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Topic: The Occupy Movement and Tea Party (Read 6724 times)
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paulkinzelman
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I read up on Love Canal and realize that my impressions were wrong, thank you. And it was years ago before people knew about toxic effects so maybe that's a bad example. But the company did get away with not cleaning up their mess. Who knows what kind of deals were made in the back rooms for the gov't to take over the liability. However, that is a red herring concerning the main issue. I'm not a fan of gov't regulations and laws, I'd love for the right things to happen without it. But given the profit motive for corporations to externalize as much cost as they can to anywhere but themselves, and cut costs on quality inspections, etc., what's your proposal for reducing the probabilities of Love Canals, BP spills, Exxon Valdez, Alaska pipeline leaks due to faulty inspections of welds, etc.? If you come up with a system that works in the real world (i.e., no handwaving about how great the free market is), I'll join you and oppose gov't regulation. A lot of my views are libertarian, and I oppose gov't intervention and regulation except as a last resort. The mega-corporations, as you admit, only exist because of government privilege. Huh? I didn't say this. However, I do oppose the corporations-are-people court decisions, so if you want to take that as they exist because of gov't privilege, then OK. "The Corporation" documentary movie does a nice job illustrating what corporations were originally and what they've morphed into. Like somebody said, if you put take those Wall St bankers who wrote those fraudulent loans and sold them, and put them in a real jail with cellmates named "Bubba" for a year or two, that would fix a lot of what's wrong with Wall St. And, in fact, much of OWS's anger is at this kind of thing so that's why I support them. Or what's your solution? Do 4th gen reactors last more than 30 years? I was very surprised to find out that at least the old reactors are supposed to be decommissioned after 30 years due to concrete deterioration. I'm not a nuke scientist and I suspect you aren't either, so we both have to rely on other sources for our information. But back to the original reason for my post. Very different groups can get together when they discover common interests. For instance, a right-wing Christian group got together with some left-wing one as partners to push for net neutrality. I don't see why OWS and the TP can't get together and both support reform and indictment of Wall St to fix what I think both agree is a problem (legalized bribery). Or what's your solution to Wall St excesses? |
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MaineShark
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I read up on Love Canal and realize that my impressions were wrong, thank you. And it was years ago before people knew about toxic effects so maybe that's a bad example. But the company did get away with not cleaning up their mess. Who knows what kind of deals were made in the back rooms for the gov't to take over the liability. However, that is a red herring concerning the main issue. Because that's what the government does... take one group's liability and transfer the costs to another group. That's called "privilege." I'm not a fan of gov't regulations and laws, I'd love for the right things to happen without it. But given the profit motive for corporations to externalize as much cost as they can to anywhere but themselves, and cut costs on quality inspections, etc., what's your proposal for reducing the probabilities of Love Canals, BP spills, Exxon Valdez, Alaska pipeline leaks due to faulty inspections of welds, etc.? If you come up with a system that works in the real world (i.e., no handwaving about how great the free market is), I'll join you and oppose gov't regulation. A lot of my views are libertarian, and I oppose gov't intervention and regulation except as a last resort. Government regulation is a proven failure at protecting the environment. The free market couldn't possibly be worse. Repeatedly performing the same, failed action and expecting different results is not rational behavior... The mega-corporations, as you admit, only exist because of government privilege. Huh? I didn't say this. However, I do oppose the corporations-are-people court decisions, so if you want to take that as they exist because of gov't privilege, then OK. "The Corporation" documentary movie does a nice job illustrating what corporations were originally and what they've morphed into. "Privilege" means "private law" (literally). Any law that favors one group over another is a privilege. Laws that favor corporations are privileges. The government maintains positive unemployment, thereby keeping wages down for the mega-corporations, while simultaneously passing reams of regulations that no small business can keep up with, but a mega-corporation with a whole law firm that does nothing but work for them, can easily handle. Licenses to do business favor those who are already in business, over those who would try to start up, but have to purchase the privilege, first. There are thousands of laws that favor large business over small, and established businesses over new start-ups. Like somebody said, if you put take those Wall St bankers who wrote those fraudulent loans and sold them, and put them in a real jail with cellmates named "Bubba" for a year or two, that would fix a lot of what's wrong with Wall St. And, in fact, much of OWS's anger is at this kind of thing so that's why I support them. Or what's your solution? Given that they only wrote those loans because they were flat-out required to do so under Federal law, maybe you should look at putting the Congresscritters who wrote those laws into prison. Do 4th gen reactors last more than 30 years? I was very surprised to find out that at least the old reactors are supposed to be decommissioned after 30 years due to concrete deterioration.
I'm not a nuke scientist and I suspect you aren't either, so we both have to rely on other sources for our information. "Theoretical" concrete deterioration. Since nuclear reactors were a new technology, no one knew if the concrete would deteriorate. They've since found that it does not deteriorate as fast as the worst-case estimates had predicted. Yes, I've studied nuclear engineering. My major was aerospace, but I diversified a lot. Modern reactors last a long time, are more repairable, and produce less waste. And the government won't allow them to be built. Look up the Toshiba 4S reactors for another interesting concept, which would allow the power grid to be diversified by installing many small reactors (eg, one in each town), rather than a few large plants. The reactor is a sealed unit - essentially a "nuclear battery" which is installed, runs for decades without refueling, and is then removed and dismantled, rebuilt, tested, and refueled at a secure factory. There are lots of technologies (not just in nuclear) that the government actively suppresses, because it would harm the interests of some particular privileged group. But back to the original reason for my post. Very different groups can get together when they discover common interests. For instance, a right-wing Christian group got together with some left-wing one as partners to push for net neutrality. I don't see why OWS and the TP can't get together and both support reform and indictment of Wall St to fix what I think both agree is a problem (legalized bribery). Or what's your solution to Wall St excesses? Eliminate government privileges. If there are no favors to hand out, there's no cause to try and bribe someone for favors. Power corrupts. Any time you concentrate power, someone is going to come along and say, "you know, I could make it worth your while if..." Shifting who has the power, and who is offering the bribes, does not eliminate the problem. And that's the solution that the Tea Party and OWS offer; give them the power, and change which groups bribe them for favors. That doesn't end the problem, at all. The only solution to that problem is not to concentrate power. |
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"An armed society is a polite society" - this does not mean that we are polite because we fear each other.
We are not civilized because we are armed; we are armed because we are civilized..
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paulkinzelman
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Government regulation is a proven failure at protecting the environment. The free market couldn't possibly be worse. Yes, it's a proven failure sometimes, and other times it does OK. You can't think it *never* is useful. And as to allowing companies carte blanche to do whatever they want thinking that's going to be better. Of course, you have data to back up your claim? :-) Yes, sometimes they would do OK, but I'd be very surprised if most of the time it'd be a dismal failure. I want to make government regulation be more sensible and effective to make it's successes more often. You seem to want to destroy it completely and think that's going to be better? Given that they only wrote those loans because they were flat-out required to do so under Federal law, maybe you should look at putting the Congresscritters who wrote those laws into prison.
I find it hard to believe that the gov't required people to write fraudulent loans, you of course have data to back that up? Yes, they *encouraged* the writing of loans. I think the fraud writers should be jailed, not to mention the financial companies who sold knowingly-bad loans as good investments. That's clear fraud. Show me that the government required that. But all this is off the main topic so allow me to repeat it. Can the OWS get together with the TP for the common goal of calling out the destruction of our financial system because of the fraud of Wall Street? Eliminate government privileges. If there are no favors to hand out, there's no cause to try and bribe someone for favors. Power corrupts. Any time you concentrate power, someone is going to come along and say, "you know, I could make it worth your while if..." Shifting who has the power, and who is offering the bribes, does not eliminate the problem. And that's the solution that the Tea Party and OWS offer; give them the power, and change which groups bribe them for favors. That doesn't end the problem, at all. The only solution to that problem is not to concentrate power. I think there's commonality in some of this. So far, OWS that I've seen doesn't say "give us the power", maybe the TP has, I don't know. But that's down the road a bit. Let's first agree on the first part of your paragraph on what the problem is - which I call "legalized bribery". Let both OWS and the TP call it out in clear terms. Then after that, we can discuss what can be done about it. |
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MaineShark
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Government regulation is a proven failure at protecting the environment. The free market couldn't possibly be worse. Yes, it's a proven failure sometimes, and other times it does OK. You can't think it *never* is useful. And as to allowing companies carte blanche to do whatever they want thinking that's going to be better. Of course, you have data to back up your claim? :-) Yes, sometimes they would do OK, but I'd be very surprised if most of the time it'd be a dismal failure. Let's flip this around, since you're the one calling for more and more government control: can you back up your claim? Can you find any examples where the government is managing the environment better than private companies are doing for the same sort of things? Because governments are, by far, the absolute worst offenders when it comes to environmental damage. I want to make government regulation be more sensible and effective to make it's successes more often. You seem to want to destroy it completely and think that's going to be better? Let's say I have a company that produces toxic waste when manufacturing widgets. Properly disposing of the waste would cost a million dollars. Dumping waste would result in a $100k fine for violating the governmental regulation against dumping waste. It makes good sense for me to dump the waste in the nearby river, and pay the fine. Of course, that creates $10M in damage to the folks who live downstream of me. Under a libertarian system, there is no regulation and no fine. What there is, is strict liability for damages you cause to others. If I key your car, I don't owe a fine to the government for vandalism; I owe you the cost of re-painting your car. If I dump toxic waste in the river, I would owe those damaged the full value to clean up the damage I caused. Suddenly, it makes much more sense to re responsible than to dump the waste, because it costs less to process it than it would cost to clean up the damage. Given that they only wrote those loans because they were flat-out required to do so under Federal law, maybe you should look at putting the Congresscritters who wrote those laws into prison. I find it hard to believe that the gov't required people to write fraudulent loans, you of course have data to back that up? Yes, they *encouraged* the writing of loans. I think the fraud writers should be jailed, not to mention the financial companies who sold knowingly-bad loans as good investments. That's clear fraud. Show me that the government required that. Read up on the "fair housing" laws that required banks to give a certain percentage of mortgages to low-income families... whether or not they were actually, legitimately capable of paying it back. But all this is off the main topic so allow me to repeat it. Can the OWS get together with the TP for the common goal of calling out the destruction of our financial system because of the fraud of Wall Street? Probably, but that wouldn't solve anything, since the fraud originated with the government. I think there's commonality in some of this. So far, OWS that I've seen doesn't say "give us the power", maybe the TP has, I don't know. But that's down the road a bit. Let's first agree on the first part of your paragraph on what the problem is - which I call "legalized bribery". Let both OWS and the TP call it out in clear terms. Then after that, we can discuss what can be done about it. But the OWS folks already are saying what they want done. They're saying they want interest outlawed, and the banks taken over by the government, and all student loans forgiven, and free health care, and this, and that, and everything else under the sun. All paid for by magic, I suppose. They don't even seem to be coherent, since nearly half of them have said that they support the bank bailouts. They've also been endorsed by both the Socialist Party USA and the American Nazi Party. Not really the sort of group that liberty-lovers need to be associating with. |
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"An armed society is a polite society" - this does not mean that we are polite because we fear each other.
We are not civilized because we are armed; we are armed because we are civilized..
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Free-NOT Necessitious
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I think the TP and OWS would agree that a government that did not engage in legalized bribery *would not* do that...
The diference is that the Tea Party lays the fault at the foot of government, and the OWS blames the Banks and Corporations—if the government does not have favors and priveleges to sell, they won’t be bought. Corrupt and/or incompetant businesses would be free to fail in a free market, and criminal action could be treated as such without the protection of corrupt law. How do you limit government, because you can always have a Supreme Court with bought-and-paid-for judges like several on the court now, that will support the gov't overstepping its bounds (which I agree, in a lot of cases it has) no matter what the Constitution says.
The only way to do it is with an informed electorate; one that focuses on the causes of problems rather than their effects (and votes for candidates and not parties). With that major hurdle out of the way—and we may be doomed to fail—newly elected legislators could enact laws directed at the court, requiring it to rule only on the Constitutionality—with original intent—and not case law or foreign law. I think a purge of the Court would be in order, but one or two impeachments would likely suffice. I never meant to suggest an easy solution for complex problems, but if we don’t begin... ... Given that the poll I heard shows that 50% of the people identify with one or the other (which means more than either party), let's get together and fix the fundamental issue (legalized bribery and sunshine requirements), then once that's done, we can discuss the other stuff. If the legalized bribery issue is not fixed, then nothing else matters because nothing will get fixed.
I’d have to see the question that the poll asked to make much of that figure; if 50% of the people see the cause of our problems as business, and 50% see it as government, then its a wash, and nothing will come of it. If the Congress is relied on to ‘fix’ the problem, then ‘fix’ it they will, the same way that they periodically ‘fix’ campaign finance; the last round of campaign finance ‘reforms’ gave us more anonymous donations—hidden big money—and the President complained when the Court struck it down; but hey, he needs funding, too. As long as a large number of people look to government to ‘solve’ problems, we’ll have problems... Re: monopolies and startups
The examples you quote ... are the exceptions. I'm thinking more of Standard Oil from years ago or even the oil companies now. Even if you had no gov't regulation, the capital requirement to start an oil refinery is pretty high, and the existing companies could price-fix you out of business...
The old saying is, “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” If you come up with something new and innovative that people desire—even a Pet Rock or Rubik’s Cube—you may find success. If you’re looking to cash-in on an established market, especially one with heavy infrastructure requirements like the oil industry—without offering a better product and/or a better price—you are probably doomed to fail, even in an ideal free market. A refinery isn’t all that you need; the whole Petro-Chemical industry was created to deal with the byproducts of crude oil that are left over from refining gas, and if you intend to only make gas, what do you do with all of that waste? Most of the ‘profit’ made on gas goes to government, and the oil companies make their money on volume alone—you can’t compete. ... And even in high-tech, try creating a new architecture for computers, now that the x86 is the standard, which is really unfortunate because it's so horrible for high-performance machines. DEC ... had the best architecture (Alpha), but even they (DEC) didn't have the ability to make it successful. Even the MIPS architecture was much better. There's no government interference there...
The better moustrap is not guaranteed to succed in the market; its driven by supply and demand. IBM executives (aparently acting out a Monty Python skit) made a series of boneheaded decisions about the original PC—going with the Intel 8088 and MS DOS despite the advice of their own experts—that resulted in a crap standard being established. Still, if the Government had responded properly to MicroSoft’s abusive and criminal practices—including fines scaled to the scope of their ill-gotten gains and the size of their Empire—I believe that the situation today would be a much better reflection of the free market, with happier customers. Most people just don’t fully realize what happened, and what it cost them. Paul, it seems to me that you and I could exchange a lot of grins and groans re tech stuff—and I’d love to—but this is not the place. (Edit: fixed Italics) (Continued) |
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« Last Edit: November 19, 2011, 10:41:06 pm by Free-NOT Necessitious »
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Free-NOT Necessitious
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(Continued) ... And your car example is good as well. John DeLorean didn't do too well against the big car companies.
DeLorean is not a good example, I’m afraid. The DeLorean company’s worst enemy was John DeLorean; he made a series of bad decisions before he decided to use cocain financing. I think that worst one was choosing to take on the British government in the way he did, at the time he did, in Northern Ireland. I did liked the sentiment of his effort, but, even in New Hampshire, starting up in defiant opposition to local authority would invite forseeable serious problems and complications, even if they are just political—better to first make friends with local authority, yes? The coke thing was an irrecoverable and fatal error—it was just plain stupid, and I don’t care if he WAS set-up. People do make custom cars, but they are expensive because of the economy of scale, and they don’t offer enough improvement over mass produced offerings to attract even a percentage of the rich-people’s-car market; gaining any noticable portion of market-share depends on gaining a foothold in the market. I've heard that there are people who represent the TP... but perhaps most TP people don't regard them as leaders, I don't know...
My local Tea Party has organizers, but no, I wouldn’t call them leaders—at least not leaders with a blind following. Michele Bachmann is the leader of the Tea Party Caucus in Congress—she formed it. I am in broad agreement with her, but I disagree with her strongly on some issues; I’d rather go with Ron Paul. I don’t worship any living Gods, and my Heros (literal meaning; Little Gods) are all long dead. I’ve never known anyone who I agreed with completely, and if I ever met one, I’d suspect that I was being conned. ... As to big money, the Koch brothers and Dick Armey are big deals in funding the TP from what I've read. The TP in many cases is being used to support Republicans who are quite frankly, complete idiots and end up supporting the status quo, which seems to me to subvert the TP... However, a major difference is that corporations are not democratic nearly to the same extent as unions - that's a big difference.
That sounds like guilt by association... The Koch brothers cannot force others to give money in support of causes that they disagree with, while Unions can and do; that was the main reason for the AFL-CIO split a few years ago. If I joined a Union, I would have to increase my other donations (to NRA-ILA and political candidates, for example) to offset the Union’s contributions of my money to candidates and causes in opposition to my beliefs; I believe that this is the main reason for the decline in Union membership in the private sector. I certainly don’t see Unions as democratic institutions—how many of Richard Trumka’s AFL-CIO membership support his call to end Capitolism? I donate to Dick Armey’s Freedom Works, and will continue to support it as long as I percieve it to be an educational effort, and not an arm of the Republican Party. I have no doubt at all that Progressive Republicans hope to benifit from pandering to the Tea Party, and I do have some fear that they will. Still, I think that some Democrats will do the same with the OWS movement; deception is not new to politics, or unique to any party or group, and anyone might be decieved by liars. Our only hope is that enough voters will bother to seek and find Truth. ... And yes, if corporations as persons designation were rescinded and couldn't contribute to campaigns, I'd be willing to discuss and probably agree with limiting unions from doing the same.
Big money will always find cracks to seep through; I’ll go for NO anonymous donations, and no phony front entities—if Smith is running for Congress, I don’t want to see a pro- or anti-Smith ad “Paid for by The Lovers of Truth”—who are The Lovers of Truth? cattle ranchers? big oil? big labor? mom & pop retailers? Sears? some church? If we know where the money truly comes from, we can discern for ourselves whether our own interests will, or might, be served by Smith. As to more government, in many cases I'd agree with you. Many of my views are libertarian which is why I came to this forum. However, I do think gov't does have its place. You believe the solution is to limit government. In many cases as it is now, I agree. In others, I think if you fixed the legalized bribery problem and had much more openness on the discussion, a lot of stuff would fix itself without any effort. People will do deals in back rooms that they would not do in public.
The question remains; how to fix it? The answer to that, it seems to me, IS the rift between the OWS and the Tea Party movements—more government, or less? I am no Anarchist; I simply say that if government officials have less power available to abuse, fewer abuses of power will occur. Power corrupts... I would like to see more openness, but there is no way to prevent back-room deals; Congressman Smith can always submit a bill—written by some lobbyist or other special interest—as his own creation, even if that bill was slipped into his pocket on the subway, and his wife coincidentally happens to ‘get lucky’ on the stock market. Perhaps the bigger problem is how we, both as individuals and as a nation, define the purpose and legitimate role of the Federal Government; I do not believe that the Government exists to fix my teeth, or to provide me with food and housing, or a high-speed Internet connection. I do believe that the Government MUST exist “to secure these Rights” as Jefferson laid it out in the Declaration of Independance. I do not believe that I have any right to the fruits of your labor, nor have you any right to the fruits of mine, and I insist that I have a Natural Right to fail, also, but only on my own merit, not because some bureaucrat dispenses favors to someone else. |
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Free-NOT Necessitious
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(MainShark said:) Given that they only wrote those loans because they were flat-out required to do so under Federal law, maybe you should look at putting the Congresscritters who wrote those laws into prison.
The “flat-out” requirement came from lawsuits intended to force lenders into compliance with the Federal law. In one case, ACORN claimed that Countrywide Financial was doing the least, nationwide, to provide home loans to low income people under Jimmy Carter’s Neighborhood Reinvestment Act, and sued Countrywide in Chicago. ACORN won the suit, and Countrywide paid millions to ACORN, and went on to become the nation’s major provider of NINJA (no income, no jobs, no assets) Loans, eventually being lauded by Fannie Mae for "Outstanding Achievement" in the industry. Fannie Mae's 2000 annual report said: "When necessary—in cases where applicants have no established credit history, for example—Countrywide uses nontraditional credit, a practice now accepted by [Fannie]." In 2004, 26 percent of the loans Fannie bought were from Countrywide. In 2007, that number had risen to 28 percent. BTW, ACORN’s lawer in the Countrywide suit was one Barack Obama, who moved up several rungs on the Progressive ladder to success. (Paul said:) I find it hard to believe that the gov't required people to write fraudulent loans, you of course have data to back that up? Yes, they *encouraged* the writing of loans. I think the fraud writers should be jailed, not to mention the financial companies who sold knowingly-bad loans as good investments. That's clear fraud. Show me that the government required that.
Paul, fraud is a deception, and everyone knew what was going on; the only fraud in all of this was the combined effort of two branches of government (squeezing mortage lenders) against the American people (taxpayers). The government did that. (MainShark said:) Read up on the "fair housing" laws that required banks to give a certain percentage of mortgages to low-income families... whether or not they were actually, legitimately capable of paying it back.
The Neighborhood Reinvestment Act has been expanded by both Republicans and Democrats since it was signed into law by Jimmy Carter; one expansion of it was included in then house speaker Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, and when I complained to a Republican friend, he asked me, “What’s wrong with helping people buy houses?” Paul, The government created Fannie and Freddie specifically to help poor people buy homes, and its losses are covered by tax dollars—still. Government policy and action created the housing bubble, and caused it to burst, and resulted in our current economic situation; are you sure that you trust the government to ‘solve’ our problems? |
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« Last Edit: November 20, 2011, 12:51:02 pm by Free-NOT Necessitious »
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paulkinzelman
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I'm sorry, I've been replying off the top of my head (or from other parts of my anatomy :-) without doing a lot of research. This philosophical discussion, while very important, is deserving of more time than I have to devote to it now.
So I would like to bring it back to the original reason I started the post - to hopefully suggest what we all have in common. We all know that our system is fundamentally broken. We may differ in how to solve it, but on this forum, I think we all know our house is on fire. And I think that's what OWS and TP and you folks can bring to the common table is to promote a national discourse about it if we can avoid being divided and conquered by the government and then nothing will change.
You may have decided that all government is corrupt and is unrecoverable. I think it's corrupt and parts of it should be dismantled. But let's all agree that we have a crisis and that we need to have a national discourse about what should be done.
So many Americans are still focused on overpaid gladiators (sports) and Paris Hilton's latest meltdown, not to mention the titillating (but basically irrelevant to the crisis) sexcapades of our Congresspeople. These are the people that OWS and TP need to engage to convince them to turn off mainstream media and to begin realizing that our house is burning down. And this is what I hope we can all take away from this discussion. Let's be partners in promoting the discussion, but it's too soon to be talking about specific solutions I think because that divides us. This is why I support OWS.
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swamp_yankee
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People who support OWS dont understand and underestimate the Left. There is no equivalency between the "Left" and "Right", TP and OWS. "OWS" were doing the same things in the same place a hundred years in NYC. They should be left to whither on the vine. They are becoming a mockery. The "Progrssive Autumn" os dying. Let it. Dont give them fuel so they can exploit you for their deconstructionism.
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paulkinzelman
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Sorry, if you really think this, then you don't understand what OWS is trying to do, or at least it's *very* different from my understanding and my goals. It's not right or left, that's how "they" keep the game going. I'll support anybody who understands that we need to get everybody off the couch to discuss the survival of our country.
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MaineShark
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I'm sorry, I've been replying off the top of my head (or from other parts of my anatomy :-) without doing a lot of research. This philosophical discussion, while very important, is deserving of more time than I have to devote to it now.
So I would like to bring it back to the original reason I started the post - to hopefully suggest what we all have in common. We all know that our system is fundamentally broken. We may differ in how to solve it, but on this forum, I think we all know our house is on fire. And I think that's what OWS and TP and you folks can bring to the common table is to promote a national discourse about it if we can avoid being divided and conquered by the government and then nothing will change.
You may have decided that all government is corrupt and is unrecoverable. I think it's corrupt and parts of it should be dismantled. But let's all agree that we have a crisis and that we need to have a national discourse about what should be done.
So many Americans are still focused on overpaid gladiators (sports) and Paris Hilton's latest meltdown, not to mention the titillating (but basically irrelevant to the crisis) sexcapades of our Congresspeople. These are the people that OWS and TP need to engage to convince them to turn off mainstream media and to begin realizing that our house is burning down. And this is what I hope we can all take away from this discussion. Let's be partners in promoting the discussion, but it's too soon to be talking about specific solutions I think because that divides us. This is why I support OWS. There's nothing in that post I would argue against, except I would say that most of the OWS folks, in my experience, don't want an honest discourse; they've already decided what the solution is, and look for the problems that will best support that goal. They're blaming Wall Street for the acts of the government, because they are opposed to economic liberty, and want a government-run economy. So they blame the looters, while ignoring the ones who instigated the riot, because they like the ones who instigated the riot. I did hear an interesting statistic, earlier, though: if you earn more than $34k/year (as most OWS protesters do), then, globally-speaking, you are in the 1%, not the 99%. Really, they aren't the 99%, at all... they're the 1%, upset that the 0.05% have more than they do, but they don't want to share with the 99%. Someone wearing a Che shirt that was printed using near-slave-labor in Honduras while walking along in sneakers that were manufactured using near-slave-labor in China, and sipping a coffee from Starbucks, is not someone who's going to evoke my sympathy when he talks about how bad he has it. The OWS folks see the system as broken, but most of them see it as broken for all the wrong reasons; they think it's broken because it's not oppressive enough, not because it's too oppressive. Realistically, I don't see much common ground. There's certainly a bit of overlap, but I don't think it's enough to make it worthwhile for the liberty movement to associate with them. It's too likely to backfire and end up "tainting" the liberty movement by association. Like I said, I'm not keen on associating with a group that's been endorsed by the American Nazi Party. |
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"An armed society is a polite society" - this does not mean that we are polite because we fear each other.
We are not civilized because we are armed; we are armed because we are civilized..
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paulkinzelman
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Nope. Let me try again. We all agree the system is broken. My goal is to stop the legalized bribery going on in DC and nothing was done to the people on Wall Street who committed the fraud, clearly against the law. Congress did *not* say to commit fraud, although they might have made it easy for unscrupulous people to come to that conclusion, but so what.
And my goal is to get people off their couches being dumbed down by TV/sports/fluff to join in the conversation and acknowledge the above issues. That's what I want to spend my limited time on. I think that's common ground, how about you?
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MaineShark
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Nope. Let me try again. We all agree the system is broken. My goal is to stop the legalized bribery going on in DC and nothing was done to the people on Wall Street who committed the fraud, clearly against the law. Congress did *not* say to commit fraud, although they might have made it easy for unscrupulous people to come to that conclusion, but so what. Congress does tell folks to do fraudulent, violent, and immoral things, all the time. That's nothing new. |
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"An armed society is a polite society" - this does not mean that we are polite because we fear each other.
We are not civilized because we are armed; we are armed because we are civilized..
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paulkinzelman
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Yes, you're right - like the ironically-named Patriot act. I was thinking in terms of the fraudulent loans.
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