We Built This?

Oh Jesus. Is Finn a Christian?

Believe it or not Hinge, there is a rather wide gap between limited government and anarchy. I know this is difficult for a Progressive liberal to grasp, but it actually is the case.

Who is dismissing the concept of government?

Government is necessary, it just needs to operate within clearly defined limits, something that hasn't happened in this country for a very long time.

I had the same opinion at least 12 years ago, and would have no problem posting it. The government under Bush was to large and intrusive, but 't worse now.

I think it is foolish, at best, to look at government as some sort of patriarchal (or matriarchal if your prefer) force of benign shepherding.

A limited government is a government of the people.

An intrusive, controlling government is a government of the elite.

Obviously I think it did and I see no reason in this post of your to suggest I was wrong.

You are by nature a member of the cult of government, and I suspect that you are in full agreement with the speaker at the DNC last night who contended that government is the one thing to which we all belong.

I don't belong to government in any sense of the word. Not as its property and not as a member of the fraternal order of the government, or a worshipper before it's alter. I'm not on the government team, nor a member of family of government.

I pay for services from the government, and those services include one that benefit me directly and indirectly. If they don't benefit me in any way, I don't want to pay for them.

I suspect that immediately pegs me as selfish in the minds of many in this forum, but it's hardly my goal in life to fit into the majority here.

I, of course, don't see it as being selfish. The government provides services that directly benefit some that indirectly benefit me and I'm OK helping to fund those services, but there are government activities I don't believe provide me with any benefit, and I'm going to use whatever influence I have to eliminate such activities.

You are of course welcome to do so as well.

it would be easier and more merciful just to shoot the poor, finny...

You two really are clowns, but heck if you're not right. I want the poor to be wiped from the face of America, even though I'vemade my fortune by exploiting them.

When I see poor people it just turns my stomach and it's not enough to keep them from my sight, because people like you keep talking about them and so I have to contend with the fact that they exist.

It's a genetic flaw that they are poor and so we should be able to erase them all with a bio-engineered virus. I don't understand why the Koch Brothers don't spend more of their billions on developing such a "cure" for the problem.

And when we rid the nation of this trash we can convert their meager possessions to hard cash which we can then spend on military means to wipe out all the damned Muslims!

Obviously you expect a lot more from the government than do I.

Excellent. Let the Bush tax cuts lapse and bring in a progressive tax system that is based on ability to pay. Stop subsidising farmers. Remove all tariffs on imports. Close all military bases outside of the USA.

I can't argue with that. But a laissez faire government, with low taxes on the rich and no spending on the disadvantaged is also a government of the elite.

Totally wrong, per your usual. You are a critical component of the government equation: the Voter. You do belong to the system, whether you want to or not.



Guess what? Too ******* bad! You don't get to pick and choose the line items you pay for.

Cycloptichorn

Interesting world view, but not in keeping with our founding principles and constitution, which clearly established that the Federal Government has only the powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution; that the powers of state and local governments are less limited and more fundamental, as provided for in state constitutions; and that all of this power flows from individual people by right of their existence, and not by permission of the government.

Careful, some conservative bombastic blockhead might say you are "totally wrong" or something stupid like that.

As the Constitution enshrines all powers not expressly granted to government in the hands of the Citizens - also known as 'voters' - how can you argue that these people are not in fact an integral part of the system in question? I can't even see how you would begin to formulate such an argument.

Not only that, but every single one of us - all of us - are consumers of the products of government: national defense, unified coinage, and trade representation on the international level. Whether one wants to admit it or not, they are a part of the governmental system in a wide variety of ways.

Cycloptichorn

Watch out for Max. To him, everyone is a racist and we all have racist thoughts and ideals. One couldn't possibly discuss states rights with out remembering people were treated horribly in this country.

You are playing semantical games to distory the real meaning of the relationship between the people and the government here. Moreover I suspect you know it.

Of course as a citizen with the right to vote, I am a component of the "government equation," but this in no way makes me a component of or belonging to the government.

I interact with the system but I don't belong to it. That you believe we all do speaks volumes about your ideology.

Quite telling how I, as a former "hippie radical" who has seen the light, still bridles at the thought that I belong to The System, and you, a neo-radical, insists that I do.

Proof positive once again that you are neither Progressive, nor Liberal nor Leftist, and certainly no radical. What you are, plain and simple, is a hack for the Democrat Party.

Does that really play well with the folks in Berkley who have half a brain?

max views the world through a prisim of victimhood.

Semantical games?

Oh, dear.

Perhaps he was being Ironical?

Cycloptichorn

Why do you assume that I am in favor of a "progressive" tax system that is conficatory?

Oh, I get it. Your were being wry it's you who believe in such a tax system.

Yes -- Stop subsidizing farmers. There are no more "family farms" in America. The ones owned by family members are corporate entities paying off Dem politicians like Sen. (I'm a corncobbing Leftist!) Harkin.

Yes - Remove all tariffs on imports, except those imposed on nations that impose tariffs on an American goods. Do some research...who is favor of tariffs? Unions! The money bags of the Democrat Party. How do you preserve low skilled jobs that earn far more than the market would dictate and help fund the lavish lifestyles of Union Bosses and the power they weild? You urge the government to place trade barriers on products manufacture by low cost labor countries.

If there is a conservative in this mix, I can't find him or her.

Who is holding the American workforce from accepting and moving forward with obtaining the skill necessary to make a living in the 21st Century?

Unions.

When the telephone became ubiquitous, messenger boys suffered a vast wave of irrlevancy and unemplolyment. Should we have restriained the use of telephones to perserve obsolescent jobs?

That is what has and is happening in America.

Manufacturing is either a low labor cost endeavor (thanks to robotics) or a very high labor cost endeavor.

Most of the world doesn't require the high wages our manufactoring employees demand, and so virtually every successful company in America that requires manufacturing, has outsourced to nations with low labor costs.

George Soros could, with his billions, create an industry that is willing to uncompetively pay American manufacturing workers more than their counterparts in China, India, Indodesia, Brazil et al, but his industry would nt last for long.

No doubt a small measure of American Liberals would be OK with paying more for a product, in order to support the Soros dream, but they couldn't keep the Soros enterprise afloat.

There are as many people, and quite likely a lot more, who shop at WalMart that are Democrats rather than Republicans.

Tell the "poor" that they have to pay more for their kid's clothes because your ideology demands it and WalMart is a a pariah of the Ideological Left.

Yes - Close all military bases in Europe and Japan. Unfortunately we need to keep our bases in South Korea in place because the North Korean leadership are power mad idiots.

No one will rush to invade Europe or Japan is we pull back our troops.

However there is a subtle aspect to this question that, unsurpisingly, eludes you and your confreres.

US bases in Europe and Japan are not military support, they are economic support. No country is the forseeable future is going to invade Europe or Japan and yet Europeans and Japanese demand security from their governments.

The US has, almost exclusively, assumed the cost of defending Japan and Europe.

This has bought us a measure of influence in the government of Japan and Europe, but the return on our investment, in this regard, has dramatically reduced since the years immediately following WWII.

Since the influence our military support has purchased has greatly diminished in the years since WWII, our support should diminish as well.

Nothing could be more foolish than to spend billions of dollars in military expense to purchase political influence, when the political influence has shrunken to a minimum.

In point of fact, an American president that recognizes the imbalance of this long standing equation and makes moves to correct it, will likely find the leaders of Europe and Japan scrambling to align themselves more closely with us if for no other reason that their voters insist on defense and for all these years America has paid for it.

Of course if they don't, and the jingoists of Europe and Japan prevail, then I say eff them. Remove our bases and let them take the real risk of their bets.

In some ways we (America) need to be more engaged in the world (Sudan, Syria, Iran et al), but a rational withdrawal that requires our "allies" to recognize that a spade is indeed a spade, would, I think, be in our national interest.

Sorry Hinge, I suspect this is too nuanced a response for you.

You get to be a true believer in nonsense.

You're so funny - to think your post was too nuanced for me when you missed my nuance completely.

Your post gave me carte blanche to 'use whatever influence I have to eliminate such activities [that don't directly or indirectly benefit me]'

So I listed a couple of examples of things don't directly or indirectly benefit me, and I get a rather long piece that I will respond to later but I just wanted to say as a precursor:

I kind of wish you could have a day in a world full of people who thought exactly like you. I don't think you'd like it.

You think of yourself as strong, but for that to be an advantage you need a supply of 'weak' around you. But you rail against the 'weak', cursing them for not being 'strong'.

So, you were right when you said some would think you 'selfish' but that's a word I'd apply to a pubescent, you're not one of those, so I need a more 'nuanced' word.

LOL. Classic.