What produces RUTHLESS DICTATORS?

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Since the end of the Second World War, and including the eras of the Korean and Vietnamese wars, no greater amount of the governments revenuse was spent on "defense" than during the Reagan and Baby Bush presidencies. Apparently, by Okie's criterion, that makes them raging leftists.

Nonsense. I explained why it does not in my above post. There is a vast difference between a legitimate government function, vs ones that should not be or are not legitimate government functions.

I will try to further explain why by the following illustration. If you equate a family to a country, the head of the family treats his family well, in a conservative way by allowing the other members to be responsible and free, to learn to provide for themselves according to their behavior, or he can be extremely overbearing, not allow any of them to make any of their own decisions, and anything they earn must go to the head of the family, and he also rules them with an iron hand. Further, when the family encounters other families as neighbors, the head of the family, whether conservative or dictator like, will probably want to be strong enough to defend its own family. A conservative family head would want to be strong, but this does not translate into being a bully, but rather the dictator like head of his family may not be a bully with others, but probably is more likely to be a bully. But the strength of the family head is not dependent upon how they treat their own family. Therefore, national defense is not a good indicator of whether a nation is fascist or not, socialist or not, communist or not, statist or not, the characteristics of those political systems are more evident in the internal policies of a country, just as it is with a family.

What I have just explained might help some see why the judgement of the Nazis being right wingers because of Hitler's military belligerence and nationalism is a total and absolute logical fallacy. In fact, it probably indicates the exact opposite.

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@okie,

Quote:

There is a vast difference between a legitimate government function, vs ones that should not be or are not legitimate government functions.

And what pray tell is a legitimate government function and how do you know that one function is leftist and the other not?

Your illustration makes no sense at all okie.
So, a conservative father wouldn't provide health insurance or food to his children? Any father that does is a leftist?

1 Reply

@okie,

AN EXAMPLE OF LIMITED CENTRAL PLANNING AND LEGITIMATE GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS

Quote:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html
ARTICLE I.
...
Section 8. The Congress shall have power
To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
Section 9. The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.
No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state.
No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one state over those of another: nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one state, be obliged to enter, clear or pay duties in another.
No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.
No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.
Section 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.
No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any state on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress.
No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.

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@ican711nm,

yes, ican..

So anything that provides for the common welfare of the US is covered.

1 Reply

@ican711nm,

AND THIS EXAMPLE OF A LIMIT ON LEGITIMATE GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS OUGHT NOT BE FORGOTTEN

Quote:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

1 Reply

@parados,

parados wrote:

So anything that provides for the common welfare of the US is covered.

Your post is wrong, parados. You should have written:

So specific specified things that "provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States" are covered. All else per the 10th Amendment is not covered.

1 Reply

@okie,

Your family analogy fails because it is not analogous. Families aren't united because they choose to be, their common interests arise from consanguinity. On the other hand, societies aren't untied because they are blood relatives, but because they choose to be associated.

You also write "whether conservative or dictator like." Being conservative does not exclude being a dictator. You have never addressed the issue of right-wing dictators, such as Ferdinand Marcos, Syngman Rhee, Park Chung Hee, Anastasio Somosa, Rafael Trujillo, Augusto Pinochet, the Argentine Junta, the Greek Colonels, the Burmese Generals. You have a genuine problem with burying you head in the sand and ignoring that there have been a host of right-wing dictators, far more than left-wing. As i and others have pointed out to you, this is simply because there have been more right-wing governments than there have been left-wing.

There not only is no evidence for your silly family analogy, there is a good deal of evidence against it. If you learn that someone in your neighborhood has just purchased a shot gun, and you don't like or trust them, do you feel entitled to go down the street and take it away from them, toting your own guns? Reagan's Star Wars was never demonstrated to be necessary to national defense, and in fact was very likely a pork barrel project for his defense industry cronies in southern California. No one has ever produced a shred of evidence that Iraq was a threat to our national security, so Bush's invasion, which costs us more than 250 million dollars a day, is simply not a part of national defense.

One of things which makes a dictator a dictator is precisely that he does bully his own "family." No one knows how many people disappeared under the regimes of Trujillo, Somosa, Pinochet, the Argentine Junta--but the numbers are in the tens of thousands.

Throughout this silly exercise, you have proceeded from simple-minded premises, and not to attempt to prove them, but to assume them from the outset, and therefore this has never been anything but an exercise in begging the question. You assume that one can either be a conservative ruler or a dictator. You assume that all dictators are "leftists." Then you argue from your premises, without ever proving them. This latest "family" analogy horseshit is just another example of the same thing.

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@ican711nm,

Except the Federal government was given the power to provide for the general welfare.

Since it has that power delegated to it, the 10th amendment doesn't apply.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

There is a vast difference between a legitimate government function, vs ones that should not be or are not legitimate government functions.

Okay, let's sum up the results of this discussion so far:

Whether a government uses central planning or not doesn't determine whether we're dealing with a socialist or conservative country. A government can use central planning in order to build a military for self defence, and it would still not tell us whether this government is socialist or not.
The extent of central planning a government uses doesn't determine whether we're dealing with a socialist or conservative country. A government can use extensive central planning in order to build the most powerful military in the world, and it would still not tell us whether this government is socialist or not.
How much money a government spends in its centrally planned projects doesn't determine whether we're dealing with a socialist or conservative country. A government can spend more money than any other country in the world on its central planning projects (like e.g. the military), and it would still not tell us whether this government is conservative or socialist.
Whether a government is socialist or not mostly depends on whether the centrally planned projects are a legitimate government functions or not.

Are we in agreement so far?

Because in that case I would like to know: who in the world determines for all those countries out there which government functions are legitimate and which are not?

1 Reply

@parados,

Its not a perfect illustration, but we are to be more like grown children or even adults living in a community, whereby we have families with natural heads, fathers and mothers, to provide for the children. The head of the community, or nation must be strong, but not a bully, but how the head of the community deals with the members of the community, that determines more about what kind of a community it is, whether conservative, or statist, fascist, communist, or marxist, or whatever. If we did not have natural families, if children were merely born to the state, then yes it would have to provide until that child grew to maturity, but that is not the case, or hopefully should not be the case. Unfortunately, that is indeed the aim of liberal leftists, they want every child to be born as a subject of the state. In Hitler's Nazi Germany, he did in fact say that there was no sense in the state not having further influence upon children when they went home from school. Strange, liberals right here in this country believe the same crap.

3 Replies

@ican711nm,

ican711nm wrote:

parados wrote:
So anything that provides for the common welfare of the US is covered.

Your post is wrong, parados. You should have written:

So specific specified things that "provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States" are covered. All else per the 10th Amendment is not covered.

So.. if health care provides for the defense against disease and promotes the general welfare then that would make health care covered by the constitution and a legitimate government function.

1 Reply

@old europe,

oe, Good analysis on central governments and the difficulty in proving socialist or conservative control.

However, we all understand that okie's view of the real world is tainted, and his observations are based on his own imagination without so much as providing any evidence or any reliable source for his rhetoric.

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@okie,

So..
Your illustration doesn't really apply at all. OK.. so why did you use it then?

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@okie,

When you talk about "natural heads of families," you know not what you are talking about. Over half of heterosexual marriages end up in divorce with many who had children. There are many single mothers by choice or by accident. Even those households with both mother and father, many parents work full time, and are not at home to supervise their children.

You really don't know what you are talking about on most subjects, and you continue to prove "there's no cure for stupid."

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

No CI..

The head of a country is like the head of a family if the head of the family was like the head of a country.

When you look at it like okie does, it all makes so much sense.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

The head of the community, or nation must be strong, but not a bully, but how the head of the community deals with the members of the community, that determines more about what kind of a community it is, whether conservative, or statist, fascist, communist, or marxist, or whatever.

A nation is generally a state.

Besides that, in many states the head of state has more or less just proconsular functions. (Actually, in today's world it's just the USA and France [and perhaps one, two more?]where it is different.

okie wrote:

In Hitler's Nazi Germany, he did in fact say that there was no sense in the state not having further influence upon children when they went home from school. Strange, liberals right here in this country believe the same crap.

You are referring here to what law or order exactly?

As far as I know - and I do know (or have known) some hundreds of people who went to school between 1933 and 1945, pupils came home from school at about noon or a bit later. And did more or less what I did in my youth as well.

Of course, in a very reduced, linited way, since every youth association like anything else in public and professional was "gleichgeschaltet" (='co-ordinated', 'made the same').

Are you referring with your above to the 'Gleichschaltungsgesetz'? Why do you single out the children here? And not housewives, or professors, or the Protestant/Evangelical church, or the guilds, or ....?

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@parados,

ican711nm wrote:

So specific specified things that "provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States" are covered. All else per the 10th Amendment is not covered.

parados wrote:

So.. if health care provides for the defense against disease and promotes the general welfare then that would make health care covered by the constitution and a legitimate government function.

Only IF health care is a specific specified thing in the Constitution is it a legitimate federal government function.

Health care is not a specific specified thing in the Constitution.. Therefore, health care IS NOT a legitimate federal government function.

1 Reply

@ican711nm,

Right....

So, that would mean a missile defense system is NOT a legitimate government function.
An airforce is not a legitimate government function.
The interstate highway system is not a legitimate government function.
The Louisiana purchase MUST be returned since that was not a legitimate government function. Alaska must be returned to Russia as well.
NASA isn't a legitimate government function.
The FCC isn't a legitimate government function. (That means Rush Limbaugh is illegally broadcasting in violation of the constitution since the government sold the airwaves he is on. They are open to everyone and I should be allowed to jam any station he is on since he has no constitutional right to broadcast on that frequency.)
Immigration is NOT a legitimate government function. (Only naturalization is.)
There can be no federal criminal law since it isn't listed as a legitimate function in the constitution. (Robbing banks is no longer a federal crime.)

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@parados,

Robbing banks is not a federal function unless it crosses state lines. LOL

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@cicerone imposter,

No CI. It is a federal crime because banks are insured by the FDIC. Of course, the FDIC isn't a legitimate government function either if you follow ican's reasoning.

1 Reply

What produces RUTHLESS DICTATORS?

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