Yes.

Government of/by/for lobbyists is a direct product of recent Republican politics...

And of course, a bigger government (a standard Democratic/Left -wing ideal that Nick espouses routinely) will NOT lead to any greater special interest lobbying or legislation.

It just won't.

Right?


Listen up, people. Here's the deal:

This country was founded on principles libertarianism.

Go back and read the drafts of our Constitution. Read the Federalist Papers. Study the works of the Founding fathers, understand the history of the world at the time they drafted our government's charter. Read the accounts of the Constitutional conventions and the editorials that accompanied them.

They didn't necessarily call it "Libertarianism" then but, it is clear that what we now call Libertarianism is what the intent was. A small, centralized government tasked with protecting the citizens in the most basic general sense and which gave over all other specific governance issues to individual States - with an assumption that those individual States would likewise, provide the least amount of government necessary to protect individual freedoms.

Modern-day revisionists would like to suggest that this was not the intent. That our system is intended to allow for massive, tax-funded, centralized government that is tasked with protection of the weak or unintelligent, provision of welfare and redistribution of wealth.

But that's just not true.

No matter how much people want to argue that it's a good idea or something we should be trying to do.

The system was not intended to have an income tax (indeed, it was literally FOUNDED on the ideal that there would be no income taxes!), to provide for massive socialistic, governmental services or for the redistribution of wealth through income or estate taxes. If a goal now is to have a huge central government for the purposes of providing all sorts of social services and redistribution of wealth, then that goal needs to be clearly articulated and understood and a system established to provide that.

Activist, left-wing liberal attempts to jam the round peg of af Libertarian governmental architecture into the square hole of socialist ideals are simply asking for trouble - some of which we already see a good deal of:

Tax rates approaching 50% (in aggregate, 35% Federal, alone), an un-Constitutional income tax that is propounded through a tax code that is thousands and thousands of pages of exceptions, exemptions, credits, etc., "pseudo-regulated" markets that haven't been neither truly free NOR truly regulated for about 100 years, massive governmental spending that is so large and opaque that virtually no one knows exactly what our national budget is or exactly how it's spent, etc., etc.

As I've said before, it is one discussion to even determine whether or not it is appropriate for anyone to tell someone else what they have to care about or fund. But even if we all agree that it is a worthy goal to fund and care for the less fortunate (or less capable or less motivated...), the LAST entity I would want in charge of that task and the proper running of the system and the spending of the money is our current U.S. government, which is a model of waste and self-serving, the likes of which the face of this planet has - literally - NEVER seen before.

Nick of course, will disagree...

Who best to do it then?

That's a good question.

And a full exploration of the issue kind of leads you back around to "Well, then, CAN it be done/should we even do it?"

It is very difficult to draw the line between what a) a Government SHOULD do and b) what a Government has the power TO do.

One suggestion - a Libertarian one - is to observe that: Since that line is ALWAYS going to be difficult to define, it is best to draw it as tightly around the Government and their authority, as possible. Thereby ensuring that any over-reaches by government (which necessarily WILL happen) are relatively small, in comparison.

I would say there are a lot of "over reaches" by the private sector. (Lobbying, Insurance, Wall Street, etc.). So, which is better? The system we have right now is failing.

I was speaking specifically of overreaches of AUTHORITY.

Insurance companies can't make you do anything, nor can Wall St. investment firms. They don't have any authority to force a particular individual or group of individuals to do anything.

Only government has that authority.

Only government can put you in jail, or send you to war, or take your money or your property and give you no legal recourse.

So, from that perspective, again, I'll take pretty much any private individual or institution's overreaching over the government's, any day.



People have got to stop simply observing that "the system is failing." That, a 15 year old can observe.

Doing something about it (other than simply screaming for change, or the first obvious short-term solution) requires really thinking and investigating WHY it is failing and if there are better solutions. That requires real education and study of basic governmental and political philosophy - from ALL sides - and an open and progressive mind.

Not just reading a bunch of biased propaganda written by people who already agree with what you think.

Totally agree... and that is the issue in that the Government is already bought many times over on both sides of the isle.
I beleive that They can over reach because they are protected to do so.. If that makes sense.

In a free market I believe it will work it self out but we are not living in that. The insurance companies etc. are protected because of their lobby... Who are they protected by?? again the government?? I really think that we agree on more than we think.


So, Can you honestly say that this is 100% because of JUST the Reps??

So my question is: Will the government do what is best for people or for itself?

In Colorado the state mandated that all companies of a certain size had to supply the top level insurance (gold) to all employees. Did the insurance companies and the government all work together?? No, they slammed every one and the government did nothing about it because the state made it mandatory. It cost them over $30k a month to supply insurance for staff of 20 or so people. Needlesstosay, it killed them.

I agree with knife that we have to stop throwing dirt at each other and concentrate on the issues and how to fix it. neither you nor I are the enemy no matter how much mr linguistics above wants to make it into that.

At least Obama said today that Canada's form of Health Care wont work here which i do agree with. even if I dont agree with every thing he is saying I do like the tone that he has set and I believe should be modeled here. if not its just a jr high pissing match..

Since you've obviously done all that, what is the best solution in your opinion?

First, I'd like to commend Knife for restraining himself and presenting a serious argument rather than just picking through the words and arguing silly semantics.

There's too much here to cover everything, so let me pick and choose.

First, let me explain what I mean about tracing the current mess back to Ronald Reagan.

Before him the tax rates at the top margin were really high, therefore the money stayed in corporations, who built cities and invested it in the future. Then he came along and cut those taxes under the ideological "free market" banner that it would make everyone richer (trickle down economics - Arthur Laffeur, etc.). That didn't even last his reign, but the damage was done: the money went to the CEO class, who started acting in their own short term interest and took all the money themselves (hence the Mediterranean Mini-Mansion). Today these people make 350x what their workers make on average, vs. 16x before. We've had several bouts of tax cutting at the top.

(Obama is fully aware of this, which is what was behind his "redistributing the wealth" gaffe during the campaign. He made a mistake and let the truth out.)

Companies then started existing to serve the CEO class rather than the other way around. They started acting in the short term, and we all know where that's lead us. What did these people do to preserve their perches? Hire lobbyists to deregulate everything, and the lobbyists have had a revolving door between the government and the industries they're trying to regulate. So we have a government of, by, and for the lobbyists.

Democrats have been going along with a lot of that - it's not all Republicans - but it's a Republican phenomenon. And this whole system has been tried and failed.

It's not that capitalism is bad, by the way, or that the free market is a bad thing. The point is that a lot of things - such as medical insurance - should not be for profit...never mind that medicine has nothing to do with a free market, or for that matter that in most cases there's no such thing.

The reason I said before that free markets have nothing to do with political freedom - contrary to the conservative PR hype - is that they don't. Soviet-style Communism and Socialism were tied together, but for example Chile under Pinochet had a "free market" system and he was a horrible dictator; some of the northern European countries have had very socialized economies yet the people were always free.

I don't have time for a lengthy sermon on why strict libertarianism is not the thing for today. Nor is strict anythingism, for that matter, but the fact that Big Government just saved us from going into another Great Depression shows how bad a time this is to be a libertarian. By coincidence there was a really good editorial about this in the LA Times about this a couple of days ago:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ellis9-2009aug09,0,3614997.story

One comment: today's world is way too complicated not to have taxes or to leave everything to its own devices. We need forward-thinking leadership, and lots of things need to be socialized. Taxation is not stealing, because everyone lives in the same economy; rich people get rich in the same economy poor people live in.

We need public, socialized communist pinko health insurance badly.

"Rich people get rich in the same economy poor people live in".

Interesting perspective, and true. Hate to bring up the word "karma" in which says, everyone is responsible for the situations they find themselves in.

What bothers me is the total lack of any compassion of the really well off to help people who are suffering. There are a few who do.

Having witnessed my fathers death, holding his hand as he died, feeling it go cold, I can tell you the only thing that really matters in life is what you have done for other people who could use the help. If I were filthy rich, I would build sports centers in the inner cities were kids could turn their lives around by a mentor.

I would die knowing I helped someone and my life ment something. I could be at peace. The insaine greed that is driving our worlds economy is an illusion.

It boils down to preperation for death. We are all going to die. We well all face that moment of truth, reguardless of religious perspective. Most live their lives ignoring death as some strange occurance.

If those in power could wrap their heads around the reality of life, they might act differently. Personally, I think Bush/Cheney well face a hell within as they pass away for the extreme suffering they have caused.

No. I haven't "done" that. I certainly haven't finished, that's for sure. It's a very complex set of issues.

As far as I can tell, no one ideology has "the" answer.

-Current liberal political philosophy is based on an assumption that "less fortunate" people NEED to be helped and MUST BE helped - as well as an assumption that we should enlist government to enforce that type of thing.

-Current conservative thinking pursues less government and regulation and assumes that supposed "free markets" will be self-regulating and will (eventually?) benefit everyone, through increased productivity and economic growth.

-Libertarian philosophy suggest that government will ALWAYS usurp power, so we need very limited government (but I can't see how you get there from anarchy, if ALL government - no matter how small - will always usurp power).

So, none of the major, current political philosophies in the U.S. seem to be "the" answer.

Generally, I think less government is better. I have a general distrust of government, based not on some non-specific paranoia, but on what I actually see, every day. The constant special interests lobbying (by and for BOTH Democrats and Republicans). Generally uninformed and bad decision-making by our leaders (again BOTH Republican and Democrats) and a system that creates "professional politicians" who's first and foremost job is to stay in office, as opposed doing the right thing for the country, or even their local constituency.

Unlike Nick, I don't think the proper answer to ANY problem is to hand it over to the government for fixing. I can't think of a single government program that actually resulted in the eradication of the problem it was intended to address, at least not without dire ancillary fallout.

That makes me more conservative/libertarian than liberal, in general. But really, I'm none of them.

It is clear that a lot of our problems can be traced to an inactive populace. Our system is predicated on a very informed and involved populace staying vigilant and controlling the government. But over the last 200 years, our citizenship has gotten increasingly less well-informed and less active, while government has expanded and actually endeavored to keep the general populace uninformed.

I'm not sure what the answer is but, here's some specific suggestions (as opposed to large-scale philosophical recommendations):

1: Impose term limits on all politicians, to ensure that we don't get career politicians. Maybe 6 or 8 years or so. Enough time to learn the job but not enough time to become beholden to it.

2: True campaign finance reform:

a) Limits (that are actually adhered to) on all campaign donations - private and corporate. No PACS, spousal co-donors and other loopholes. You can only raise "$X" from "Y # of people" - and that's it.

b) Completely equal - and 100% free - air time to all candidates. No ability to buy more ads or editorial time beyond what the FCC - which is supposed to control the "public airwaves" and not allow them to be sold to the highest bidder - grants to ALL legitimate candidates.

3: Generally less centralized government.

a) Allow the individual States to govern themselves without completely B.S. central control over things like Federal highway and school funding, inter-State commerce, etc.

b) More public influence and involvement in more local, day-to-day politics.

c) (Possibly) breaking up the United States into smaller units. Our current system was put in place when the country was a mere fraction of the size it is now. The United States is a huge nation now, with extremely disparate segments. Wildy varying geographic, cultural, economic, meterological, etc., etc., segments all supposed to get along and engage in mutual government. It's almost (?) impossible to make this many different people with such different experiences and lifestyles and beliefs agree on anything, much less something as fundamental as the direction of the Country.

Those are some ideas ( that will NEVER come to fruition, BTW) but, I don't claim to know what the solution is.

Not by a long shot.