Left or right? Liberal or socialistic?

[Zurke]

I believe that unless you are born physically or mentally deficient everyone should have to work to better themselves and their lives.

I believe in personal responsibility(taking credit for ones actions and excepting the outcome).

I believe that it should not hurt to be rich and everyone should strive to be so. Or if you dont want to be, then be satisfied with that.

I hold precious all the US Constitution. I am extremely happy with Alito and Roberts nominations.

I believe illegal immigration should be a felony punishable by 50 lashes and a free bus ride. Those who harbor or hire them should see jail time.

Free trade will never create jobs in a wealthier nation.

I think most of the hype with global warming is driven by anti oil and those that want to profit from alternative fuels the same way the oil industry is doing now.

There is no doubt that until the US switches from the two party system we now have by voting non Democrat and Republican we should except what we reap.

I am definately conservative. I align most with liberatarians but will travel.

[DarkAsmodeous]

I'm with you on most things... when viewing them in a forgiving light, but...


"Free trade will never create jobs in a wealthier nation." This is a zero-sum mercantalist view, sorry friend, markets don't work that way.

[Zurke]

Originally posted by DarkAsmodeous

"This is a zero-sum mercantalist view, sorry friend, markets don't work that way.

I was speaking of jobs. The millions of jobs lost due to free trade with "poorer" nations is a direct reflection of what I said. I am a capitalist so I can't blame employers for trying to improve profits by moving to those countries for cheaper labor. But I also am not fortunate enough to be an employer making those profits. Maybe wages will change in the host nations but that would be after the fact.

[Seniosh]

y'know, you could think of it as millions of people being freed up to do other jobs. Plus, free-trade isn't exactly outsourcing(as you seem to suggest). correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's nothing more than the demolishing of protective tariffs and subsidies, which were erected to encourage consumption of domestic products by making them cheaper than their overseas equivalents. Free trade also includes getting rid of trade legislation and quotas and such.

Theoretically, if many nations were to commit to free-trade, jobs would not be lost because American manufacturers, farmers, ect would also be able to ship their goods overseas tariff free.

As for left vs. right? A little from column A, a little from column B. I have to say that many of the conservatives have a strong and smart economic policy (not the one in office, but we'll disregard Bush). On the other hand, the liberals have a much better social policy, which is based on freedom and equal rights, rather than intolerance and prejudice.

The problem with liberal (socialist) economic theory is that it is usually destroyed by compromise. If you put a half-assed system of socialized health care in place (like what we have now!) it's not going to work. But if we had fully-socialized health care, it'd work much more efficiently and smoothly (if implemented properly of course)

One of the problems with a fully-capitalist economy is that the market is for the most part reactionary. The market relies on the consumer, so it will only change when there is an overwhelming demand for it. A good example is alternative-energies. Nobody can deny that the U.S. would be better off if they were not dependent on foreign oil, and were instead in the possession of renewable energy sources. But, the capitalist markets will start pumping serious money into renewable energy only when the oil prices go way high, and stay there, and the consumers start clamoring for something better. If companies had started investing money into alternative fuel in the 70s, who knows, we might be running around in solar-powered cars. That's why you need some way to regulate the market so that it pre-empts change, ie: government regulation, such as fuel-economy laws (though better implimented). A good example of this would be seat-belt laws. Don't wait until people start dying in large enough numbers for the market to act, regulate the market to deliver a safer product.

Still, can't argue with tighter government spending limits, fiscal accountability, and more efficiency in the use of tax dollars, caused by a government that is overall smaller and less invasive (except for those certain times when regulation is necessary)

Now why can't someone just combine financial freedom with social freedom?? How can republicans talk about a smaller, less invasive government, and in the same sentence, talk about keeping gay marriage illegal? Idiots. Money's nice, but personal freedom's nicer

[DarkAsmodeous]

A little from column A, a little from column B, eh? Sounds to me like you've described a libertarian policy actually, strong focus on individual LIBERTIES. It provides the ecconomic freedom, and it concerns itself only with individuals, not with groups, so the prejudices you've identified are in strong opposition to libertarian ideals. Only problem is the misconceptions that socialized systems are ecconomicaly viable or desirable at any scale, which would not be supported by a libertarian system, but we still agree on most notes.

[Seniosh]

Socialist economies may yet be proven to be economically viable, if you reduce corruption, and stop focusing on revolution. The main examples of socialism gone wrong are Russia, China, the former Soviet Bloc, and the self-styled communists of South America. One of the things in common is revolution, followed by a dictatorship, and massive corruption, which i will agree is certainly not the key to a good economy.

Gradual shifts towards socialism, in a democratic country, and given time to iron out the inevitable flaws in the theory, could end up being fruitful. Then again, i'm not talking about total, gov't owns all socialism, just smaller-scale socialist economic policies. I think it's a bit pessimistic to say it could never work

Of course, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and there's really no need to test socialist theories on a mostly working economy. Government regulation i think is necessary, but could be tweaked to be less intrusive in some areas, but better regulated in others (get rid of No Child Left Behind? anyone? please?) Schools are one thing i can say will not work without the government, because there is no way (that I've seen) to run a profitable private school in a poor area. There just needs to be better regulation, and by better, i mean regulation which isn't detrimental to my education.

One idea which our country needs to take seriously, is abolishing the party system. Arbitrarily reducing things to a Democrat vs. Republican does not encourage people to vote for the best or most capable candidate, it will only encourage them to vote for their candidate.

[DarkAsmodeous]

Well, there are some other problems with socialism other than corruption, but its not an important issue here. I don't know about there being no model, but I certainly agree with you that I haven't seen any sucessful private schools run in poor areas. Problem there is that we have the public schools already interfering in the market, so its hard to get good information. But even if there were no way, I'd want a private charitable market instiution handling the schools, because then they are at least accountable for their spending, and responsive to market change. I thnk we need to deregulate, but slowly. We just don't have the institutions evolved to replace anything yet, because of the monopoly, the answer isn't instant anarchy, to be sure.

Parties definately need to go, but the deeper issue is a motivated, educated, driven voting populace... as jefferson said, there cannot be a successful democracy without an educated people, the reason so many people favor regulation, is because they don't trust the intelligence of their fellow voters. I haven't seen a lot of reason to disagree, and that saddens me.

[Siegfried]

Vouchers anyone? Obviously there would be flaws, but I think that for families that send their kids to a private school for a better education, they should at least get some sort of a tax return because I mean, is it really right to make them pay to send their kid to school twice? What if groceries functioned the way America's public system currently does? Money is taken out of your taxes to cover food, and so you don't have to pay when you go to the grocery, but their food is just not as good or fresh as the privately owned grocery. So if you want your food fresh, you wind up paying for it twice. Is that right?

On the subject of abolishing parties, frankly I don't think it's possible, without some sort of massive bi-partisan movement on the part of the 'common folk'. I personally am holding out for smaller parties to begin gaining some traction/influence to at least weaken/take away from the larger parties. The liberatarian party as of now is looking pretty promising, hopefully they can gain some influence and become a viable political force. The other thing I was kind of noticing about Huckabee and Obama, they both have a very populist message. Kind of interesting really, they are fairly similar in a number of ways.

[Seniosh]

well, the problem with parties is that they've become a permanent part of the legal system, through things like primaries, caucuses, the whole organization of the Democratic and Republican parties, to the point where each of them is like a business. Our system of voting practically depends on having a choice between Person A and Person B.

If you could remove the engrained legal basis for having parties, the system would eventually dissolve. Not overnight of course, but without a unified party, each person is just going to vote for the person they think should be elected.

Of course that's fairly idealistic, and without details, and i realize this. It's almost 12 at night, and i'm sleepy. The real problem lies in removing the parties without causing extreme political disruption, and without the parties continuing on anyways.

And i think the answer might be a new method of voting, where the winner isn't necessarily the person that the majority of america has as their first choice. It's hard to describe, and even harder to implement, but it would essentially be a system in which the candidate who can appeal to both sides is the candidate who wins.

Just to take an example, say Clinton gets the democratic nomination, and runs for president against Huckabee. Of course, there'd be like 40% of the country who staunchly supported Huckabee, and hated Clinton. and there'd be like 60% who loved Clinton and detested Huckabee (reduced to generalizations for simplicity's sake) Now in a conventional scenario, Clinton wins. But, what if those 40% republicans wouldn't mind having Obama in office? They'd rather have her than Hillary. And the democrats, likewise, would support Obama if he was president. he's not anybody's first choice, but in this case, he'd be the best choice for president, because he is everybody's second choice. Extremely over-generalized and non-specific i know, but the thing i'm trying to impart is that our voting system is flawed, and that there are often candidates whom both parties could work with, but who get passed over in favor of a more polarizing first choice. Maybe not realistic, but i think an interesting political idea nonetheless

[Zurke]

Hi Seniosh

Originally posted by Seniosh
y'know, you could think of it as millions of people being freed up to do other jobs. Plus, free-trade isn't exactly outsourcing(as you seem to suggest). correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's nothing more than the demolishing of protective tariffs and subsidies, which were erected to encourage consumption of domestic products by making them cheaper than their overseas equivalents. Free trade also includes getting rid of trade legislation and quotas and such.

I believe you forgot tax revenue in the billions. "Freed up" to do what other jobs? I believe you would be correct in your definition of free trade. Key words would be protection and consumption of dometics products, which = jobs. Free Trade only increases profits. Have you seen the prices of chinese made products lately?

Originally posted by Seniosh
Theoretically, if many nations were to commit to free-trade, jobs would not be lost because American manufacturers, farmers, ect would also be able to ship their goods overseas tariff free.

Theoretically that is what is suppose to happen, or was promised to happen. More lies.

Originally posted by Seniosh
As for left vs. right? A little from column A, a little from column B. I have to say that many of the conservatives have a strong and smart economic policy (not the one in office, but we'll disregard Bush). On the other hand, the liberals have a much better social policy, which is based on freedom and equal rights, rather than intolerance and prejudice.

The left just cant keep their hands of our second amendment.

Originally posted by Seniosh
The problem with liberal (socialist) economic theory is that it is usually destroyed by compromise. If you put a half-assed system of socialized health care in place (like what we have now!) it's not going to work. But if we had fully-socialized health care, it'd work much more efficiently and smoothly (if implemented properly of course)

The problem is cost. Using tax dollars does not bring down costs no matter what pelosi or kerry tell you.

Originally posted by Seniosh
One of the problems with a fully-capitalist economy is that the market is for the most part reactionary. The market relies on the consumer, so it will only change when there is an overwhelming demand for it. A good example is alternative-energies. Nobody can deny that the U.S. would be better off if they were not dependent on foreign oil, and were instead in the possession of renewable energy sources. But, the capitalist markets will start pumping serious money into renewable energy only when the oil prices go way high, and stay there, and the consumers start clamoring for something better. If companies had started investing money into alternative fuel in the 70s, who knows, we might be running around in solar-powered cars. That's why you need some way to regulate the market so that it pre-empts change, ie: government regulation, such as fuel-economy laws (though better implimented). A good example of this would be seat-belt laws. Don't wait until people start dying in large enough numbers for the market to act, regulate the market to deliver a safer product.

If you havent noticed the global warming scare is all about renewable energy and creating a market. One just has to see through the bull crap. Seat belts are and should be a personal choice as smoking, unhealthy eating habits and lack of exercise.

Originally posted by Seniosh
Still, can't argue with tighter government spending limits, fiscal accountability, and more efficiency in the use of tax dollars, caused by a government that is overall smaller and less invasive (except for those certain times when regulation is necessary)

Now why can't someone just combine financial freedom with social freedom?? How can republicans talk about a smaller, less invasive government, and in the same sentence, talk about keeping gay marriage illegal? Idiots. Money's nice, but personal freedom's nicer

I think civil unions should become an amendment. Marriage is between a man and a women to produce a family.