I have noticed that you have an alarming tendency not only to oversimplify, but also to engage in the fallacy of the single cause in your argumentation. You compare a resurgent China (whose economy has taken off after adopting capitalistic reforms), and which is therefore prospering at the present time, with a United States currently suffering an economic downturn brought about by years of overspending and bad fiscal policy, and therefore conclude that the system is what is wrong with the American economy. That’s like concluding from General Motors’ recent slide into bankruptcy that assembly line manufacture of automobiles is unprofitable and doesn’t work, ignoring that the unions, bad management decision, unresponsiveness to consumer needs, and a whole host of other problems have all combined to sink General Motors.
Your criticism of capitalism is exactly the same. And it ignores the fact that we had the same capitalist system during times when we literally the world’s biggest, most prosperous economy. If our system is so basically flawed, how do you explain the success it has produced prior to the current crisis?
You are incurable optimist, Billy. The resurgence of China and the slide of American economy are not just singular blips on the history radar. And I didn’t acquire my political convictions from the latest crisis alone. You can dig into my past posts from two years ago to check on that.
The capitalist reforms adopted by China was to stop persecuting their entrepreneurs. That was smart. Never was I advocating communist urges to destroy the free market. However, the Chinese also chose to keep tight control over their banks. They regulate, they practice economic planning. In short, they do all those things that you disavow and call anti-capitalist. And by doing that they showed to the entire world that the system based on unchecked capitalism is not the only one and is not the best. You may be deaf but the countries like Brazil listen and start saying no to the wisdom of American economic doctrine. And I am sure you will hear more of that in the future. We already are getting scolded by those who used to be scolded by us before. Add Germany, Japan, Venezuela. The ranks of rebels are swelling. Is it a single cause?
You are living in the past. Ever since Reagan took the office America decided to sell its prosperity, independence and freedom to the corporations. Now we reap what we saw. Yes, we used to be “the world’s biggest, most prosperous economy”. But that was in the past. Oh, and by the way. The assembly line manufacturing method is not the best or most profitable. Ask any worker.
Take a relevant example: welfare. I have argued with others on this board in the past about that issue. One of my opponents defined it as assistance to those who cannot work or don’t want to work. I replied that those who cannot work should indeed receive some sort of assistance until they can get back on their feet. Those who don’t want to work should get nothing. My exact words were that they “can starve for all I care.” I was, of course, accused of being a heartless barbarian. But I stand by my assertion. Those who can work, but simply don’t want to deserve nothing in the way of public assistance. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Bupkiss. If they want to have a living, they need to earn it. I do not believe that society should support freeloaders. I do not believe that is for the common good to allow completely unproductive people simply to leech off the rest of the people because they are lazy. It decreases the prosperity and productivity of a society to allow this, therefore it is contrary to the common good. My opponent clearly thought differently. In his opinion, a civilized society can’t just let people starve, and letting them do so reveals a callousness and cruelty that is against the common good. (My response, by the way, is that they won’t, in fact, starve – make it clear to someone that he’ll get nothing if he can work, but simply chooses not to, and you’ll find that he actually will get up and work rather than starve to death).
We don’t disagree on that.
Billy Shears - 14 March 2010 01:17 AM
So here you have to quite different opinions on what the common good is. How do you propose to settle this via experts or a scientific study? Sociology is not a hard science like physics or chemistry, and the answers are simply not so clear cut and indisputable. One man’s idea of utopia is another man’s idea of hell, and all the experts in the world won’t ever change this. You can, if you have the power, impose one person or group’s idea of utopia on all of society, but that won’t make the dissatisfied rest ever like it or accept it or want to live under it.
So far I didn’t have a chance to impose my ideas on others. However, under Reagan and Bush I was subjected to ideas of cutting taxes on the rich, NAFTA, globalization and deregulations. I was assured that those ideas were based on “superior understanding” of experts. But I am dissatisfied, I don’t like them and I complain that nobody showed me the scientific proof that those measures would work for me.
Billy Shears - 14 March 2010 01:17 AM
You see the problem with ideas like this one of yours is that you imagine a better, more just social order would arise if smart people could just order things according to their superior understanding, and all we poor, benighted groundlings would just get out of the way and let them. People like you, who support ideas like this, invariably imagine that their group will be the one running the show. You indulge in this fantasy, because you imagine this noocracy of intellectuals to consist of people who think like you do. Therefore it’s easy to imagine being comfortable in such a world, because their edicts and laws will march right along with what you think is best.
The problem with people who are running the show today is that the country is going down the tubes. Your accusations are straight from the book of the conservative crazies like Glen Beck and the Fox channel. Accuse the “liberals” of sins they are about to commit in the future so the people don’t notice the sins the right wingers are committing at this very moment. Every time Bill O’Reilly opens his mouth he is against “redistribution of wealth”. I sort of agree with him. I am against the redistribution of wealth which happens every time CEO takes home salary 600 times that of the regular employee. You probably say that one example of redistribution is a theft while the other is the law of supply and demand. Well, every Christian will say Jesus is the true God but Allah is not. I don’t know how to debate that.
I will ask you again the same question I asked you twice already. Why your idea of cutting taxes on the rich is to be accepted as indisputable example of common good while everything I have to say about common good is highly suspicious and subjective? For the record, nothing in the conservative ideology is objective and nothing works as promised. Not globalization. Not NAFTA. Not deregulations. Not trickle down economy. Here is what works. Affordable education. Healthcare. Social Security. Child care. Public transportation. Public parks and libraries.
Billy Shears - 14 March 2010 01:17 AM
Of course, the actual likelihood is that the group in power will have very, very different ideas about what needs to be done, and what’s for the greater good, and then you won’t find life under their rule quite so rosy. Just consider a theocracy like the one in Iran, or under the Taliban for a moment. After all, it’s precisely this sort of group, except that it’s a rule intellectual class consisting of theologists and clerics rather than scientists and scholars. This intellectual elite got its hands on power, and then proceeded to create a (for them) ideal society, based on what their perception of “the common good” was, without having to deal with all those pesky limits imposed by democracy and all its disagreeable and obstructionist checks and balances.
I don’t have to imagine. We are in the process of creating an ideal society based on perception of the “common good” as what’s best for the 1% of richest people in America. Somebody summed it up very well describing the presidential program of Forbes - to cut his taxes.
Billy Shears - 14 March 2010 01:17 AM
That’s why democracy, which you say “doesn’t work” not only works quite well, but actually works better than anything else so far – because it prevents one group or individual from imposing their will on a resentful populace who disagree with the leaders’ ideas, and chafe under laws and restrictions they consider unjust.
I also am glad that democracy prevents the excesses of such “experts” as those to whose care you would gladly consign us. I cannot help but remember the immediate aftermath of the French Revolution, when, as de Toqueville said “Never had humanity been prouder of itself than at that moment, for at no other moment, from the birth of all the ages, had man so believed in his own omnipotence.” The French Revolutionaries were absolutely certain that they could, with the application of human intellect, create a far better, more just social order. Accordingly, they set out to create their better society, and were determined to let nothing stop them. Of course, their efforts quickly degenerated into the Reign of Terror, and led to chaos that paved the way for Napoleon’s rise, and a series of wars that cost millions of lives. How could this happen? How could well-meaning men of intellect, determined to make the world better, cause so much death and destruction? Easy: they overestimated their own cleverness, and underestimated the limits of human wisdom. They also took increasingly harsh and unforgiving attitudes toward those who opposed them, and quickly resorted to using harsh repression against their political opponents. This sort of thing happens all too easily under the rule of elites and utopian social engineers, and I, for one, am glad I do live in a democracy, which has its messy, inefficient checks and balances to put the brakes on such things.
Sure. But then why nothing people want passes through Congress and Senate these days while everything lobbyists want is being passed quickly (and silently)?
You see the problem with ideas like this one of yours is that you imagine a better, more just social order would arise if smart people could just order things according to their superior understanding, and all we poor, benighted groundlings would just get out of the way and let them. People like you, who support ideas like this, invariably imagine that their group will be the one running the show. You indulge in this fantasy, because you imagine this noocracy of intellectuals to consist of people who think like you do. Therefore it’s easy to imagine being comfortable in such a world, because their edicts and laws will march right along with what you think is best.
Wait. I never said I supported Rumsfeld, Chenney and Carl Rove. No need to go back to French Revolution for examples what happens when arrogant asses get the power to run the show according to their superior understanding. What I said is when you run the war listen to the military and don’t fire or sideline those in the military who speak inconvenient truth. I also said when you reform education take advice from a different group of experts than those you listen to when you run a war.
When I said that science should be given a role in deciding about the course the country takes I was not referring to the group of experts who [think they] know better. If that’s your understanding of science I am sorry, Billy, but there is little hope for you. However, your opinion doesn’t surprise me. It is straight from the talking points of the Fox Channel and Glen Beck. Trust not those who graduated from Harvard but those who are street smart, will drink beer with you and take advice from God. I’ve seen enough of this in corporations I was employed with. And I have seen the results, too.
Billy Shears - 14 March 2010 01:15 AM
Of course, the actual likelihood is that the group in power will have very, very different ideas about what needs to be done, and what’s for the greater good, and then you won’t find life under their rule quite so rosy. Just consider a theocracy like the one in Iran, or under the Taliban for a moment. After all, it’s precisely this sort of group, except that it’s a rule intellectual class consisting of theologists and clerics rather than scientists and scholars. This intellectual elite got its hands on power, and then proceeded to create a (for them) ideal society, based on what their perception of “the common good” was, without having to deal with all those pesky limits imposed by democracy and all its disagreeable and obstructionist checks and balances.
You nailed it, Bill. Because of what you said I had very mixed feelings about Bush presidency. On one hand I wished he was elected for the third term to complete the destruction of the neocon ideology. On the other hand, I was scared to death that we might get one more theologists in the Supreme Court and that will be the end of all hope for this country. I am not sure if it is not too late already. Few more rulings like the latest one about the constitutionality of corporations pouring their money into election campaign and that’s the end of the Democratic Republic as we know it.
Billy Shears - 14 March 2010 01:15 AM
That’s why democracy, which you say “doesn’t work” not only works quite well, but actually works better than anything else so far – because it prevents one group or individual from imposing their will on a resentful populace who disagree with the leaders’ ideas, and chafe under laws and restrictions they consider unjust.
I also am glad that democracy prevents the excesses of such “experts” as those to whose care you would gladly consign us. I cannot help but remember the immediate aftermath of the French Revolution, when, as de Toqueville said “Never had humanity been prouder of itself than at that moment, for at no other moment, from the birth of all the ages, had man so believed in his own omnipotence.” The French Revolutionaries were absolutely certain that they could, with the application of human intellect, create a far better, more just social order. Accordingly, they set out to create their better society, and were determined to let nothing stop them. Of course, their efforts quickly degenerated into the Reign of Terror, and led to chaos that paved the way for Napoleon’s rise, and a series of wars that cost millions of lives. How could this happen? How could well-meaning men of intellect, determined to make the world better, cause so much death and destruction?
Democracy doesn’t work because it didn’t prevent the excesses of such “experts” as you call them. It’s not what could happen, Bill. It’s what has happened to us under Republican presidents.
Billy Shears - 14 March 2010 01:15 AM
Easy: they overestimated their own cleverness, and underestimated the limits of human wisdom. They also took increasingly harsh and unforgiving attitudes toward those who opposed them, and quickly resorted to using harsh repression against their political opponents. This sort of thing happens all too easily under the rule of elites and utopian social engineers, and I, for one, am glad I do live in a democracy, which has its messy, inefficient checks and balances to put the brakes on such things.
Just read through this whole tread and my brain hurts.
Here’s my take. Thomas you mean well but come up a bit short. Even with the bolts in his neck, Billy got a big brain.
I’m not sure what you guys do but I’m on the fringes of the business world in the wonderful world of packaging. Monday, I’m doing high end medical glue strips for implants. Friday I’m slogging through tomato processing plants and doing everything else on Tuesday thru Thursday. I speak to farmers, engineers, administrators, processors, production, management and have a good feel for whats going on in the market and can say without reservation, thank the interstellar mass for small business, capitalist and entrepreneurs. These folks are remarkable in that our our population would starve without them.
Thomas, you can hope to improve on but your not going to make a better system than the what we have. Bill, without regulation our capitalist saviors will bend each of us over with the redistribution pole, in a heartbeat.
Just read through this whole tread and my brain hurts.
Here’s my take. Thomas you mean well but come up a bit short. Even with the bolts in his neck, Billy got a big brain.
I’m not sure what you guys do but I’m on the fringes of the business world in the wonderful world of packaging. Monday, I’m doing high end medical glue strips for implants. Friday I’m slogging through tomato processing plants and doing everything else on Tuesday thru Thursday. I speak to farmers, engineers, administrators, processors, production, management and have a good feel for whats going on in the market and can say without reservation, thank the interstellar mass for small business, capitalist and entrepreneurs. These folks are remarkable in that our our population would starve without them.
Thomas, you can hope to improve on but your not going to make a better system than the what we have. Bill, without regulation our capitalist saviors will bend each of us over with the redistribution pole, in a heartbeat.
Thanks for joining. It was somewhat disheartening to play this tag of war with Billy without other participants.
I need to work on my debating skills it seems. Why did you get an impression I am not impressed by our small business, capitalist and entrepreneurs? My main point is they deserve a better system than the current one where the opportunities for speculation kill the innovation and the desire to make things better.
In another thread you made the point that organic movement is the marketing gimmick. If you pass a judgment like that without investigating how the organic movement was born and how much ingenuity, hard work and innovation was needed to build it to the point where the food industry felt threatened, you serve a big injustice to the hard working farmers, engineers and scientists you praise on another occasion. Now, the real question I am asking is what’s wrong with the system where big and good ideas are turned into marketing gimmicks? That’s the main thread of my debate with Billy and I am sorry I couldn’t express myself more clearly.
Just read through this whole tread and my brain hurts.
I’m not sure what you guys do but I’m on the fringes of the business world in the wonderful world of packaging.
OK, here is my short bio. Mathematician (PhD) by training converted to computer programmer by a love affair with computers. Tried with some success entrepreneurship but quit because the money from my business could not compete with the Wall Street compensations. Some people may call me a hypocrite but my short answer is f**k off. My way of criticizing the system is to take advantage of it and you will have to try harder if you want to show me a better way. By the way, this last sentence is my short defense of Michael Moore when he is accused by the idiots from Bill O’Reilly show of being too rich. Good for you Mike, in my eyes you have much more dignity than your adversaries especially when they try to make that extra buck by promoting their pathetic books and selling T-shirts on their shows.
Just read through this whole tread and my brain hurts.
Here’s my take. Thomas you mean well but come up a bit short. Even with the bolts in his neck, Billy got a big brain.
I’m not sure what you guys do but I’m on the fringes of the business world in the wonderful world of packaging. Monday, I’m doing high end medical glue strips for implants. Friday I’m slogging through tomato processing plants and doing everything else on Tuesday thru Thursday. I speak to farmers, engineers, administrators, processors, production, management and have a good feel for whats going on in the market and can say without reservation, thank the interstellar mass for small business, capitalist and entrepreneurs. These folks are remarkable in that our our population would starve without them.
Thomas, you can hope to improve on but your not going to make a better system than the what we have. Bill, without regulation our capitalist saviors will bend each of us over with the redistribution pole, in a heartbeat.
For some reason, every time I defend free-market capitalism against all the other systems out there, people assume that I am defending pure, unrestricted, laissez-faire capitalism. Not so. All you have to do (as I’ve said on this board before), is look at the history of child labor, for example, or at ugly incidents like the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory fire, to recognize that some sort of regulation is necessary. But sensible regulation is something government bureaucrats seem to have a hard time stopping with. They always have the urge to do more, and if regulations get out of hand, they can strangle productivity.
For some reason, every time I defend free-market capitalism against all the other systems out there, people assume that I am defending pure, unrestricted, laissez-faire capitalism. Not so. All you have to do (as I’ve said on this board before), is look at the history of child labor, for example, or at ugly incidents like the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory fire, to recognize that some sort of regulation is necessary. But sensible regulation is something government bureaucrats seem to have a hard time stopping with. They always have the urge to do more, and if regulations get out of hand, they can strangle productivity.
Billy, you blame others but you yourself are not without guilt. During our debate you insisted on framing me as someone who wants to replace the free enterprise system with the communist regime. Like if it was an either or proposition.
Regarding the merit of your post. Regulations whether you like it or not are bureaucratic solutions. We cannot change that. At the same time we need regulations and I am glad you admitted that.
What I don’t like about conservative line of thought (or is it only their propaganda?), which you seem to share, is to pin everything bad on the government and to insist on making the government as small (and weak) as possible. The conservative recipe also includes privatizing everything which is not privatized yet. If you really mean that it is very, very scary. Just try to push what you see now in America to the extreme conclusion (unrestricted with what now the lawyers and bureaucrats are trying to derail) and I don’t know how you imagine an average citizen to survive with ever escalating costs of higher education, health service, costs of home ownership, the need to save for retirement etc. Today the conservatives have the luxury to complain about the salaries and benefits of public employees but try to imagine what happens if you privatize everything and there will be no more public employees? It is not hard to predict. The very rich will have good teachers, police to protect them, doctors to attend them. Poor will have nothing and middle class will be reduced to those who directly serve the rich. We have seen how such political system worked in Medieval Ages and I am sure that nobody sane wants to see such system to return.
The only sane solution is to try to make the government work. I proposed such solution, which is to reform the government institutions. They have to be not-for profit meaning that all public servants are salaried employees. They have to be independent from elected officials who when given the opportunity will squander the public money for their re-election campaigns. They cannot be “too big to fail” meaning that the public will not suffer the consequences of mismanagement and fraud. They have to be professional, which does not mean, as you insinuated, I want a narrow group of those who “know better” to run the show.
In the present “hybrid” system the worst fraud and waste are committed where the public and private sectors meet. This is where the lucrative contracts are awarded, bribes oil the political machinery and the public is on the hook for the crooks who cannot succeed on their own on the free market and are getting rich by stealing our money. I say let’s break this cartel which is not going to happen by “making the government smaller”.
Billy, you blame others but you yourself are not without guilt. During our debate you insisted on framing me as someone who wants to replace the free enterprise system with the communist regime. Like if it was an either or proposition.
Actually, that’s not quite right. You provided certain examples of things you said worked better in the eastern bloc countries, and I disputed that. I also, admittedly, used the communist example of collective farming to demolish the notion that you can get either government or the economy to run on the principle of “the greater good.” This is not accusing you of wanting to replace capitalism with communism, it is merely to point out the fact that attempts have been made to set up operations where disinterested, altruistic concern for the greater good was supposed to be the operating principle that would motivate workers to work, and that this turned out to be an utter failure because such an abstraction does not, in fact, motivate any but a tiny number of ideologues.
Thomas Orr - 18 March 2010 10:44 PM
Regarding the merit of your post. Regulations whether you like it or not are bureaucratic solutions. We cannot change that. At the same time we need regulations and I am glad you admitted that.
I know they are a bureaucratic solution. I never asserted otherwise. But I regard government and bureaucracy in precisely the same light the American founding fathers did—as a necessary evil.
Thomas Orr - 18 March 2010 10:44 PM
What I don’t like about conservative line of thought (or is it only their propaganda?), which you seem to share, is to pin everything bad on the government and to insist on making the government as small (and weak) as possible.
No, not as small and weak as possible, but definitely smaller and weaker than it is now. We actually had a government that was much smaller and weaker: the Articles of Confederation, which was the forerunner to the United States constitution, and provided a government that was too limited and too weak. This is why I think anarchists are insane; they have no idea what a chaotic hell they’d unleash if they had their way. The central government does need enough power, but not too much. Right now, I think ours has a bit too much.
Thomas Orr - 18 March 2010 10:44 PM
The conservative recipe also includes privatizing everything which is not privatized yet. If you really mean that it is very, very scary. Just try to push what you see now in America to the extreme conclusion (unrestricted with what now the lawyers and bureaucrats are trying to derail) and I don’t know how you imagine an average citizen to survive with ever escalating costs of higher education, health service, costs of home ownership, the need to save for retirement etc. Today the conservatives have the luxury to complain about the salaries and benefits of public employees but try to imagine what happens if you privatize everything and there will be no more public employees?
Just whom do you think is seriously proposing any such thing? I certainly never have, and why you would lump me in with any such people I can’t imagine, especially given that I am a public employee. I’d be the very last person to suggest that everything be privatized. There are certain functions that are properly the role of government—law enforcement, the military, tax collection, most regulatory agencies, etc.
Thomas Orr - 18 March 2010 10:44 PM
It is not hard to predict. The very rich will have good teachers, police to protect them, doctors to attend them. Poor will have nothing and middle class will be reduced to those who directly serve the rich. We have seen how such political system worked in Medieval Ages and I am sure that nobody sane wants to see such system to return.
The only sane solution is to try to make the government work.
I disagree in part. Yes, government needs to be made more efficient and honest. I’d support any effort to make it so. But I go further than you in declaring that its role should also be limited to those things that are properly the function of government, and it should be kept out of those things which are not. This is where you run into the old problem: quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Our government was set up to have very significant restrictions on its power, and even then, our founding fathers warned us always to keep a watchful eye on it, because they well recognized the human tendency to seek and hold more and more power over time, as well as the corrupting influence of that power. They knew there was a danger that the government would get bigger and bigger over time. James Madison wrote: “I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” This is precisely what has happened, and it is an ever ongoing process.
And the plain fact is that I just don’t trust politicians. You can set up the most well-planned, and well-intentioned systems, and politicians will come along and corrupt and exploit and pervert it over time. Disinterested statesmen are rare. Sleazy politicians, on the other hand, are common. You used the example of medicare and social security. Those are perfect examples of those well-intentioned, well-planned programs to which I just referred. They are on the road to imminent insolvency right now because politicians have raided their funds over and over again. Get a load of this:
This is a short video, shot just yesterday at a town hall meeting, of Democratic Representative openly admitting that the only way to keep congress from raiding such funds to actively restrain them. You simply can’t trust them not to do it if you leave them alone. You simply can’t trust them to do the right thing themselves. He says, point blank, “if you don’t tie our hands we will keep stealing.” You have to use balanced budget amendments, pay as you go legislation, and other legal restraints to make them keep their hands out of the cookie jar.
Now again, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? The problem with using the law as a restraint on government is that government is the very thing that makes the laws. When government is kept small, and more answerable to the people, abuses are easier to control. They still happen, of course, but they’re easier to control. The bigger and more powerful you let government get, however, the harder it is to control.
Thomas Orr - 18 March 2010 10:44 PM
I proposed such solution, which is to reform the government institutions. They have to be not-for profit meaning that all public servants are salaried employees. They have to be independent from elected officials who when given the opportunity will squander the public money for their re-election campaigns. They cannot be “too big to fail” meaning that the public will not suffer the consequences of mismanagement and fraud. They have to be professional, which does not mean, as you insinuated, I want a narrow group of those who “know better” to run the show.
Sorry, but if you propose a government of “experts” who will use their expertise to make policy, then that is exactly what you are advocating, whether that’s what you intend to do or not. It may be a case of trying to eat your cake and have it too.
Thomas Orr - 18 March 2010 10:44 PM
In the present “hybrid” system the worst fraud and waste are committed where the public and private sectors meet. This is where the lucrative contracts are awarded, bribes oil the political machinery and the public is on the hook for the crooks who cannot succeed on their own on the free market and are getting rich by stealing our money. I say let’s break this cartel which is not going to happen by “making the government smaller”.
It’s not going to happen solely by that means, and I never claimed it would. But keeping government smaller is one tool among many to curtail this sort of corruption (you’ll never eliminate it entirely). Even in the smallest governments, abuses occur and corruption takes place. Greed, nepotism, cronyism, bribes, and so forth are a feature of all government, large and small. But given that it is a feature—an inextricable feature—of government, don’t you realize that increasing the size of government will also make these abuses more numerous?
He says, point blank, “if you don’t tie our hands we will keep stealing.” You have to use balanced budget amendments, pay as you go legislation, and other legal restraints to make them keep their hands out of the cookie jar.
Now again, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? The problem with using the law as a restraint on government is that government is the very thing that makes the laws. When government is kept small, and more answerable to the people, abuses are easier to control. They still happen, of course, but they’re easier to control. The bigger and more powerful you let government get, however, the harder it is to control.
Wow. I actually agree with 85% of your post and realize that we are both trying to solve the same problem.
However, I am having a hard time accepting that balanced budget amendments and pay as you go legislation are the only tools left to control the government. What happened to the Constitution?
No matter how proud Americans are of their Founding Fathers it is time to realize that our Constitution does not meet the challenges of our time. We need the Constitutional protection against unrestrained power of the legislature especially when it comes to controlling the money. (Well, it seems 90% of the laws we pass is either about raising or spending the money. It is insane if you ask me).
It is hard for me to imagine a civilized country without health care, education, public transportation and social services operating as services and not as for profit entities. If another revolution is needed to accomplish that I’d say what the heck, let’s go for it. However, examples of Canada, Europe and Japan show that it can be done by educating and pressuring the government, without resorting to bloody revolution. It’s good you are a skeptic but skepticism alone will not take us far.
Sorry, but if you propose a government of “experts” who will use their expertise to make policy, then that is exactly what you are advocating, whether that’s what you intend to do or not. It may be a case of trying to eat your cake and have it too.
I didn’t propose any such thing and I am sorry if I didn’t express myself clear. I didn’t propose to replace our elected officials with experts. I only proposed that Health Care, Education and other government services are run by salaried experts.
Wow. I actually agree with 85% of your post and realize that we are both trying to solve the same problem.
However, I am having a hard time accepting that balanced budget amendments and pay as you go legislation are the only tools left to control the government. What happened to the Constitution?
There is no reason whatever why balanced budget amendments and pay as you go legislation cannot exist under the constitution. The constitution is, intentionally, a rather broadly written document; it also is made up, not of statements of government’s power, but rather of statements of what government may not do. Lots of laws get enacted by legislatures under its umbrella, and unless they clearly violate the prohibitions laid down in the constitution, there is no reason that they should not be the law of the land.
But to answer your question in a larger sense… The constitution is a document, a piece of parchment with words on it. It can’t get up and enforce itself. It has power only as long as men are willing to be bound by it. When provisions of the document get ignored, flouted, or “interpreted” to mean things other than what those words plainly mean, and when other men allow these transgressions to pass unchallenged, then the rule of law under the constitution is undermined. That’s why the founding fathers warned up about those gradual encroachments, because this is precisely how they happen.
Thomas Orr - 19 March 2010 01:07 AM
No matter how proud Americans are of their Founding Fathers it is time to realize that our Constitution does not meet the challenges of our time.
Actually, it does. The problem is not with the constitution; the problem is that we have allowed too many things which are frankly unconstitutional to pass unchallenged.
Thomas Orr - 19 March 2010 01:07 AM
We need the Constitutional protection against unrestrained power of the legislature especially when it comes to controlling the money. (Well, it seems 90% of the laws we pass is either about raising or spending the money. It is insane if you ask me).
It is hard for me to imagine a civilized country without health care, education, public transportation and social services operating as services and not as for profit entities. If another revolution is needed to accomplish that I’d say what the heck, let’s go for it. However, examples of Canada, Europe and Japan show that it can be done by educating and pressuring the government, without resorting to bloody revolution. It’s good you are a skeptic but skepticism alone will not take us far.
Well, given that the constitution has provided stable government, however flawed it may be, for over 200 years now, and we have prospered considerably under it during this time, you’ll excuse me if I am not on board with any proposal to replace it with something else. We have an expression for that sort of idea: throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Well, given that the constitution has provided stable government, however flawed it may be, for over 200 years now, and we have prospered considerably under it during this time, you’ll excuse me if I am not on board with any proposal to replace it with something else. We have an expression for that sort of idea: throwing the baby out with the bath water.
How about a couple of new amendments? After all, don’t you deserve some protection against government stealing your money?
You are excused. But it puzzles me why you are so afraid of change? After all those who are not afraid forced our country and our laws to undergo considerable changes since our Founding Fathers gave us the Constitution. Not all of them winning my approval. Today corporations enjoy the same status and protection as do people. I would like to grant similar rights to communities so developers cannot sue us for violating their imaginary rights to build and sell ugly buildings on our land. After all I as individual still enjoy the right to hire anybody I like, or hire nobody, when it comes to doing business on my property. But my community seems completely defenseless against absurd claims of banks wanting to shut down my Credit Union on the pretext of “unfair competition”.
How about a couple of new amendments? After all, don’t you deserve some protection against government stealing your money?
That may require the passage of some new laws, but not necessarily a constitutional amendment. Though if one is needed, it can be enacted. The process of amending the constitution was wisely made possible, but intentionally difficult, because really major changes should not be enacted without a great deal of debate, and not without broad consensus.
Thomas Orr - 19 March 2010 11:48 PM
You are excused. But it puzzles me why you are so afraid of change?
I’m not afraid of change, I’m merely wary of it, because not all change is good, and not all proposed changes will result in better outcomes than what’s already in place. To resort once again to the example of communism (and note: this does not mean I am accusing you of promoting communism, this is merely an example to illustrate the point), the Russian people in the years before 1917 lived under a corrupt, oppressive, autocratic, tyranny, and certainly desired change. The change they got, however, turned out to be a cure worse than the disease.
I am wary of those seeking sweeping change. People don’t usually have it all figured out as well as they think they do. Remember, the French Revolutionaries really did think they could do better than the ancien regime. They never doubted their ability to do so. But they did do worse. Much worse. Not all brilliant ideas turn out to be so brilliant, so change really should come slowly and carefully, because when you are making policy, you are affecting people’s very lives, and many people have a high price to pay if you get it wrong. you said earlier that if it takes another revolution to get the things you feel we must have, then let’s go ahead. Well, no. Let’s not. Revolutions are horrible, destructive things, which often turn out worse than what they propose to replace, and even when they don’t, always have unforeseen and unintended consequences. Before anyone is justified in resorting to such extreme means, one had better be in the most extreme circumstances already, and sorry, but we are not there yet. And one had also best be careful of the changes one is proposing. As Paul Johnson said: “The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.”
I’m not afraid of change, I’m merely wary of it, because not all change is good, and not all proposed changes will result in better outcomes than what’s already in place. To resort once again to the example of communism (and note: this does not mean I am accusing you of promoting communism, this is merely an example to illustrate the point), the Russian people in the years before 1917 lived under a corrupt, oppressive, autocratic, tyranny, and certainly desired change. The change they got, however, turned out to be a cure worse than the disease.
We undergo changes all the time. Like it or not, Marx was a great interpreter of history and economy. He observed that a class which has economic power will in the end achieve political power. I don’t know if this is why the communists regime were so paranoid about not letting people to own, engage in free enterprise, and get rich but that’s a different story. What is applicable to our situation though are the steady gains in political power of the big corporations. These are changes taking place today and these changes do worry me. Just think about the recent Supreme Court decision to recognize and uphold the right to “free speech” for the corporation as a legitimate cover for their role in the political process.
Knowing your reservations regarding pushing for change I want to ask you to fill out the following multiple choice questionnaire.
1. It is OK that corporations are actively influencing our laws and political process. The changes in laws and in interpretation of the Constitution caused by the corporate push for power do not impose danger to our democratic values. In short, there is no need to worry about anything here or take action.
2. The potential changes resulting from the corporate push for political power are a concern and we should resist those changes like any other changes in laws and Constitution for that matter.
3. The corporations already went too far and we should fight back to regain the ground we lost.
