@joefromchicago,
joefromchicago wrote:
Foxfyre wrote:But when government confiscates property that you legally and ethically earned and uses that property for the benefit of another individual or targeted constituency, the government has forced you to work without compensation for the enrichment of another and, as often as not, for the benefit of government officials or leaders. To have such a power is a corrupting influence for both those in government and those who receive such benefits.
You talk as if the government is knocking down your door and carrying away your living room furniture. Taxes are only levied pursuant to laws passed by democratically elected legislatures. There is no tax that is not the ultimate product of the public's decision to tax itself. If taxes constitute the confiscation of property, therefore, it is confiscation with the owner's permission. But perhaps you have something else in mind when you talk about "confiscation."
It isn't as blatant and in your face as them walking in and taking your furniture. But as soon as Senator Blow Hard or Congresswoman Gimme figure out that they can take your money and buy your vote or others votes with it, they are faced with opportunity that is way too tempting to resist. And hell, they can even make themselves look noble and fool themselves into feeling righteous by putting some high sounding title on the initiative.
Anything with 'children' or 'poor' or 'underserved' or 'minority' or 'save baby seals' or 'economic justice' or some such high minded title will do nicely. They don't care whether the program actually works and they are skilled at turning a blind eye to any negative consequences. They do care that you see them as the one who cares about people--who care about YOU--so you'll keep feeding their campaign coffers and/or vote them into office again and again until they can retire richer than God. And they hope you'll stay really ignorant about who has your interests at heart.
It is corrupting to those voting the money and it is corrupting to those recieving it.
Quote:Foxfyre wrote:You would need to be more specific as to the specific circumstance, but basically I would say that no, it is not a function of the federal government to buy assets of any private institution.
Why not? Because it's unconstitutional or just because it's bad policy?
Because it is corrupting and bad for the economy and expensive for the people for the government to be in competition with private industry and commerce, and it is too tempting to use such powers to favor one over another.
Quote:Foxfyre wrote:Not liberal at all. Promotion of the general welfare is a very conservative (MAC) principle, and unless the money printed and distributed by the government is made available to ALL the people without prejudice, it has no value for the people. Don't forget that I put 'legitimate use' in there and stipulated that 'sensible rules and lending and investment' must be utiliized and the peoples' money should not be put at unacceptable risk. No citizen should be prohibited from having opportunity to take advantage of the system, but ALL citizens should be required to meet specific uniform (for everybody) criteria and follow the same rules everybody is required to follow.
Nope, that's pretty liberal. Of course, under your definition of "conservative" (i.e. all policies that you favor), I reckon it's not, but then your definition is rather idiosyncratic.
Again you'll have to be more specific. Under modern definitions of 'liberal', the effort is to favor the 'weak' and 'less advantaged' and thus 'level the playing field'. So the bar is lowered or the rules and regulations designed to give advantage to some groups at the expense of others. That is not the conservative way.
Quote:Foxfyre wrote:Not specifically, but the government did threaten and coerce lending institutions to make extremely risky loans and underwrite such loans and allowed Fannie Mae and Freddic Mac to bundle them into larger financial packages while assuring the banks that Fannie Mae and Freddic Mac were fundamentally sound which was a flat out lie. Neither the banks nor their insurors should have gone along with this ponzi scheme, but the immediate profits--an illusion created by the government--were too attractive for many to resist. That does not excuse anybody. But it is a reason for the problem. And it was an irresponsible government that started the snowball rolling that created it.
The banks were
forced to make risky loans?
If not 'forced, they were absolutely threated and coerced. Here is just one capsulized summary of what happened. I have read other accounts in Forbes, Money Magazine (I think), et al that were far more specific about the kinds of pressure that was applied:
Quote:]Who is to blame for the disaster that has befallen us?
Their name is legion.
There are the politicians who bullied banks into making loans the banks knew were bad to begin with and would never have made without threats or the promise of political favors.
There is that den of thieves at Fannie and Freddie who massaged the politicians with campaign contributions and walked away from the wreckage with tens of millions in salaries and bonuses.
There are the idiot bankers who bought up securities backed by sub-prime mortgages and were too indolent to inspect the rotten paper on their books. There are the ratings agencies, like Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, who gazed at the paper and declared it to be Grade A prime.
In short, this generation of political and financial elites has proven itself unfit to govern a great nation. What we have is a system failure that is rooted in a societal failure. Behind our disaster lie the greed, stupidity and incompetence of the leadership of a generation.
http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/systemic_failure/
Quote:Foxfyre wrote:I believe Ican is on record that apart as a necessity for the common defense, the federal government should not be building airports in Texas.
I'm pretty sure
Ican doesn't know what the hell he favors.
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I'm pretty sure Ican knows exactly what he favors about many things, and like others of us who are not ideologically brainwashed, he is working out his opinions on others. Most MACs are pretty careful not to be knee jerk about anything important--it's a modern conservative principle to proceed with caution into uncharted waters when the lives and property of others will be affected.
It is one of the benefits of actually discussing the pros and cons of many of these more complicated issues before arriving at a firm conclusion. When allowed to happen with civility and an effort to cover all the bases, such discussions usually get us closer to the truth than might happen otherwise.
