Obama has won

[Jon Lyrik]

I like how I became a liberal (I'm probably to the left of Vong, not some lukewarm bourgeois capitalist-with-a-human-face), even if many libertarians are against the prison-industrial complex and find the idea of 4% of our population being in the corrections system (33% of black males) horrifying and dangerous.

[MovieMaster]

Originally Posted by Squid Vicious

Hmm...



Maybe this has something to do with it?

So it is ok, instead of providing a counterpoint, to just insult a member? Should I just start a thread where we all take turns just insulting each other, no topic, just insults?


I highly doubt anything I say is going to spark some light on for the liberal members of this board causing them to go conservative, just as they should not expect me to somehow change my way of thinking because they reply explaining their way of thinking. Just as they think I am nuts for saying the things I say, I think they are equally nuts for saying what they say. Doesn't mean I do not like to discuss it though.

[MovieMaster]

Originally Posted by Jon Lyrik

I like how I became a liberal (I'm probably to the left of Vong, not some lukewarm bourgeois capitalist-with-a-human-face), even if many libertarians are against the prison-industrial complex and find the idea of 4% of our population being in the corrections system (33% of black males) horrifying and dangerous.

So the whole US justice system is racist? Or could it be that the 4% just commit a shit load of crimes? In the area I live, I am the minority by a long shot. In this area blacks commit crimes at an insane rate, as if it were a reality show competition. Is it racist to lock them up because they commit a crime while being black? I am sorry the numbers look that way but in this community, those numbers make sense.

[MovieMaster]

Originally Posted by Jon Lyrik

You're obviously trolling. They do.

No, they don't and you have nothing to back your statement.

[Gordon]

Originally Posted by MovieMaster

These people are in prison for violating laws. I am in no way advocating slavery. We are expected, as tax payers, to pay for these criminals to have food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and legal counsel. So they break the law and get this as a bonus? Why should they not be forced to work off and pay for their time? You make it sound as if I think the government can force anyone, anywhere to go off to some labor camp and that is not the case. I think this fits right in line with my statements against government provided health care etc etc. These people can even have a choice:

1)Work and get all of the healthcare, legal counsel, food, and living quarters you need which is what they get now for free

2) Choose not to work and get bread/water for meals, no health care, no legal counsel, and shitty living conditions. Keep them outside, in pup tents with holes in the ground to piss in.

I am sorry if you feel fine paying for scum to live the high life for free, please feel free to ease my burden and pay my share. I just do not feel it is fair.

I assumed you were going to double down on your argument even though it's pretty clearly ill advised. I can't really give a rebuttal because my original post is all the argument needed: you really can't get past the inherent problem your position has.

Under your view, the government has the right to force people to labor on the behalf of others against their will. Okay, but you're saying: We should be allowed to do this if they're deemed as going against the laws. But who creates the laws? The state. Who enforces the laws? The state. So there is no way out of it: You're saying the state has the right to craft and enforce laws that if people don't obey they are then forced into slavery.

This is precisely the logic behind Stalinism, Nazism, etc.

[MovieMaster]

Originally Posted by Gordon

I assumed you were going to double down on your argument even though it's pretty clearly ill advised. I can't really give a rebuttal because my original post is all the argument needed: you really can't get past the inherent problem your position has.

Under your view, the government has the right to force people to labor on the behalf of others against their will. Okay, but you're saying: We should be allowed to do this if they're deemed as going against the laws. But who creates the laws? The state. Who enforces the laws? The state. So there is no way out of it: You're saying the state has the right to craft and enforce laws that if people don't obey they are then forced into slavery.

This is precisely the logic behind Stalinism, Nazism, etc.

Are we not forcing them into containment under these same laws? This, for I would say the most part, is also against their will. We are not forcing them to break the laws however. The saying "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time" sums it up perfectly. If you do not want to go to prison and have to earn your way, don't break the law.

Why is it unfair to make them work BUT not unfair to make me pay for them to have things many working Americans don't have? I have several friends who are in positions that either do not have benefits or they can not afford them. Joe Blow Criminal however just has to rape and murder some lady he passes by in the streets and he gets this privilege along with food and shelter as well?

Please explain how me idea of having convicted felons work for anything they receive while in containment, is somehow forcing them to do anything? If this is the case I totally still stand by my argument that they should have the option to work and receive these benefits OR not work and get the friggin bare minimum care you can give to keep them alive.

That is the same thing as saying your workplace is a slavery era plantation because they force you to work for money and health care. Should you get to get a paycheck and benefits and a nice office while not working because you murdered a fellow coworker?
That is what you are saying when you think it is slavery to make prisoners work.

[Gordon]

Originally Posted by MovieMaster

That is the same thing as saying your workplace is a slavery era plantation because they force you to work for money and health care. Should you get to get a paycheck and benefits and a nice office while not working because you murdered a fellow coworker?
That is what you are saying when you think it is slavery to make prisoners work.

As for the above quote, I don't know how in your mind you compare voluntary exchange in the free market via contractual agreement to a prison, but that is certainly not at all what I am saying. It is only you that makes that what I am saying by misunderstanding my point. I assume here that you honestly misunderstand what I am saying and are not trying to mischaracterize it. And I assume you will continue to misunderstand because you are trying to actively debate, whereas I am just trying to point out the ramifications of your view in a non-partisan way.

I'm not going to belabor the point because you clearly don't see why it's just an obvious political fact that your theory only works if you believe in totalitarianism. You want to allow the government to imprison people for breaking laws that the government makes, enforces, then decides upon, and then subsequently allow the government to force these people to engage in slave labor. It's quite strange to me that you don't see the issue with this, but whatever: if you don't, you don't. Perhaps we'll implement this system of yours, and perhaps you'll be one of the inevitably wrongly convicted people, and perhaps then you'll regret advocating giving the state the right to enslave you at any point on the belief that you're probably guilty of not behaving in the manor they deemed to be appropriate.

[electriclite]

Originally Posted by MovieMaster

I think that this is still doable. There would need to be oversight if it were to become policy to prevent corruption. This could also be paid for by the funds prisoners create by working, it would need to be a 3rd party organization. .

I also think this could be a benefit to many of the prisoners. Many will learn job skills that could help them in finding some work once out. They could even use their time spent working while in prison as a positive spin while seeking employment, showing they were responsible enough to work and earn their way. Many people still won't hire them just because they are felons but many may see this as some proof that this person can do the job and might be willing to stick it out.

You don't believe in the existence of lobbyists do you? Any organization that's gonna make that much money off such cheap labor is gonna protect that income to make sure things go their way as opposed to anyone else's. As for creating a third party organization, I will leave you with this scenario: people in this country already hate Unions, how do you think we're gonna feel about a Prisoner's Rights type of group bemoaning abuses and rights violations of working inmates?



And I'm sure that's the same amount of fucks you give in that scenario as well. So much for that idea.


Prisoners already have job training programs in prison. People don't hire ex-cons not because they don't think they can do the work or won't stick around, they don't hire them because they don't think they can trust them.

[someguy]

the libertarian is right, people with no freedom truly live a better life than those who do

[Jon Lyrik]

Originally Posted by MovieMaster

So the whole US justice system is racist?

Yes, but it's more that the structure of the US is racist.

[MovieMaster]

Originally Posted by Jon Lyrik

Yes, but it's more that the structure of the US is racist.

Obama agrees.

[MovieMaster]

Originally Posted by Gordon

advocating giving the state the right to enslave you at any point

When did I state this? Did I say they need to create new, insanely strict laws made to enslave the U.S? I only want the laws we currently have to be enforced and those living off my tax dollars to finally have a way to repay society for all the harm they have done WITHOUT costing us financially.

[MovieMaster]

Originally Posted by electriclite

Prisoners already have job training programs in prison. People don't hire ex-cons not because they don't think they can do the work or won't stick around, they don't hire them because they don't think they can trust them.

True and agreed, but if they have a work record, showing they busted their ass daily, this might be the proof some employer might need to hire them. A training program is just that, a little training and for the most part no real hands on experience. It works that way in my field, people would rather hire someone with 10 years experience doing the job instead of just some guy with a degree but having never actually performed the work. Just my opinion. An ex con not finding work does not concern me. I have no sympathy for a filthy criminal, past or present. I know some do, some believe in rehabilitation and in some cases it works but I lost that faith in humanity, especially criminals a long time ago.

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by Squid Vicious

"Illegals"?

Seriously?

Originally Posted by Squid Vicious

It's both. Not that I should've been surprised. Most libertarians I've come across are racist assholes.

Holy shit.

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by ThunderStorm

Why is it wrong to call illegal immigrants illegals?

And what specific race is someone referring to when they're called illegals? Is it racist too to call legal immigrants legals or legal immigrants?

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by someguy

You were saying how health care costs will only be going up in the future. Do you think the standard of living will be able to increase at a proportional rate so that consumers will be able to keep up with the rising costs?

Its only increasing because of government intervention in the first place and I already explained it in post 117. http://www.joblo.com/forums/showpost...&postcount=117

Do you think that if someone is too cost prohibitive to take care of, they don't deserve insurance?

Why should a business be forced to take a loss? I've said before in this thread I'd rather not have this useless middle man getting in between the patient and the doctor to begin with. You seem to hate and vilify all these health insurers yet now you want everyone mandated to do business with them.

You admit that insurance companies do the same thing, right?

Again you believe I'm in love with these insurance companies. I'm not. I don't want these insurance companies to be a necessity. Yet now everyone is forced to do business with them thanks to legislation like Obamacare.

How do you feel about pharmaceutical companies (company a) having exclusive rights to sell their medicine for a long period of time before generic companies (company b) can copy the medicine to sell on their own? I think the current period was somewhere around 5 to 7 years, but Obama's bill has actually increased that to 12 years in order to get pharma companies to be on board with ACA (meaning the private companies wanted it, not the government). Do you support the pharma companies' on this?

First of all many drug companies sell drugs FAR below market value and even give them away to poor people all around the world for all variety of diseases (including AIDS).

Second of all, even if they didn't, so what? You want drug producers to take huge risks with hundreds of millions dollars that it takes to research and produce new drugs when the overwhelming majority of research leads to dead ends and on the very few drugs that DO work, you don't want them to be able to reap the rewards of their massive gamble? Without patent protection, you wouldn't even get the chance to bemoan those big, bad, mean, drug companies for not sharing their fancy new drugs because those fancy, new drugs wouldn't even exist.

And please don't use a nebulous term like "price gouging" unless you're actually prepared to define it. It's a political expression meant to fire up voters and win elections but has no concrete meaning in the real world. A price is considered "price gouging" according to the whims of the person using the term "price gouging" and there are about 6 billion different definitions on what exactly that price is in the world. Bottom line, a price is whatever the market will bear - end of story.

As for drug reimportation, I have no problem with that.

The reason drug prices are so low in other countries is one (or both) of two reasons:

A) said country's government subsidizes the price

and/or

B) said country's government threatens to violate a given drug company's patent and sell dirt cheap generic versions unless the drug company submits to that country's price controls. Since the drug company's don't want their patents violated, they submit to the foreign governments' threats and all their drugs far below market value (or even at a loss). Since America doesn't have drug price controls, the companies make their profits by charging high prices here. At the end of the day, it's American consumers that end up subsidizing other country's socialist health care policies. If not for American consumers, you would see a drastic drop in the research and invention of new drugs and many drug companies would go out of business.

So in addition to all of the things I mentioned before like reducing governement restrictions, taxes, and eliminating subsidies, if you really want to help reduce costs and ultimately prices, our government should be doing a better job negotiating patent protections with foreign governements.

I'd like to see some sort of substantive proof of this situation occurring. By that I mean show me an example of the health care situation in a country changing significantly (for the better in this case) because of private charities. And do you think that charities and doctors devoting some of their practice towards "basic care" will cover everyone living in poverty/unable to afford insurance?

I think the long, extensive history of human charity in all its forms bears me out to be correct. There's AIDS walks, cancer charities, Jerry's Kids. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Altruism is not achieved through government force. As noted above many companies give free drugs to poor nations around the world. In many ways, government has taken over the role that various charities used to handle. I would ease government off and allow private charities (be they monetary handouts, food and shelter, job training, general education, home help, and so forth) to begin to come back into the fold.

Again for charities

1) There have been soup kitchens and other food charities for generations. And our country is now flush with more food than ever before. Heck, our own federal government even still subsidizes farmers to NOT grow shit in order to keep prices artificially high (thanks oh wise and benevolent Franklin Roosevelt). I'm quite certain that no single person in this country would die of starvation even if every single federal food stamp were eliminated.

2) There are many private charities that regularly offer vitamins to people (especially children). In fact we have so much of that shit that we just send it to children overseas.

3) There has LONG been a western tradition amongst doctors to treat people in emergency life-threatening situations regardless of their ability to pay. Ron Paul himself has been doing this his entire life. Like many doctors, he also offers payment plans for poorer patients and will frequently offer free care for those that truly cannot pay at all.

Unfortunately, we've been conditioned for so long in this country by the left-wing mainstream press and socialist professors to believe that more and more and more and more and more government is the one and only answer.

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by electriclite

And how does a a hospital cover the balance that charity can't/doesn't cover? In 2008 charities and other government programs only covered about 26% of healthcare costs, while the uninsured, on average managed to cover 37%. This still left, out of $116 billion in healthcare costs, $43 billion left over.

Now how does a hospital cover that balance? Rolling the cost onto the bill of the insured of course. Where else does the majority of rising deductibles come from? Of course the private insurance companies have to maintain a profit for their shareholders so they are forced to ditch and/or not cover more and more of the "insured", creating more and more uninsured people, rolling on more and more costs on the insured, creating more people dropped from their insurance,etc and of course more and more people for charity to cover? I'm starting to get an idea where that $84 billion under budget for 2012-2022 you quoted from the insurance companies came from.

You acting as if charities wouldn't be any stronger today if there weren't 70+ of government playing that role. As if the balance would still be the same if it wasn't for decades of government meddling.

Again read what I wrote in post 117 about insurers and why there is a problem with insurance companies. I see you've only touched upon a small tiny segment of that post. We didn't need health insurance until government interference in the first place.

And I have no idea where this "Free healthcare for illegals" comes into play when the law clearly states who is eligible for AHA:

In fact in order to apply for the program you have to show proof of your citizenship.

So illegal pregnant women about to give birth come to this country get sent back while their placenta gets spilled out on the bus on the way back to their country? Newborns in need of healthcare that were carried over the border are completely neglected and thrown into dumpsters because they're rejected by hospitals? Someone with a contagious disease is allowed to spread it at a CCA detention center? Hell you've seen the beginning of The Godfather Part II. But if we're talking about immigration that's a whole 'nother topic. Again I'm for increasing our open borders but if we're even going to contemplate that we have to fix a zillion of other issues surrounding it. Get rid of the welfare state and we won't have to take it out on hard-working, entrepreneurial immigrants simply looking for a better life.

Meantime the government is actually going to be cutting aid given to emergency rooms that treat illegal immigrants. In essence, the AHA has created the "Self-deportation" Mitt Romney stated. So be prepared to pay $14 for a box of strawberries... unless we give the work to inmates, then nevermind.

Now let's put a pin in that argument shall we?

Hey at least you admit they receive healthcare here like I stated above. Unless somehow you want to explain to me how emergency room bills for them are not a cost. If these people receive treatment and go back to their country without never paying their bill where does that money go?

[Jon Lyrik]

Yes, let's rely on charity. It worked for thousands of years with helping the sick and wiping out pover--oh...

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by The Heart Collector

are you an honest-to-god retarded person?

Holy shit #2.

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by Jon Lyrik

Yes, let's rely on charity. It worked for thousands of years with helping the sick and wiping out pover--oh...

In what fantasy land does poverty not exist with everyone in perfect health?

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by Gordon

I'm teaming up with Creekin on this. What you say is exactly what I've never really understood about the American brand of Conservatism you find in the Republic Party: The raison d'être of the political rhetoric is to complain about government interference, too much government, bloated government, bad government, government dictation of how you live your life, government incompetence, etc. and then they advocate programs like: 1. The government has the right to imprison people and force them to work for the state -- you're advocating literal direct state slavery despite the constant rhetoric about much more ambiguous forms of state control which are labeled "slavery," 2. The government can spend trillions of tax payer dollars invading and state building in a country on the other side of the world despite the fact that they don't want it, and the government fails at being competent enough to provide the same basic services in their own territory

This is why I find Libertarianism such a more beautiful and elegant theory. It basically has one (very powerful) proposition: Each person has equal basic liberties and the domain of the government is only to protect property rights and uphold contracts. You can accept or reject the proposition, but the position is quite intuitive, quite consistent, and clever enough that it demands a good reason for you to explain why it is wrong.

[Jon Lyrik]

Because libertarianism is beautiful and elegant is why it's bullshit. http://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/milton-friedman

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by Jon Lyrik

Because libertarianism is beautiful and elegant is why it's bullshit. http://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/milton-friedman

Posting a blog. Impressive.

[Jon Lyrik]

So you don't dispute libertarianism is a bullshit laboratory concoction by the capitalist class as a response to the New Deal Coalition?

[Jon Lyrik]

I always loved this site too: http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html

Or this one: http://crookedtimber.org/2012/07/01/...the-workplace/

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by Jon Lyrik

So you don't dispute libertarianism is a bullshit laboratory concoction by the capitalist class as a response to the New Deal Coalition?

Oh sure.

[Jon Lyrik]

I don't think it's fair at all to compare it to classical liberalism. At least classical liberalism was liberating in its day, or tried to be. Libertarianism forgets the critiques socialism gave for liberal democratic capitalism ever happened or were even valid.

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by Jon Lyrik

I always loved this site too: http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html

Or this one: http://crookedtimber.org/2012/07/01/...the-workplace/

Yay more blogs.

[Jon Lyrik]

I'm not making extraordinary claims. And Ames in the first one sources his work. What do you want?

[Jon Lyrik]

Another thing libertarianism (or at least right-libertarianism) doesn't seem to ask is that it seems to not realize where wealth is originally accumulated from, or where the basis of the capitalist system was (hint: it's rather self-contradictory in the right-libertarian sense).

[MovieMaster]

Originally Posted by Jon Lyrik

I'm not making extraordinary claims. And Ames in the first one sources his work. What do you want?

Probably for someone to take the time to type out a response instead of just linking to someone's work. It bugs me, I would prefer to even have someone cut and paste the meat and potatoes of the article instead of linking it, if you do not feel like typing it up in your own words. That's just me being old school though, teachers in my day would kick my ass for plagiarism so I always learned to rephrase someone's work if I was unable to articulate my own point for a project or report. Not saying you are not capable of doing this, just saying why it bugs me and why I do what I do. Although I have been guilty of link replying when being lazy.

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by Jon Lyrik

I don't think it's fair at all to compare it to classical liberalism. At least classical liberalism was liberating in its day, or tried to be. Libertarianism forgets the critiques socialism gave for liberal democratic capitalism ever happened or were even valid.

Who even knows what an American "liberal" is? It's certainly not the classical definition of the word.

I respectfully suggest the following works:
John Locke, Second Treatise of Government
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
FA Hayek, Road to Serfdom

They all proceed from the very basic concept that my right to swing my fist ends at your nose. It's the most basic, clear definition of freedom of which I know and it's a prevailing thread that you can find through almost all classical liberal philosophers starting with Locke in the 17th century and moving on through economists like Milton Friedman in the 20th. That very concept is also the basis for our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.

[Jon Lyrik]

Originally Posted by creekin111

Its only increasing because of government intervention in the first place and I already explained it in post 117. http://www.joblo.com/forums/showpost...&postcount=117



Why should a business be forced to take a loss? I've said before in this thread I'd rather not have this useless middle man getting in between the patient and the doctor to begin with. You seem to hate and vilify all these health insurers yet now you want everyone mandated to do business with them.



Again you believe I'm in love with these insurance companies. I'm not. I don't want these insurance companies to be a necessity. Yet now everyone is forced to do business with them thanks to legislation like Obamacare.



First of all many drug companies sell drugs FAR below market value and even give them away to poor people all around the world for all variety of diseases (including AIDS).

Second of all, even if they didn't, so what? You want drug producers to take huge risks with hundreds of millions dollars that it takes to research and produce new drugs when the overwhelming majority of research leads to dead ends and on the very few drugs that DO work, you don't want them to be able to reap the rewards of their massive gamble? Without patent protection, you wouldn't even get the chance to bemoan those big, bad, mean, drug companies for not sharing their fancy new drugs because those fancy, new drugs wouldn't even exist.

And please don't use a nebulous term like "price gouging" unless you're actually prepared to define it. It's a political expression meant to fire up voters and win elections but has no concrete meaning in the real world. A price is considered "price gouging" according to the whims of the person using the term "price gouging" and there are about 6 billion different definitions on what exactly that price is in the world. Bottom line, a price is whatever the market will bear - end of story.

As for drug reimportation, I have no problem with that.

The reason drug prices are so low in other countries is one (or both) of two reasons:

A) said country's government subsidizes the price

and/or

B) said country's government threatens to violate a given drug company's patent and sell dirt cheap generic versions unless the drug company submits to that country's price controls. Since the drug company's don't want their patents violated, they submit to the foreign governments' threats and all their drugs far below market value (or even at a loss). Since America doesn't have drug price controls, the companies make their profits by charging high prices here. At the end of the day, it's American consumers that end up subsidizing other country's socialist health care policies. If not for American consumers, you would see a drastic drop in the research and invention of new drugs and many drug companies would go out of business.

So in addition to all of the things I mentioned before like reducing governement restrictions, taxes, and eliminating subsidies, if you really want to help reduce costs and ultimately prices, our government should be doing a better job negotiating patent protections with foreign governements.



I think the long, extensive history of human charity in all its forms bears me out to be correct. There's AIDS walks, cancer charities, Jerry's Kids. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Altruism is not achieved through government force. As noted above many companies give free drugs to poor nations around the world. In many ways, government has taken over the role that various charities used to handle. I would ease government off and allow private charities (be they monetary handouts, food and shelter, job training, general education, home help, and so forth) to begin to come back into the fold.

Again for charities

1) There have been soup kitchens and other food charities for generations. And our country is now flush with more food than ever before. Heck, our own federal government even still subsidizes farmers to NOT grow shit in order to keep prices artificially high (thanks oh wise and benevolent Franklin Roosevelt). I'm quite certain that no single person in this country would die of starvation even if every single federal food stamp were eliminated.

2) There are many private charities that regularly offer vitamins to people (especially children). In fact we have so much of that shit that we just send it to children overseas.

3) There has LONG been a western tradition amongst doctors to treat people in emergency life-threatening situations regardless of their ability to pay. Ron Paul himself has been doing this his entire life. Like many doctors, he also offers payment plans for poorer patients and will frequently offer free care for those that truly cannot pay at all.

Unfortunately, we've been conditioned for so long in this country by the left-wing mainstream press and socialist professors to believe that more and more and more and more and more government is the one and only answer.

AHAHA. Socialist professors. Left-wing media. No, the media is very capitalist. Not being to the right of Mitt Romney is not left-wing.

Also, you don't even answer his question. All of the charities in the world do not make the impact that Social Security has had.

[creekin111]

I love how people assume that a rich man making more money equals less money for others - as if the economy is some finite, static pie. Is that how some you think an economy actually works?

[Jon Lyrik]

Originally Posted by creekin111

Who even knows what an American "liberal" is? It's certainly not the classical definition of the word.

I respectfully suggest the following works:
John Locke, Second Treatise of Government
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
FA Hayek, Road to Serfdom

They all proceed from the very basic concept that my right to swing my fist ends at your nose. It's the most basic, clear definition of freedom of which I know and it's a prevailing thread that you can find through almost all classical liberal philosophers starting with Locke in the 17th century and moving on through economists like Milton Friedman in the 20th. That very concept is also the basis for our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.

Except Marx and numerous others wound up demolishing the shortcomings of classical liberalism...

Look, I've read all of this work. Parroting a fascist-sympathizer like Hayek is not impressive to me. I like how Hayek was...you know, COMPLETELY FUCKING WRONG about the welfare states of continental northwest Europe, too. Hint: they still have more civil liberties than the Anglo-Saxon economies.

[Jon Lyrik]

Originally Posted by creekin111

I love how people assume that a rich man making more money equals less money for others - as if the economy is some finite, static pie. Is that how some you think an economy actually works?

Does a rich man make money through his own labor or the labor of others?

[Jon Lyrik]

Also, yes, it basically does in late capitalism, as the rate of profit falls, they have to squeeze the wealth from somewhere. That's why 93% of the wealth gained since the end of the recession has gone to the top 1% in this country. It's why despite productivity gains the real median wage has declined since 1973.

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by Jon Lyrik

AHAHA. Socialist professors. Left-wing media. No, the media is very capitalist. Not being to the right of Mitt Romney is not left-wing.

The news media is capitalist or do they promote capitalist ideals? Most of them appeal to the leftist ideals than right.

Here is the basic breakdown.

Right:
FoxNews
Wall Street Journal
most of talk radio

Left:
NY Times
Washington Post
CBS
ABC
NBC
CNN
PBS
NPR
Time Magazine

Donations by Media Companies Tilt Heavily to Obama

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.co...vily-to-obama/

This is a few years old but you get the point.

The web site, www.wheretodoresearch.com lists 200 of the most prominent think tanks and policy groups in the United States. Using the official web site of Congress, http://thomas. loc.gov, we and our research assistants searched the Congres-sional Record for instances where a member of Congress cited one of these think tanks.


We also recorded the average adjusted ADA score of the member who cited the think tank. We use adjusted scores, con-structed by Groseclose, Levitt, and Snyder [1999], because we need the scores to be comparable across time and chambers.12 Groseclose, Levitt, and Snyder use the 1980 House scale as their base year and chamber. It is convenient for us to choose a scale that gives centrist members of Congress a score of about 50. For this reason, we converted scores to the 1999 House scale.13


Along with direct quotes of think tanks, we sometimes in-cluded sentences that were not direct quotes. For instance, many of the citations were cases where a member of Congress noted “This bill is supported by think tank X.” Also, members of Con-gress sometimes insert printed material into the Congressional Record, such as a letter, a newspaper article, or a report. If a think tank was cited in such material or if a think tank member wrote the material, we treated it as if the member of Congress had read the material in his or her speech.

We did the same exercise for stories that media outlets re-port, except with media outlets we did not record an ADA score. Instead, our method estimates such a score.


Sometimes a legislator or journalist noted an action that a think tank had taken— e.g., that it raised a certain amount of money, initiated a boycott, filed a lawsuit, elected new officers, or held its annual convention. We did not record such cases in our data set. However, sometimes in the process of describing such actions, the journalist or legislator would quote a member of the think tank, and the quote revealed the think tank’s views on national policy, or the quote stated a fact that is relevant to national policy. If so, we would record that quote in our data set. For instance, suppose that a reporter noted “The NAACP has asked its members to boycott businesses in the state of South Carolina. ‘We are initiating this boycott, because we believe that it is racist to fly the Confederate Flag on the state capitol,’ a leader of the group noted.” In this instance, we would count the second sentence that the reporter wrote, but not the first.


Also, we omitted the instances where the member of Con-gress or journalist only cited the think tank so he or she could criticize it or explain why it was wrong. About 5 percent of the congressional citations and about 1 percent of the media citations fell into this category.


In the same spirit, we omitted cases where a journalist or legislator gave an ideological label to a think tank (e.g., “Even the conservative Heritage Foundation favors this bill.”). The idea is that we only wanted cases where the legislator or journalist cited the think tank as if it were a disinterested expert on the topic at hand. About 2 percent of the congressional citations and about 5 percent of the media citations involved an ideological label.


As noted earlier, our media data do not include editorials, letters to the editor, or book reviews. That is, all of our results refer only to the bias of the news of media. There are several reasons why we do not include editorials. The primary one is that there is little controversy over the slant of editorial pages; e.g., few would disagree that Wall Street Journal editorials are con-servative, while New York Times editorials are liberal. However, there is a very large controversy about the slant of the news of various media outlets. A second reason involves the effect (if any) that the media have on individuals’ political views. It is reason-able to believe that a biased outlet that pretends to be centrist has more of an effect on readers’ or viewers’ beliefs than, say, an editorial page that does not pretend to be centrist. A third reason involves difficulties in coding the data. Editorial and opinion writers, much more than news writers, are sometimes sarcastic when they quote members of think tanks. If our coders do not catch the sarcasm, they record the citation as a favorable one.

And its been that way for a long time. There are oodles of articles pointing in this direction.

Of course journalists have political opinions; it would be crazy to expect thoughtful, intelligent, educated people not to have them. The problem is one of fairness. A person can be biased and fair. Journalists should express opinions in editorials and columns. When they're reporting the news, they should just report the news. If I can tell how a journalist feels about the story he's covering, he's failed the fairness test. Unfortunately, all news organizations cross this line to varying extents.

The number of news organizations with a Democrat bias greatly exceeds the number with Republican bias. This is why Fox News does so well in the ratings. Liberals have a number of TV choices that won't raise their blood pressure. Republicans have only Fox. I would love to see anyone tell me how MSNBC isn't left wing for just one extreme example.

Also, you don't even answer his question. All of the charities in the world do not make the impact that Social Security has had.

Yes I did but you're right Social Security has a far bigger impact. A huge negative one. If there was a private charity like social security it would have been shut down out of business years ago and replaced by a multitude of others.

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by Jon Lyrik

Does a rich man make money through his own labor or the labor of others?

That's a loaded question. Does a poor man make money off his own labor or the labor of others?

[creekin111]

Originally Posted by Jon Lyrik

Except Marx and numerous others wound up demolishing the shortcomings of classical liberalism...

Look, I've read all of this work. Parroting a fascist-sympathizer like Hayek is not impressive to me. I like how Hayek was...you know, COMPLETELY FUCKING WRONG about the welfare states of continental northwest Europe, too. Hint: they still have more civil liberties than the Anglo-Saxon economies.

Explain to me how Marxism values ideas outside of the idea of Marxism itself.