracket? 

Oh, and one more thing, that's actually really important. The people who pay taxes are very much the middle class - very wealthy people have the resources to avoid taxes almost altogether, whereas most regular people aren't that sophisticated. You tax more, it isn't the super-rich that are paying for it.

Yup which mean we need to kill tax loopholes ans streamline taxation not kill government.

But how do you do that in a system where you have this bloated government that is a puppet of corporations? You say 'democracy' - yay, you get to choose between two or three massively corrupt parties, who will all follow the same corrupt system. Like, do you really think the USA has a hope in hell of escaping their government corruption issues through voting for one party or the other?

[The Grand Nudger]

It;s worth remembering that the only time the us military ever intentionally and openly bombed our own citizens.....was to bust up support for unions.

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Yeah how's that working for you? Democracy is a joke - it's a cointoss as to whether you'll actually elect the candidate you voted for [for example, I've been alive for 4 American elections: 2 went to the person who won the popular vote, 2 didn't. So that's as good as random]. Not only that, but you're choosing between 2 corporate puppets in the first place. A corporation can always just... buy both parties. It's not that complex

I'm not putting any faith in democracy.

And sure, small government can be just as corrupt, but it has fewer resources so it's less powerful.

Then..perhaps, the solution is to reduce the power and influence of those "free market" actors..not hand them more room to position at a reduced price? Giving the fox the keys to the henhouse leads in more dead chickens, not less. This is a properly basic observation.

[Pat Mustard]

Yeah, 100% Socialists, 0% Libertarian.  The minute a Libertarian advocates for a good idea, they cease being Libertarian.

So do you entirely disagree with things like the free market

Yes. The free market is simply a system where there are no checks and balances placed on the owners of capital. In a free market system the producers naturally gravitate to monopoly or cartel status (cartels differ from monopolies solely in the fact that the profit pool is 3-5 instead of 1) with none of the checks and balances to enure that customers don't get fucked over. You want to see the free market in action, look at ancient Rome.

and personal liberties?

Socialism well practised is far, far better at protecting individual liberties than any form of profit driven economic system that will ever be devised. Don't kid yourself otherwise.

Oh, and before you go "oh, what about the USSR/China/Cuba" look at those countries first. They were typical oligarchical dictatorships dressed up in the language of socialism (for example socialism ended in Russia on the effective dissolution of the Soviets as democratic bodies in 1919). It is no coincidence that the empires of Stalin and Mao pretty much mirrored the right wing dictatorships of the 20th century.

[shadow]

Yeah, I think libertarians are principled folks. Truly I'll take them over your average Republican dickhead any day, but they simply put too much trust in free market capitalism. It's tantamount to believing in unicorns to think that laissez faire capitalism will solve everything. We had that once: it seriously sucked, and we've been trying to replace it ever since. Why do you think unions came about in the first place? Greed? Hell no! Survival.

I'll put exactly the right amount of trust into free market capitalism - you have to prevent failures of the free market (extremely interesting topic IMO). It's the field I find the most interesting to study, personally. I love striking that balance... seeing how the corporations are so cleverly exploiting things, and devising regulations that actually prevent them, but not interfering more than what keeps the playing field even. There is plenty of regulation to be had, and plenty we're missing (like a huge amount of environmental regulation!). But it just shouldn't be excessive in any way.

That's basically where I stand on the issue. You can write it off as me being a libertarian, but really I just see there being so much power in free markets, that it would be a crying shame to have a purely socialist society, where you lose all of that beautiful efficiency.

[The Grand Nudger]

"Free markets" exist in socialism.  There is no loss of efficiency, by fiat, whatever you think that is. A socialist free market is simply one in which the rules are aligned to the benefit of the people as a tool. Where they are seen as a means, not an end. You know....places with minimum wages and environmental regulations? Laws against price gouging and profiteering? Antitrust regulations and quality standards..........the list goes on and on.

It's stuff like this, above, that demonstrate the actual nature of "libertarianism" as propaganda. Anyone who tells me that the "free market" can't operate efficiently unless it's allowed to fail us as the tool it is has swallowed the koolaid. That;s a powerful argument -against- free markets..not for them.

[shadow]

So do you entirely disagree with things like the free market

Yes. The free market is simply a system where there are no checks and balances placed on the owners of capital.  In a free market system the producers naturally gravitate to monopoly or cartel status (cartels differ from monopolies solely in the fact that the profit pool is 3-5 instead of 1) with none of the checks and balances to enure that customers don't get fucked over.  You want to see the free market in action, look at ancient Rome.

Agreed.

and personal liberties?

Socialism well practised is far, far better at protecting individual liberties than any form of profit driven economic system that will ever be devised. Don't kid yourself otherwise.

Why would it be?

[Pat Mustard]

Yeah, but how do you fix government? The only thing that really impacts governments in NA seems to be cash, and in order to have a government-impacting amount of cash one must be a corportation. It's paradoxical. At least if we keep our cash as individuals, we can then spend it on the actual goods and services we value instead of it disappearing into a void of subsidizing whatever corporations got the incumbent government elected.

You won't get to "keep your cash", as individuals..and I find that people often fail to account for the effect of subsidy and regulation on whatever tiny little pile of ameros they actually do have.  There's a reason that people who live in places with "free markets" are poor as shit....

More buzzkilling.."keeping our cash" is a euphemism for failing at our civic duty to fellow man through simple avarice.  See: this latest tax cut.  It;s easy to see why this is a bad idea when you realize that -you- are someone else's "fellow man".

What supporters of capitalistic economic systems fail to realise, every single time, is that "no man is an island". Every single decision by a government or major company has a huge impact on thousands if not millions of people. Cut the tax rate by five percent or create fake intra-company loans to offshore entities and the tax money lost results in poorer transport infrastructure, schools without teaching materials and hospitals without the skilled staff to save lives (not to mention the many myriads of other things that governments do which nobody thinks about when they cheer rich people evading their duty to pay taxes).

[Amarok]

To paraphrase  churchill democracy is the worst system accept every other system that's been tried.I would take a system that 80% of the time gives me what i want . To a system that 80% of the time has no moral interest in my well being and simply wishes to exploit me to satisfy it's shareholders . and the solution is not to shrink government. It's to divorce it from the very power you want to hand it over too. As for small government not having as much resources all depends on the government and who's backing them .