Specifically, libertarianism is about fiscal conservatism and social liberalism. Conservatism is about fiscal conservatism and social conservatism. You cannot start changing definitions.
If you mean by "social conservatism" the idea that the nation should more-or-less follow Judeo-Christian ideals, than I agree with you: mainstream conservatives are more socially conservative than many libertarians, who more fully subscribe to the idea of people doing whatever they want, moral or otherwise.
But if you mean that conservativism demands
the passing of laws to enforce even personal aspects of Judeo-Christian morality (i.e., V-chips), I have to disagree.
Why? Your overly strict definition of conservatism conveniently excludes my views, but it also excludes the views of Rush Limbaugh and, I believe, William F. Buckley, Jr.
Sorry, I refuse to believe that the two most influential conservative voices of the second half of the Twentieth Century are not in fact conservatives - and are not conservatives for the very reason that they object to "big government", a more pervasive government that writes and enforce laws like the V-chip regulation.
Buckley, Rush, and I are not conservative because we're not for big government? Bullshit.
Since you know your history, Republicans have never been much in the business with nation building.
And since you read my post, you should know that I am not for nation building in most circumstances, certainly not in so many circumstances that we become the police for the rest of the world. As I said, we should "nation-build" in the cases where we are dealing with countries that threaten our existence. True enough, the U.S. government hasn't done that too much, and Republicans haven't pushed too hard for such actions, but there have been valid reasons for not doing so:
* There is undeniably a faction of isolationists within both the conservative movement and the Republican Party, those who think we should never leave our borders, even when it's in our best interest.
* Republicans have had to fight Democrats to enact foreign policy. Many of the Democrats oppose using the deadly force that our military so effectively wields to destroy a regime (after, a nation must be destroyed before it is to be "rebuilt"), and they suggest such silly and dangerous actions as sending U.S. troops to the middle of nowhere to guard food trucks - and not have the supplies and orders to successfully defend themselves.
I would prefer a policy of destroying and rebuilding nations that threaten us, but against the isolationist branch of the G.O.P. and the misguided Democrats, Republicans have been able to generate the consensus needed for such a military action. In these circumstances, covert ops and setting up dictatorships is among the more reasonable options left.
Oh yes. Yet another nation we can build American sweatshops.
Sorry, but sweatshops appear where capitalism is practiced least, not most. Genuine capitalism would create competetive job markets overseas, allowing workers to find better jobs, make more money, and become consumers (for our products) with greater buying power.
Well, let's see the reality. Reagan did cut taxes dramatically for the wealthy, that's for sure, but he certainly didn't stop spending. Thanks to him, we racked up something like a $7 trillion debt.
Bush I did make his famous "read my lips" speech, but he made quite a few new taxes. And the Democrats made him do it?? Poor George.
And you don't like to give Clinton credit, but he actually did cut spending.
Now I think I should be asking if you cut-and-paste, because this is, almost word for word, the same mantra of distortions and misinformation that every liberal spouts. For someone who purports to be quite open-minded, these comments are suprisingly predictable.
In the entire summary, you ignore the power of Congress in order to make the Republican presidents look bad and the Democratic president look good. As much as you follow the news, you should know that Congress is JUST as responsible for laws as the president. Their power is found in the Constitution, perhaps you should read it sometime.
The truth about the last twenty years:
Reagan cut taxes for everyone. Tax rates dropped for EVERY bracket,, with the poorer brackets getting the larger cuts. Reagan did cut taxes for the rich (God forbid), but he also cut taxes for everyone else.
The Democratic-controlled Congress is at LEAST as responsible for the deficits as Reagan. Reagan proposed decreased spending (with the notable exception of defense spending, which had been gutted under Carter), but the Congress rejected it. THEY overspent, created the deficits, blamed Reagan taxcuts for the deficits, and made the deficits such a big issue that Reagan and the elder Bush agreed to tax increases.
Bush agreed to tax increases to cut the deficit. Yes, he did break his word about "no new taxes", but it's sad that you don't simultaneously give him credit for trying to eliminate the debt you think Reagan is so responsible for. The Democratic Congress suggested a two-step plan to cut the deficit: raise taxes and cut spending, in that order. Bush agreed to the taxes, and the spending cuts never came up in Congress, to the shock of absolutely no-one.
And Clinton?
Clinton cut spending* because the GOP Congress gave him no fucking choice.
*Again, it wasn't spending cuts, but mere reductions in the rate of increase.
Don't believe me? Look at Clinton's two completely different eras of governing: 92-94, when there was a Democratic Congress, and 95-00, when the American people put Republicans in control of Congress (the "Republican Takeover", as if they somehow circumvented the democratic process).
Before '94, Clinton proposed an egregious "stimulus package" of huge spending increases and Hilary's health care plan, which would have made the U.S. government responsible for one-seventh of the nation's economy. Both were halted by the Republican minority in Congress.
After '94, the Republicans had a majority in both houses and proposed three separate packages of reduced spending. Clinton villified all three (saying it would kill senior citizens and starve children), vetoed two, and reluctantly signed the third.
At every turn, he either proposed spending increases or resisted spending decreases. The decreases occurred despite his efforts, the budget was balanced as a result, and he took credit for it.
On George W. Bush's tax cuts...
(As an aside, he should be referred to as G.W. Bush, not Bush II - since presidents are royalty - or Bush Jr., because he's not; his father is George H. W. Bush.)
It seems to me that you're making this argument:
1. Bush proposed tax cuts taken from a projected surplus.
2. The economy then fell apart, so the surplus is reduced.
3. Thus we ought to repeal the tax cuts, which is somehow not a tax increase.
The problems with your logic is this: first, the economy was in bad shape before Bush became president; Bush even suggested it during the election, an idea that pundits scoffed.
Second, the tax cuts are not based solely on the idea of "we have a surplus, let's make tax cuts". The other ideas behind it are that the American people are simply being taxed too much and tax cuts would spur spending, reviving the economy.
Third, a repeal of a tax cut is a tax increase. Whether we "ever know the difference", the lower tax rates have been signed into law; they're on the books. Repealing them would then require an equivalent tax increase...
...or, by your logic, Bush is not trying to cut taxes, merely repeal earlier tax increases.
(Also, Daschle isn't suggesting repealing the tax cuts. As much as he thinks they're causing the recession, he doesn't have the balls to suggest new legislation.)
Finally, beyond the fact that a sour economy reduced the surplus, you completely ignore the bad economy. Historically, tax cuts help the economy, tax increases (or repeals of tax cuts; whatever) don't. Bush's plan is the only one that will help get the economy out of this funk.
And if my memory fades so quickly to forget the Balanced Budget Amendment, how much more quickly one's memory must fade to forget that Bush knew the economy was faltering DURING LAST YEAR'S ELECTION.
Now, let's move from a distorted view of history to completely idiotic economics.
Hmm...lower consumer prices. Doesn't sound so bad to me.
I'll make it real simple, Melon. Price-fixing is bad, ARTIFICIALLY low prices are bad.
An example: if lower consumer prices are so great, let's force cars to be priced at $50 each. What would be the effects?
Everybody can afford two or three cars (at least) at that price, and more people will try to buy more cars. DEMAND GOES UP.
No-one can afford to make cars for only $100 in gross revenue, so GM and Ford will simply stop making them. SUPPLY GOES DOWN.
If 200 million people each try to buy a car, and no-ones making any cars, you have a SHORTAGE OF A FIFTH OF A BILLION CARS.
How dumb are you to not get this?
And so are all these record-breaking mega mergers too. Last I heard, oligopolies and monopolies aren't the pinnacle of competition. "Supply and demand," though, was always a nice buzz phrase.
In one respect, I agree with you: monopolies decrease competition, and that doesn't help consumers. (In fact, I believe the government does have the responsibility to trust-bust; government should be hands-off, except when competition is threatened by monopolies or impossible in cases like utilities.)
But "supply and demand" isn't a buzz phrase. It's the way the economy works - not just the way it works optimally, but how people behave in the large scale.
When we did have a Price Commission, there wasn't any shortages. Nice try.
Unless you count power shortages, which I do.
Shall I cry for them? They sure didn't care when they slashed everyone's wages in the 1980s.
No, I suppose it's far better to have corporations sell things at a loss, collapse, and fire EVERYONE than cut some wages and fire some employees to stay afloat.
As horrible as it is, capitalism means that the employers are self-interested too; they hire in order for those people to perform tasks for them, not because it's good and noble to hire people. There are winners and losers in capitalism. Some companies succeed, some fold. Some people get raises, some are fired. In most circumstances, the workforce is fluid enough so that most people can find more jobs (and it is perhaps the local government's job to make the transistion easier and to make them more valuable as potential employees through training and education).
Either way, capitalism does have one HUGE group of winners: the consumers themselves, who are able to buy more of what they want for less. Prices are lower, quality is higher, and suppliers create what is in demand. In fact, consumers' desires are met optimally; any artficial controls on price, supply, and demand moves the net result away from the optimal.
Cry me a river yet again. And for those who have plunged their retirement into the stock market, you're playing with fire. And it appears that many have been burned already. Oh whatever happened to the good old days, when you could simply stow your money away into banks? But that's right. Banking was deregulated, and savings rates are now shit. We'll certainly never see 10% APR CDs ever again that's for sure.
Two GLARING errors here.
1) Let's say that individuals pull out of the stock market, stop investing in businesses, and put the money in banks. What do you think banks do with the money?
THEY FUCKING INVEST IN BUSINESS! What, you think the money magically increases? No, they invest, and the lost profits would still hurt the individual who put the money in the bank.
2) Here you said, "We'll certainly never see 10% APR CDs ever again that's for sure." But earlier in this same post you said Democrats are "trying to prevent Dubya from racking up another several trillion debt that will eventually cost us more in the long term with all the interest payments and
higher interest rates."
Those are the same interest rates, genius. Which is it? High interest rates are good or bad?
What are you talking about? They've already cut wages. Here we have all this "record" prosperity, and, when adjusted for inflation, we make less than we did in the 1980s. In fact, we make just as much now as the people in the 1950s when adjusted.
I was simply saying that one way corporations would "absorb" losses is through lower operating costs, which could include lower wages - or, if it makes you feel better, wages that even lower than the already low wages.
Also, you said earlier in your post that the "economy fell apart". Now we're in a time of "prosperity". Which one is it, Melon?
I'll keep that in mind the next time a bankrupt company successfully petitions the court to allow "reorganization bonuses" of over $1 million to their executives. And I'm sure cutting a CEO's salary from $150 million to $50 million won't be putting a dent into his spending habits.
Um, yes, his habits do change, in so far that he has $100 million less to spend or invest. That's $100 million less going to other companies, either through building mansions or buying stocks. Those other companies suffer.
Let's plunge into anarchy then. Then none of us will pay taxes. But, alas, who will be there to fight the "war on terrorism"?
Now you're being silly. Government has certain jobs to do, and must tax to fund those projects. I'm merely suggesting that even those taxes do hurt consumers and should be carefully weighed against the costs. Ultimately, the government must tax its people, but not nearly so much.
I agree. I'd first eliminate corporate welfare. Hundreds of billions of dollars fed into already wealthy companies.
I agree that corporate welfare is bad, as do many conservatives. Of course, many of us don't feel that the word "corporate" is the only thing bad about "corporate welfare".
Have you seen the Republican Congress' pork record? Trent Lott makes a "liberal" look more conservative than Jerry Falwell.
Really? The
National Taxpayers' Union rates members of Congress on "the strength of support for
reducing spending and regulation and opposing higher taxes... (an effort) to lessen or limit the burden on taxpayers." Scores range from 0% (high taxes, high spending) to 100% (low taxes, low spending).
The analysis of second session of the 2000 Congress, (found
here as a pdf file) gives the terrible Mr. Lott a score of 74%, a "B" grade.
True, that's not great, but Kennedy scored an "F" (12%!) and Daschle scored an "F" with a shameful 10%.
Sorry to burst your bubble.
Well, Dubya most certainly threw that out of the window.
No, he didn't. By your own admission, the only spending increases are the direct result of 9/11, and that alone does not make Bush a spending fanatic, much less one that overturns the rate reductions of most programs or one that gets us back to record deficits.
The deficits, if they come, will come from the 9/11 spending, the tax cuts, and the poor economy. If the economy bounces back (and I think it will, in part because of the tax cuts) all we'll have to blame is the 9/11 spending.
Frankly, this too sounds like a Catch-22: had Bush done nothing in aid, he would have been labelled as heartless, and had Bush not increased military spending, he would have been (correctly) accused of not funding a wartime military with enough. Now that he has, he's apparently irresponsible.
Now, foolishness about "business":
Regardless, I have yet to understand why people continue to worship that non-living entity we call "business." It is "business" that has made us now the most worked nation in the world. Remember all those jokes on Japan? We work more than them now.
We're also stronger economically than Japan. God forbid, humans have to work to eat, but that's always been the case.
I am also not blind to the reality that they are now attacking health insurance plans, forcing people on oppressive HMOs or telling people that they must now "co-pay" something like $45 a week if they wish to keep their old and better insurance.
But you apparently are blind to the fact that businesses would still have to pay for health insurance from somewhere. They include it as the cost of labor, so they end up hiring fewer people to pay for their employee's health benefits. You're also blind to the fact that the entire concept of health insurance is what raised the price of health care - the fault of the government, not business.
I'm not blind to the fact that we give tax breaks to businesses, so they can simply close down their American operations and send their work to Mexico or Asia for near slave wages.
You apparently are blind to the fact that high taxes are one of the reasons that businesses run to other countries, and the fact that newly opened markets have given America more consumers to produce for.
And I'm also not blind to the fact that business has done everything in its power to make our lives living hell, so we can make some stockholders fatter than ever.
Again, those stockholders include people with retirement plans, and the businesses try to cut costs to lower prices, which helps consumers.
The misconception that the American workforce (or would you prefer "proletariots"?) are being economically oppressed is simply that, a misconception. Otherwise, we couldn't have that much buying power. Beyond that, you're apparently deluded by the idea that businesses are around to hire people. they exist to make money; labor is how they make money, for both themselves and the workforce.
I'm not blind to the fact that fifty years ago, my grandparents paid for their house in cash. Fuck...now we have $250,000 mortgages that take half of our lives to pay off. Hoo-ray for capitalism.
The cost of which is partially due to higher taxes and more regulations that, again, inflate prices.
Oh, and our new, $250,000 houses are far better than most houses from the 1950's. Capitalism rocks.
The same logic holds for cars and college. To the extent that college is overpriced (even factoring in inflation), you can point to the fact that student loans mean that individuals no longer directly and immediately pay for their goods and services. That has meant that A) more people can afford college and B) THE PRICE OF COLLEGE CAN BE INFLATED WITHOUT PENALTIES FROM THE DEMAND SIDE OF MARKET FORCES.
Same thing happened with health care. Disassociate prices and market forces, and bad things happen: prices drop, creating shortages, or prices skyrocket behind the layer of loans or insurance.
Oh? The NYSE threatens to move to New Jersey? Let's hand them $1 billion, so that their new building can become obsolete in the days of internet stock trading.
Just like new stadiums, these sorts of things require the cooperation of your precious government, and this is nothing more than an irrelevant tangent.
Oh? You lost all your retirement, because Enron wouldn't let you sell your stock? Well, fuck you...that's the glory of capitalism.
Another tangent, in which a business probably acted illegally and will be investigated. Not the general rule of "business".
And, yet, we still worship that non-living entity we call "business" with that hollow promise that someday its wealth will "trickle-down" to us, so we can look disdainfully at our lazy blue-collar neighbors and go to church and praise God for all the wealth He thrust upon me. Yes, I must truly be part of the elect.
What? We "worship" business because of the promise of success, the promise is apparently hollow (and false), and yet we still succeed? The lower middle class has cars, cable TV, refigerators, their own homes, and vacations in Florida, and this is a failure? The upper middle class become better off and the promise is hollow? What the fuck?
Besides, most of the wealthy in the U.S. are not people who inhereted wealth or got lucky in "life's lottery" (a phrase popular with Democrats and other economic imbeciles). Most of those who are wealthy were not bestowed with the wealth business "thrust" upon them. They earned it, asshole.
Fuck all those who got laid-off. I'm now rich and "I" am all that matters. Oh and look at all those dumb French with their summer vacations and those stupid Germans with 4 day, 35 hour work weeks. I'm finally rich with my 6 day, 70 hour work week and fuck everyone else. Hoo-ray for business.
Who do you think is gonna re-hire? Business.
And why should we emulate the Europeans? Their economy and their level of prosperity is still mediocre next to ours.
A nation has NEVER gotten wealthy working LESS than its neighbors. And if you want to work less, go to France yourself, work for less money, and see more of it go to the government. Don't fuck with our prosperity.
And now, I am supposed to cry over the fact that business pays too many taxes? Where have they been for us? Bribing politicians to stack the deck further in their favor. And all I can say is to hell with them.
No, you're supposed to recognize that EVERYONE pays too much in taxes. And, for all the stacking the deck they can supposedly accomplish, Enron sure tumbled fast.
Yes, capitalism isn't perfect, but it is still the closest that we have.
And it's certainly far more successful than the failed Communism of the former Soviet Union and the mediocre socialism of Western Europe.
It's the reason we not only feed ourselves, but the feed the rest of the world.
And when you have the time, I recommed reading Henry Hazlitt's
Economics in One Lesson, which can summarized thus:
The art of economics consists in not looking merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.
Read it, you know, the next time you're between re-readings of Das Kapital.
[This message has been edited by Achtung Bubba (edited 01-17-2002).]
