On Scott Brown's historic senate victory in Massachusetts, IGF contributing author David Boaz writes on the Cato Institute blog that given:
"the growing recognition that libertarians are a major part of the decentralized 'Tea Party' movement, and rising poll support for 'smaller government,' the Brown victory is a flashing red light with a siren warning Democrats not to proceed with a health care bill that voters don't like and a big-government agenda that Americans weren't voting for in 2008."
"By pressing such a big-government program, Obama has energized a small-government element in the electorate that had been demoralized and pushed aside by a big-government Republican president. Right now, that movement looks likely to turn a lot of Democrats out of office this fall."
But party-line Democrats don't want to hear that message, and LGBT Democratic activists especially aren't listening. This morning I received a fundraising email from EQCA (Equality California) Executive Director Geoff Kors that read:
"Yesterday, in the bluest of blue states, Massachusetts voters elected a right-wing, anti-equality candidate to the U.S. Senate seat held by Edward Kennedy since 1962. And the group behind Prop. 8, the National Organization for Marriage, played a major role. The volatile electorate, coupled with fierce opposition determined to deny us equality, makes 2010 a critical year" [to work to elect Democrats].
Scott Brown is a moderate Bay State Republican who opposes marriage equality but thinks the issue should be left to the states (he's against a federal amendment to bar same-sex marriage and says he accepts gay marriage in Massachustts as a settled fact). The idea that the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage, which endorsed Brown, played a significant role in his victory is delusional.
Yet again, LGBTers are determined to be on the wrong side of history, and to miss opportunities to forge any links with libertarian-minded, small-government conservatives.
More. Brown also, infamously, is our first centerfold senator.
Furthermore. Politico reports that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is attacking Republican Richard Hanna, running for Congress in upstate New York, over his ties to the Cato Institute, which the DCCC labels "a right-wing extremist group." According to Politico:
An incredulous Cato spokeswoman, Khristine Brookes, e-mails, "Are they serious? Are we a right-wing extremist group because of our arguments in favor of gay marriage or for our criticism of the Bush war in Iraq?" The "extremist" in question in the release, she notes, is a pro-immigration, pro-trade economist...
82 Comments for “They Still Don’t Get It”
posted by Debrah on
No, "they still don’t get it", it seems. And one who supposedly does is now feeling sorry for himself because he does. What a twit Gavin Newsom has turned out to be. SF is more conservative than he thought? LOL! Dowd does her work behind the scenes in San Francisco to find the former wine boutique clerk feeling down because Obama and others have long eclipsed him. He once was, as some may recall, an up-and-coming rising star on the national political scene…..until…..his SSM ceremonies in 2004…..and…..until…..Obama! As Stephen H. Miller illustrates, the gay activists have been "looking for love in all the wrong places". Obama rises…….the Gav man falls. One against SSM…….the other arranged SSM ceremonies. And Jerry Brown is entertaining the thought of running for governor again? Better stage a few parades in Pacific Heights pronto!
posted by Lori Heine on
I got one of those hysterical emails, too. I’m sure I’ll be hearing much wailing and gnashing of teeth at the church meeting I’m attending tonight.
All I can say now, to such people, is, “You know, when you talk like that, you sound like a ding-dong.”
I’m almost past the point of thinking that arguing with most of them does any good.
posted by TS on
The mainstream doesn’t get that the anti-government libertarian movement would make a good ally for them, but you don’t get that the election of Scott Brown is a very scary moment for us all.
Scott Brown is not a socially libertarian Tea Party candidate. He is an anti-gay Tea Party candidate. In their haste to chasten an “out of control” federal government for being “too big,” the people of the most liberal state in the union have elected somebody who said a child having two mothers is “just not right.” and they will do so again. the “inevitability” of people with sexualities like ours getting to live in a world that treats them fairly is fading away. out of understandable fear, the mainstream is not going to be interested in severing ties with its most reliable friends, the democrats! if you don’t understand that, it’s wilful blindness!
posted by BobN on
I would think that a legitimate defense of Brown on a gay forum would include his positions on DOMA, DADT, ENDA, federal recognition of same-sex couples, immigration reform for gay couples, etc.
Instead, from a state that has had same-sex marriage for years, we get an opponent of marriage EQUALITY.
Of course you can’t defend him on all those issues. His positions are anti-gay.
And the idea that the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage played a significant role in his victory is delusional.
$50,000 and 800,000 robo-calls.
Oh, and it looks like NOM is “delusional” by your standards, since they’re touting their support for him.
http://washingtonindependent.com/74356/national-organization-for-marriage-taking-credit-for-brown
posted by Lori Heine on
I’m under no illusion that Scott Brown is the Messiah. Precisely because he does not have messianic powers, if he does turn out, in the Senate, to be anti-gay, he will have limited success in assailing us.
I’ve heard mixed reports, so I’m not sure what he’s going to do.
What I do know is that this healthcare boondoggle will destroy what’s left of our economy and perhaps deal a crushing blow to American free enterprise. Even though I’m gay, I’m also — still and always — an American. I have to consider, first, the threat that’s been leveled against this country.
If Obamacare passes, we gays will have bigger problems than one potentially anti-gay senator. As will everybody else.
Scott Brown may represent the first real glimmer of hope that this monstrosity won’t pass after all.
Thus do I rejoice.
posted by Amicus on
How does a libertarian (small government variety or garden variety) ‘oppose same sex marriage’?
Just sayin’
He’s reportedly opposed repeal of DADT. I can’t think of *any* libertarians who are, off hand.
posted by Lori Heine on
“How does a libertarian (small government variety or garden variety) ‘oppose same sex marriage’?”
Amicus, once again…hello…if this country goes bankrupt and the Chinese or the Saudis (to whom, along with other foreign nations) now owe fully 50% of our national debt) take it over, how will THAT benefit same-sex marriage?
A libertarian (garden variety or any other kind) would probably tell you that, at the moment, we have bigger fish to fry. Statists have already made such an ungodly mess out of everything that the first mess we need to clean up is not the fact that we don’t have legal same-sex marriage.
posted by Lori Heine on
I hate this teensy little “Comments” box.
What I was trying to say was “if this country goes bankrupt and the Chinese or the Saudis (to whom, along with other foreign nations, we now owe fully 50% of our national debt) take it over, how will THAT benefit same-sex marriage?”
One loses perspective of the whole thought one is trying to type as easily as some people here lose perspective on the size of our national problems.
posted by Aubrey on
I live in Mass with my husband and son, and we never got the idea that Brown was a moderate. In fact, until the run for the US Senate, I don’t think Brown did either.
He fought to overturn same-sex marriage in Mass, until he ran for US Senate when suddenly it was a “settled” matter for him.
I guess we will see how he truly feels about leaving the matter of marriage to the states if (and that is a big if) he ever gets the opportunity to vote on an overturn of DOMA. Doesn’t DOMA take this matter away from the states, in a way?
And just to note a personal observation (or 2, or 3):
– Coakley ran probably the worst campaign I have ever seen. And I have lived all over this country. @ 2-3 weeks ago my husband asked me if I had noticed any Coakley ads at all. No. None. Not on tv, not in print, nothing. She didn’t go out and meet the people, didn’t do the handshake thing. It was mindboggling. A run for the US Senate, and she wasn’t doing anything. Complacent, obviously.
I think Coakley would have won it here in Mass if she had been more aggressive up front. But she wasn’t, and she didn’t.
-the Mass economy is in a tight jam. @ 10% unemployment. State cuts to services, schools (which can’t afford any more cuts at all). It’s been a gloomy time here in the Bay State.
I don’t think the economy can be totally separated from the health care situation (at least here). We already have a significant version of the Health Care plan the Dems have cobbled together in Congress. And I don’t think people were interested in looking beyond the immediate – nor should they necessarily. Foreclosures, job losses, salaries frozen (at best). Hard to think about the tremendous dollars for HCR when you aren’t too sure what’s going to happen next month in your own home. (especially when you already have what the US Congress is trying to sell you.)
-and yet Obama is still running in the mid-50s percentage-wise in terms of popularity.
Final note in this meandering comment:
I have always thought there was much to be mined in a relationship with libertarian, small-government minded perspectives.
I don’t think Brown has that perspective.
Oh, one last final note:
One of the Republican gubernatorial candidates in Mass (for 2010 – running against a Democratic incumbent) is Charlie Baker. When Baker announced his candidacy, he told reporters he has a gay brother who is married to his partner and living in Mass., and he fully supports same sex marriage. Baker has also chosen an openly gay Republican state senator from Mass to run as his Lieutenant Governor. There are 2 main candidates in the Republican primary. Baker has the lead at this point in time. The other Republican candidate, Mihos, is also pro-marriage equality.
Which is why Brown had to move his position to a more ‘moderate’ one.
In Massachusetts, circa 2010, gay marriage is not an issue. In fact, it is favored by @ 60% in any/every poll. Brown had to call it settled, because it is settled in this state.
posted by Bobby on
I think this is good for the democrats, their reality check was long overdue. When you go around calling people tea-baggers and other names you’re gonna get a lot of resentment. The people in Massachusetts are obviously tired of the same democratic representatives with their false promises, high taxes and big government.
I was watching Rachael Maddow the republican victory with a feminist and they took out the sexism card. Can you imagine? So if you didn’t vote for Coakley you must be a sexist pig. Although the feminist to his credit admitted that Coakley did run a terrible campaign.
The people are sick of the hope and change bullshit, George W. Bush never talked about hope and change, but during most of his administration unemployment was low and the economy was prosperous. Just because the last year was bad doesn’t undermine the success of his previous 7 years. Obama better get his shit together, if he doesn’t he’s gonna be a loser like Jimmy Carter.
posted by BobN on
Just because the last year was bad doesn’t undermine the success of his previous 7 years.
I’m speechless.
posted by AndrewW on
Geoff Kors and EQCA need to close shop. Their fundraising is as irritating as HRC. Their effectiveness is equally bad.
posted by tristram on
“George W. Bush never talked about hope and change, but during most of his administration unemployment was low and the economy was prosperous. Just because the last year was bad doesn’t undermine the success of his previous 7 years.”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Bush economy was one enormous Ponzi scheme – GWB was Bernie Madoff on steroids. The fiscal problems we’re suffering today are the direct and inevitable result of the Bush Administration’s economic and regulatory policies.
posted by Amicus on
Lori, I don’t see your point.
If Libertarians voted for Brown because he’s against insurance reform and a package to rein in and study costs in Medicare/Medicaid, they are just uniformed or hypocrites. Let’s not pretend that the final Senate bill is much more than those two things.
Indeed, a fair amount of the “socialized cost of medicine” that libertarians freak out about, even though our tax scale is hardly progressive enough to bundle your panties about, these days, get reversed under the Obama proposals. Some of the reforms are expected to push costs _out_ of the public Medicare/Medcaid purse and back into the private market.
Really, if there were a fiscal insanity to be conceived on healthcare reform, the current bill is not it.
There are certainly libertarians that LGBT can support, some on both sides of the isle, perhaps, but it doesn’t seem like Brown is one of them.
Last, true or false, and perhaps directly to your point on an ideological basis: it is perfectly possible, under a free-market system for the U.S. to go bankrupt due to external debt balance.
posted by Jorge on
I agree with Boaz’s analysis as it’s quoted here.
For some odd reason, Obama’s base in the general election was the center and the apathetic voter. A very fleeting base that he has not done much to reward with his administration’s politics as usual. He and the congressional Democrats have insulted or ignored the center too many times, and on the real big sell, the economy, the people are depressed and Obama has performed below his own expectations.
I think the discussion I am seeing so far is missing the point: Scott Brown’s election is not an LGBT issue. The expired supermajority in the Senate impacts one thing of consequence only on the Democrats’ agenda: health care reform. Yet Equality California is shilling for the Democrats on an issue that gays as an interest group don’t have a real big incentive to.
When the unions did the same thing, they got rewarded. (Union workers HAVE health insurance. Very good insurance. And the health care bill as I understand it right now is exempting unions from the tax on the so-called Cadillac plans. Also I might add that the unions put forth some decent analysis on the health care issue, dedicated working class advocates that they are.) So my question is, where’s ours? Is Equality California’s butt-kissing going to get Obama flying to CA to urge Prop 8 get repealed? Is it going to make him move any faster on repealing DADT or DOMA? Well?
posted by Lori Heine on
Amicus, this bill could drive U.S. debt to double in five years and triple in ten. It could add up to an estimated $600,000 per American household in debt over the next 75 years.
You and I may not be around in 75 years, but we remain morally responsible to the people who will be.
Instead of lowering insurance premiums, this bill could raise them as much as 10% to 13%. This is estimated to be more than they would rise if the bill were not passed.
Though its backers claim it will affect “only” 16% of our GDP, Senator Voinovich says the number could actually reach between 20.9 and 21.1%. I don’t call that inconsequential.
The entire concept of requiring people to buy something, and penalizing them if they don’t, is antithetical to everything libertarians stand for.
If you like it, that’s your choice. But it strains credibility to call it “libertarian.”
posted by Bobby on
“!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Bush economy was one enormous Ponzi scheme – GWB was Bernie Madoff on steroids. The fiscal problems we’re suffering today are the direct and inevitable result of the Bush Administration’s economic and regulatory policies.”
—Not at all. Bush didn’t force anyone who flip houses for profit, he didn’t force banks to invent derivatives and buy bank mortgages, or to lend to people who were better off renting. Bush created the perfect conditions for capitalism, if some people went too far, that’s their problem, not the government.
And I’m sick and tired of hearing Obama blame Bush for everyone. Mr. President, so far you have done what you wanted, from bailing banks and auto companies to wasting billions of dollars in cash for clunkers, the stimulus package, and mortgage refinance deals and none of them have worked.
All of Obama’s ideas are bad ideas. Cap and trade? That means higher utility bills. Obamacare? Higher premiums on private insurance plus more deficit spending. He can’t even fight the war right, Petraeus wanted 60,000 more troops and Obama only gave him 35,000. Hello? This dummy didn’t even serve in the National Guard, Obama knows NOTHING about how to fight a war and instead of listening to a three star general that was successful in Iraq, he spent most of the year ignoring him.
That’s why Bill O’Reilly said that if you’re not gonna fight to win and give our military everything they need, you’re better off withdrawing, and with Obama as president I doubt we’ll win in Afghanistan.
Face it, people, Obama is a terrible president. America was a strong proud nation under Bush, we did not go bowing like peasants under the Saudi royals and Japanese emperors, or apologizing for America’s mistakes.
posted by Amicus on
Lori,
Do garden variety Libertarians support the idiot Romney, from Massachusetts as well?
He proposed that we hold defense expenditures at a constant 4% or 5% of GDP.
That means, as we grow, the credible threats to our security grow in proportion.
WTF?
Put another way, it seems like too many libertarians lean to the Right.
It is the Democrats, in their zeal for a non-libertarian goal, Universal Care, who have put up Medicare/Medicaid, programs not supported by most Libertarians, to intensive cost review and scrutiny. They might not find as much as cost savings as they imagine, but that’s more than right-leaning libertarians have ever influenced to get done and clearly in a direction that Bush-Cheney never pursued, despite all their libertarian boosters and ‘small-government’ pretenses.
Personally, I don’t think Brown would even understand what I just wrote, there.
Indeed, the Reagan rhetoric is so stale and long-in-the-tooth, that it’s starting to make libertarians look bad.
In fact, it isn’t easy to paint ‘small government’ as code for “Big Business Profits” (rather than intense free-market competition) and “HUGE defense” deficit-spenders.
posted by Lori Heine on
Amicus, American history seems to have begun, for you, in the 1980s. What you call “Reagan’s rhetoric” was not invented by Reagan. The principles he espoused (even while he himself didn’t always live up to them) were the principles upon which this country was founded.
Please read the Constitution and the Federalist Papers. Please. Trendy ignorance is no longer trendy. Opinions are not fashion accessories, and the consequences of bad ideas are biting us all in the a$$.
Libertarians lean the way Republicans used to lean before they became statist hypocrites — before they began ruining themselves morally for King Richard Nixon. There’s a reason the Libertarian Party was founded during Nixon’s presidency.
As for “cost savings,” what would really save the American people from socialist disaster would be to get rid of this healthcare bill STAT. Just kill it. Strangle it in its crib.
The remedy for a totally stupid and crapulous idea is not simply to trim it down a little.
posted by another steve on
Sadly, Democrats, and gay Democrats, would rather have resolutely anti-gay Republicans to fundraise against than moderate — and movable– Republicans. It’s telling that the anti-gay marriage group endorsed Brown despite his moderate positions (anti-federal amendment, willing to accept marriage in Massachusetts) while gay groups label him the devil. And in NY-23, when HRC wouldn’t support the pro-gay marriage (!) Republican against the anti-gay marriage Democrat.
I think we need some Tea Party protests against these party hacks controlling our “rights” organizations!
posted by Amicus on
“socialist disaster”?
Lori, you’ve lost me. That’s so over-stated it’s not credible, except to the easily fed.
And this may be an example of what I mean by libertarians being too GOP-leaning. This
healthcareinsurance-reregulation bill is a way to met some libertarian goals, while continuing to reach for a more just society and set the stage to rein-in some of the more problematic economic problems on the table. It’s a bit of a cost-benefit, a give-take, but what isn’t?Doing nothing or siding blindly with empty “small government” rhetoric of the Right is not a solution, but sloganeering.
As for Stephen’s add-ons, the DCCC is not “LBGT activists”, although they may well set the tone.
posted by Amicus on
{yeah, don’t ask me what a “more problematic…problem” is because I’m still working on that problem. LOL@self.
posted by Carl on
“It’s telling that the anti-gay marriage group endorsed Brown despite his moderate positions (anti-federal amendment, willing to accept marriage in Massachusetts) while gay groups label him the devil.”
Why wouldn’t an anti-gay marriage group endorse someone who sees gay parents as “not natural” and who fought gay marriage for years in Massachusetts?
posted by Lori Heine on
“This healthcare insurance-reregulation bill is a way to met some libertarian goals.”
Amicus, I’m just curious how you’re defining “libertarian” here. Libertarians do not, as a general rule, support legislation defining a good (such as healthcare) as some inalienable right, taxing people more to pay for “less affordable” coverage, forcing companies to insure them and forcing providers to treat them.
When one person is mandated, by law, to provide something to someone else, a libertarian would call that slavery.
Incidentally, I have to laugh at the idea that we’re “too GOP-leaning.” Their whole beef with us is that we’re not conservative enough.
posted by Bobby on
Amicus, you really should watch Stossel on the Fox Business Network, he’s a libertarian. His latest episode involved him asking that Pickens guy that if alternative fuels are such a good idea why does he need taxpayer money?
The only health care reform we need is allowing HMO’s to sell policies across state lines. If we do that prices will come down, after all, we don’t have National Car Insurance or National Home Insurance.
Other than the military, government hardly works the way its intended. You ever taken public transportation? Ever seen how uncomfortable the seats are and how unrealiable the service is? In socialist England the brits can raise the price of the Tube any time they want, thus making the british public hostage to an unopposed public company.
Obama is no friend of freedom. I have an idea, let those who want “free” health care pay a tax of 50%-70% while those who go to private companies will continue paying their current or a lower tax rate. Seriously, why should socialist-minded citizens force their views on the rest of us? That’s like your daughter getting pregnant and forcing Uncle Sam to pay for her abortion.
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
I’m too pooped at the moment to get into the other stuff on this discussion thread, but I agree with Steve about the obnoxious falsehood of the DCCC’s description of the Cato Institute as a “right-wing extremist group.” I have taken others on over the years when they told the same lie. And it is a lie. The notion that anyone who disagrees with you in any way must hold “the other” position, as if there are two and only two possible positions on any given issue, is the same dishonest ploy routinely used by anti-gay pols who automatically call any pro-gay group “far left.” In addition to the pro-gay Cato positions cited above, They submitted an amicus brief in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas (the sodomy case), co-authored by renowned marriage-equality supporter Prof. William Eskridge. When anyone, of whatever political stripe, caricatures and refuses to give due credit, they should be called on it. A more civil political climate begins at home.
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Here’s the URL for Cato’s Lawrence brief:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=4871
posted by Amicus on
Richard,
True or false: Libertarians typically “sell out” their views on the things you mention so that they can be part of a Reagan-like coalition?
To Lori’s point, today, they could make more headway by actually accepting that Obama’s bill attacks the costs in the publicly provided health scheme, rather than just choosing the status quo ante. It’s not a libertarian dream, but neither was Bush-Cheney, so … There does seem to be an irrational closed-mindedness. (Yes, I’m aware that the GOP “tolerates” libertarians – see above).
Bobby, I can’t watch Stossel for more than small doses. The guy seems amoral to me, to put too brief a shorthand on it. Sorry. There is PALTRY evidence that big business does better than big government, with some exception. We just got flu shots in these parts a week ago. If they government had been providing them, we’d have had a freak out. Because big business is providing them…silence. See?
The nanny-corporation model is outdated. It’s a competitiveness issue now, at least as much as anything. Especially since our chief rivals in the global economy do not put health costs onto companies to provide. Of course, they have other problems, those countries, but as a simple matter of competitive, global commerce, “more HMOs” just isn’t clever.
posted by Lori Heine on
Amicus, you sound like a nice person and you’re always polite, so I will be, too.
Principle is not “irrational closed-mindedness.” If the libertarians, of all people, sell out on it, there is no hope yet for freedom anywhere in this world.
It isn’t always possible to just pick up the remote and change the channel when something upsets you. Nor is the worst fate that somebody in your little club might disagree with you.
If a dogma ever arises that says that some human beings are less human than others and deserve death, we need to hope there will be people who stand up and say it’s always wrong, all the time.
Oh, wait, it has happened, many times. And wait again, there are people who will stand up against it. They’re called libertarians.
If our prosperity is destroyed completely, to whom will you whine to come rescue you and feed you?
Don’t come to those huge corporations. They’ll be out of business and their former employees starving in the streets. And don’t come to me, because I’ll be one of them.
Again, opinions are not fashion accessories. It isn’t cute anymore. Nursery school needs to be over.
posted by Bobby on
“Bobby, I can’t watch Stossel for more than small doses. The guy seems amoral to me, to put too brief a shorthand on it. Sorry.”
—I’m surprised you say that, I could understand if you said Bill O’reilly is arrogant even though I’m a fan, Stossel backs everything he says with research. For example, his last show had to do with alternative energy such as the Pickens plan to fuel trucks with natural gas. Sounds like a great idea, right? But Stossel nailed Pickens after exposing that he’s only willing to do this with governmetn subsidies. Think about it, if an idea is great and has a potential to make huge profits, why do you need help from the government? Richard Branson for example had the idea of flying people into space, so he took advantage of a design a ship for space competition in the private sector, he bought the winning model and he’s testing his products. Eventually he’ll be flying people into space for the paltry sum of $200,000.
See? NASA has been in business for decades but did they ever think of charging people to fly them into space? No. In fact, if big government is so great how come we haven’t been back to the moon since 1969?
“There is PALTRY evidence that big business does better than big government, with some exception.”
—Actually, big business does better than big government constantly. The only think government knows how to do well is going to war. Big government is a mess, with all the stupid airport security people they couldn’t prevent the shoe bomber from getting on a plane. You know which airline does prevent things like that? El Al, the Israeli airline. In fact, in Israel airport security is handled by private companies and employees are held accountable.
“We just got flu shots in these parts a week ago. If they government had been providing them, we’d have had a freak out. Because big business is providing them…silence. See?”
—Actually, you can get a flu shot at Wallgreens or CVS and for only $18. See? No need for big government, it was private research that found the cure and private companies that provide it without waiting hours in line.
“Especially since our chief rivals in the global economy do not put health costs onto companies to provide. Of course, they have other problems, those countries, but as a simple matter of competitive, global commerce, “more HMOs” just isn’t clever.”
—Our rivals also pay extremely low wages compared with what we make here. I’ve been reading a book by Donald Trump, who happens to be a liberal believe it or not, he says being middle class in India or China is the equivalent of being poor here.
What China does offer is extremely low taxes for companies that open factories there. Ironically, southern states like Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia do the same which is why japanese automakers have opened dozens of plants there.
More HMO’s means more competition, more competition means more jobs and lower prices. We cannot afford national healthcare, we are a nation of 300 million people. Let the market decide what people want. For example, I hate flying because first class is too expensive and I hate coach. Well, Spirit Air offers upgrades to the bigger seats of their first class for $50 more. Virgin America is also doing astounding new things in aviation for the same price if not less of what American Airlines charges.
American Airlines on the other hand care so much about cost cutting that the quality of their services have diminshed to unberable levels, there’s a reason I call them Auschwitz Air.
The free market is our friend, government has no business regulating it. It’s just like the advertising industry, in the old days agencies would charge 10% to 15% comission to their clients based on media buys, now advertising agencies are regulated by their clients who decide how many employees they can have, how much each employee can make. The result of this “regulation” is low wages, long hours, and the end of what used to be a glamorous profession.
If Obama regulates healthcare we’re gonna have less people becoming doctors, longer waits for care and limited options. It’s already happening, The Mayo Clinic in Arizona is refusing to see medicare patients because that government program is not paying them what they used to pay. Think about it, if I’m used to getting $50 for my services and the government suddenly says “I’m only gonna pay you $20,” why would I want to deal with the government? And if the governmetn actually forces me to deal with you, guess what? I’m not gonna be happy which means I’m gonna work less hours, I’m going to be careless, I’m not gonna give a crap if you have to wait hours to see me.
You don’t believe me? Go to a USPS office, those government workers have no incentive to improve their performance which is why their lines are so slow.
posted by Amicus on
Lori,
I’m not saying not to have principles. I’m saying that it seems like Libertarians always compromise them in one direction, the general direction of the GOP.
We have a disagreement in fact that insurance-reform will end prosperity.
Brown supports the Afghan money and the Iraq money.
posted by Lori Heine on
Amicus, We’ll simply have to agree to disagree. Insurance reform has already ended my prosperity — at least for the time being. Because of the upheavals in the industry, my job is gone and will likely never return.
I suppose if it were someone else’s job, I could better afford to sit back and lecture them about how they ought to like it.
Libertarians generally lean more toward the GOP because most of them started out there. They left because the was hijacked, first by the big-government Nixonites, then the Religious Right.
I started out from the opposite end. Until VERY recently, I was a Democrat. I even voted for Dr. Hopeychangey. I’ve become a Libertarian because the events of the past ten years or so have convinced me, in light of what is happening since “Hope” and “Change” took charge, that statism will destroy this country if it isn’t stopped.
At least the Republicans have a small-government tradition to which they can return. The Democrats NEVER believed in small government. They seem to have an extra bone in their heads when it comes to understanding the fact that is becoming so obvious: that more government meddling, to fix the mess such meddling has already made, only makes an even bigger, hairier and more horrifying mess.
posted by Lori Heine on
They left because the was hijacked…”
I don’t know what that means. I meant to say “They left because IT was hijacked.”
I’m blaming it on this teensy little “Comments” box. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
posted by DragonScorpion on
I agree that the Democrats have utterly failed to show themselves as the party who can be centrist in governing, get results, enact what the country needs, and be on the side of the little guy.
The hilariously stupefying fact that the Republicans are increasingly being seen by a shell-shocked public as the party who is capable of achieving the aforementioned shows just how abysmal the Democrats have been in seizing the moment.
I think there has been overreach among Democrats, in some respects. Ok, perhaps many respects. And yet liberals are demanding more… Due to cyclical political movements, unavoidable misfortune, actual realities of incompetence and perceptions of it, the Democrats are likely to suffer significant losses in November.
Depending on what follows this, if the trend continues, Democrats could easily face a landslide loss in 2012. Though this won’t be so much a support for Republicanism or conservatism, as it will a reprimand of the status quo. I’m sure the honest folks here would recognize just what a disastrous loss a Republican landslide would be for civil rights for homosexuals and same-sex couples…
Now, on the flip side of this overreach issue. Time for a reality check for those who are so quick to tar & feather Democrats for not being more supportive of our causes. If they were more proactive for us, they’d be even less popular today; seen as being even more overreaching, imposing ever more âradical agendasâ on the country.
Yes, the inconvenient reality is the majority of mainstream middle America really isn’t too keen on us, and they damn sure don’t want the government wasting time on issues concerning us while there are two active wars, two pseudo-wars, threats of terrorist attacks, a tanking economy, 10% unemployment, debt ballooning out of control, a growing health-care crisis that is going to bankrupt the country, a looming environmental crisis, aging infrastructure, and a general decline in the prestige, influence and economic power of the nation.
I’m not saying they shouldn’t be more supportive of us. Not at all. But we should all keep this in mind when demanding the end of DADT, DOMA and passage of ENDA as some have been doing since Jan of last year…
As for Scott Brown. He may be somewhat moderate, as far as Republicans go these days (which isn’t saying much), but he was backed by NOM and we shouldn’t take that kind of support lightly these days…
posted by DragonScorpion on
This is all off topic, but, petty labels like âObamacareâ, âHillarycareâ, âRomneycareâ make it difficult to take someone seriously…
Here is where I come down on the situation. I strongly support genuine health-care reform. In fact, I’ll put it to you like this, if we don’t get health-care spending under control soon it is going to bankrupt our country. No doubt about it.
Whether you buy your own, or your employer pays for it, or the government pays for it, this hyper-inflationary increase in medical costs is going to bankrupt our economy.
You think health-care costs will make up a larger portion of our economy under âObamacareâ as you call it? I think you’re right. What is truly disturbing, though, is that it will make up an even LARGER portion without it.
So if you’re really worried about the country, you better hope someone comes up with some REAL solutions and implement them damn fast. And laissez-faire, pie-in-the-sky, libertarian âfree marketâ solutions ain’t gonna do it.
Having said that, I think what the Congress has come up with is a disaster in the making. It won’t control costs, I doubt it will even slow them much, it’ll continue the private-sector trend in rationing care & put a government stamp on it, it’ll be a give-away to insurance companies to gain millions of new customers, it’ll place unnecessary financial burdens on middle-class folks, and will enact some of the most corrupt special privileges we’ve probably ever seen doled out by the government to politicians & the states they represent.
I want to see our elected officials achieve a sensible balance between centrist governance, and a willingness to enact bold changes to address crippling issues that have been ignored for far too long.
A little ‘socialism’ (more financial, environmental & healthcare regulation), a little ‘libertarianism’ (less paternalist Big Brother government nudging us into ‘good behavior’) & a little ‘conservatism’ (cracking down on illegal immigration & so-called âfree tradeâ). I don’t know what political category that puts me into, and I don’t much care. But I think it’s the right way to go.
posted by DragonScorpion on
One more thing, Lori. As bad as the proposed health-care reform is (which is unlikely to pass now), it can’t compare to the dark future the latest Supreme Court decision just doomed our nation to if it isn’t reversed somehow. The legal framework to selling our entire political system to the highest bidder has been created and made constitutionally protected. As if the insidious influence of money on politics wasn’t bad enough before!
And I’m sure you and I both know it isn’t the ‘live free’ libertarians who have the most money and are going to buy their candidates into positions of ultimate power… You thought the âstatistsâ were bad. Just wait until our political process is fully corporate.
You really think those entities have YOUR best interests at heart? Or mine? You really think that somehow you and I will be able to hold those folks accountable in any way, shape or form?
You’re right, Lori, opinions are not fashion accessories, neither are purist ideologies. It really isn’t cute anymore. The worship of the Founders as wise men who foresaw all the complexities that an industrial, post-industrial and information age would bring (this in spite of supporting slavery and applying “all men are created equal” to apply only to white MEN who own land), outlived it’s quaintness a long time ago, too.
Yes, nursery school definitely needs to be over. This is the real world, and the practical applies. The theoretical is just a theory. And libertarianism, while quaint, isn’t very practical.
posted by Jorge on
Well, since I’m a Republican I have to disagree with you somewhat, DragonScorpion. I think a lot of voters are still angry at the Republicans for being too partisan and spending too much money, among other things. That’s why we’re seeing the rise of the Tea Party movement. Also, there’s a lot of voter anger over Obama’s missteps on the terrorism issue. Of course, the McCain voters are saying they were right all along, but they’re not controlling the situation.
I also think President Obama and Congress wasted a strong center-left mandate. For many months even Republicans were admitting that the political tide would push health care reform into law. They assumed Obama would reach across the aisle, as past presidents have done, and then it’s game over. In my mind it’s tragic because only Democrats can really lead on this. It’s just one of those issues.
As for myself, I would like to see health care reform, but I’ve mostly been neutral on this bill. Early on my only objection was that it would not address the doctor and nursing shortage, but I’ve been convinced to back away from that. I really don’t care about the cost and tax thing. What does get me mad are the special deals–no one wants to pay for their share, and some Obama supporters are being bought off while everyone else gets to pay. Now that’s starting to tell me it’s not such a good bill after all.
posted by Jorge on
As bad as the proposed health-care reform is (which is unlikely to pass now), it can’t compare to the dark future the latest Supreme Court decision just doomed our nation to if it isn’t reversed somehow. The legal framework to selling our entire political system to the highest bidder has been created and made constitutionally protected. As if the insidious influence of money on politics wasn’t bad enough before!
I really get irritated by the Supreme Court’s hostility to campaign finance reform.
But maybe they’re right. When have campaign finance laws ever even worked, first of all? Every election the candidates spend more and more money anyway, and Congress is still controlled by lobbiests. I don’t think this decision will shift power from the NRA and George Soros to SEIU and Phillip Morris. And I think if it needs to be, this decision will be reversed. People HATE big corporate money. But they don’t hate other big sources of money. Anyway, there could be a backlash, either in the actual elections or with an amendment.
posted by Debrah on
“I also think President Obama and Congress wasted a strong center-left mandate. For many months even Republicans were admitting that the political tide would push health care reform into law. They assumed Obama would reach across the aisle, as past presidents have done…..”
*****************************************
This is precisely Obama’s problem now.
Many of us supported him thinking he would be politically savvy enough to know he’d succeed only from a centrist approach.
He and his administration have essentially squandered their political capital and it might not be retrievable.
When you lose the independents, it’s a major blow.
posted by Bobby on
Everyone should care about what Obamacare will cost because you’re all going to pay for it one way or another.
When the government spends too much money they don’t simply say “ooops, sorry, we’re gonna cut spending.” No, they say “hey people, we need to increase taxes.”
If Obama trust the government so much why doesn’t he send his daughters to one of the fine public schools in DC? This is the typical hypocrisy from the democrats, they want everyone to sacrifice while they live the good life.
If you want “free” healthcare you go ahead and pay 70% of your income in taxes like they do in Sweeden, but I should not be forced to pay for your choices. As much as I hate private HMO’s, I’d rather deal with them than any government bureaucrat.
posted by Lori Heine on
“You thought the âstatistsâ were bad. Just wait until our political process is fully corporate.”
Dragon, you really are delusional. You still quaintly — naively — separate the concepts of big-corporate and statist into two separate (of course mutually-exclusive) categories.
Big corporations generally get so gigantic, and so able to squash all their entrepreneurial competitors (thus robbing the free enterprise system of the competition it needs to remain healthy) precisely because of the involvement of big government.
These fat sows have grown huge at the sugar-tit of the State.
It is a hand-in-glove relationship. Libertarians, incidentally, tell the truth about this — which is why, forty years after their founding, they’re still a third party.
Follow the money. Who really are the shills for the rich?
I’m not going to say, Dragon, that you’re doing what so many libertarian-haters do and SIMPLY MAKING STUFF UP. I’m going to go with a more charitable guess and say you simply have believed the stuff other people have simply made up.
But there’s really no excuse for it anymore. With the World Wide Web right there at your very fingertips, there’s a whole universe of resources on libertarianism. If you’d like, I can suggest several.
Most of the people who lob these criticisms at libertarians show zero interest in learning anything about them. That says more about themselves than it does about the libertarians.
Sad but true.
posted by Bobby on
Hey Lori, I think you’re describing “crony capitalism”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism
Dragon, if you really want to learn about libertarians you’d read the following articles:
Who needs energy independence.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/21/who-needs-energy-independence
Gluttony, Greed, Wrath and Other Taxable Sins
In New York, Gov. Paterson tries to tax some sins, deregulate others.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/20/gluttony-greed-wrath-and-other
posted by Lori Heine on
“Hey Lori, I think you’re describing ‘crony capitalism'”
Bobby, that is the term for it exactly. Whether Dragon realizes it or not (and lots of people don’t), the libertarians have consistently spoken out against crony capitalism and all it stands for. They’ve also told the truth about what causes it.
Obama and his Democrats are the real shill-for-the-rich party. But of course they love it that so many of their followers blindly blame libertarians for crimes in which the Democrats participate.
posted by Amicus on
Lori,
I encourage you to find some of the tables/charts that show how the debit-in-public hands was run up in the USA, for each Presidential period. I think you’ll find Reagan, Bush-41, and Bush-43, ran up the debt that you worry about. No wild, statist adventure was at the root of it. Indeed, the cost of the Iraq war long ago surpass the *entire 30yr+ history*, inflation-adjusted, of “welfare” in the USA, i.e. the program called aid to families with dependent children.
My commiserations on losing your job. If there were a decent health scheme, at least you wouldn’t have to worry that your job = your health, in America, while you found a new job. Almost no where else in the developed world is that true, except in America.
Bobby,
Big business wastes an incredible amount of wealth. I think that is plain to anyone who has worked in a big company.
The fact that you cannot see the _incredibly tardy_ flu vaccine delivery as a failure is telling. Perhaps you’ll see it when you believe it?
It’s a strange defense of “free markets” that ignores (a) our recent free-market, wall-street meltdown with its associated massive loss in wealth and (b) the persistent trade imbalance.
Both are reminders that America will ‘go bankrupt’ just as quickly from ‘free market’ forces, as from any fiscal mismanagement, perhaps even faster.
posted by Bobby on
“Big business wastes an incredible amount of wealth. I think that is plain to anyone who has worked in a big company.”
—Who decides what is waste and what isn’t? I don’t like Chrysler buying spending $3 million on a Superbowl commercial, others argue that it’s a smart investment because millions of people will be watching. I don’t care what private companies do as long as 1. They don’t ask me to bail them out. 2. They don’t invade their employees private space.
“The fact that you cannot see the _incredibly tardy_ flu vaccine delivery as a failure is telling. Perhaps you’ll see it when you believe it?”
—I don’t see it as a failure because my family is full of doctors and anyone who understand science knows you don’t find solutions right away no matter the pressure you’re under. However, when it comes to issues like AIDS, it is private companies that have come up with AIDS drugs that let people live. I challenge you to ask yourself what has the government done for you lately, because when I do I have no freaking idea.
“It’s a strange defense of “free markets” that ignores (a) our recent free-market, wall-street meltdown with its associated massive loss in wealth and (b) the persistent trade imbalance.”
—And who pressured the banks to make loans to the poor? The government! Crony capitalism created a system where private companies keep their profits but we bail their loses. That’s why Phillip Morris started doing ads against smoking, they’re getting something out of it.
As for our trade imbalance, there are lots of factors involved in that, some came from the government’s own environmental agency. Refineries are a good example of that, we need more of them but try to build one with the EPA and green groups making all kinds of demands, it can take YEARS before you even start building them.
We’re just overegulated in America, now I heard that California passed a green building code. Green products are more expensive which means houses will be more expensive. See? That’s your government at work.
“Both are reminders that America will ‘go bankrupt’ just as quickly from ‘free market’ forces, as from any fiscal mismanagement, perhaps even faster.”
—Yet with Obama we have more government than ever, more fiscal mismanagement than ever, and more debt than ever Every single one of Obama’s policies have failed. Sure, cash for clunkers was like giving a fish to a bunch of hungry car dealers, they get to eat for a day, fine, but what happens when the program ends?
Don’t you realize that people in the government never worry about getting fired? I had a friend who worked at a public library and every year he got 100 sick days and he got to use them without giving cause, showing a doctors note, nothing. At my last job I had 3 sick days a year and two weeks vacation. Oh, and if my friend had stayed at his government job, he would have had a pension plus social security.
So, you really trust the government?
posted by Jorge on
Everyone should care about what Obamacare will cost because you’re all going to pay for it one way or another.
That is totally fine with me.
Except, we’re not all gonna pay. Only some of us are going to pay, and who gets to pay was being decided by politics as usual.
posted by Jorge on
If you want “free” healthcare you go ahead and pay 70% of your income in taxes like they do in Sweeden, but I should not be forced to pay for your choices. As much as I hate private HMO’s, I’d rather deal with them than any government bureaucrat.
No, on that I fundamentally disagree. I’m convinced it’s in the public interest to fix the system. It is an inequitable system and it is the public’s responsibility to share the burdon of making it more equitable. If you’re lucky enough to have a tax burden at all I frankly don’t care about it against this issue. So go ahead and vote against it. The only thing that would matter to me is if it passes or not.
posted by DragonScorpion on
Delusional, Lori? Well, let’s see. The dictionary defines a â[financial] corporationâ as:
âA legal entity that is separate and distinct from its owners; a corporation is created (incorporated) by a group of shareholders who have ownership of the corporation, represented by their holding of common stock.â
And a âstatistâ as:
âan advocate of statism; the practice or doctrine of giving a centralized government control over economic planning and policy.â
Like a dedicated libertarian, you obviously oppose statists. This much I knew before. I don’t agree but I can respect that. And so my suggestion was, if you think government officials controlling economic policy (statists) is bad now, it will be far worse when those officials are elected based on which one had the most corporate support providing the best propaganda money could buy… This had already been a problem. Now, it will be unprecedented.
I don’t know what about any of this is delusional.
This sort of thing does happen. Absolutely. All the more important as to why we need transparency in government, to place serious limits on the influence of money on politics, including the sort of campaign finance reform and public-financing that libertarians (and conservatives) have long opposed…
Instead, we now have this Supreme Court decision which just gave those evil corporations of which you speak a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to spend however much money they want running misleading ads for one campaign (like Prop 8 for instance) or against another (swift-boating) up to election day. And this is, stunningly, a decision that many libertarians and conservatives seem to be quite pleased with.
You suggested I follow the money and asked who are the shills for the rich. I would answer: the political candidates, Republicans and Democrats, who have had their campaigns essentially bank-rolled by corporations and special interest groups…
I don’t know about you, but I’d like to see that money/influence exchange severed… Unfortunately, one road block to this has been conservative/libertarian ideologies which dogmatically proclaim that giving money to politicians is somehow âfree speechâ and corporations are essentially people with âconstitutional rightsâ.
Of course, corporations and unions, etc. are also roadblocks to cleaning up the influence of big money on politics as well. But their antics aren’t based on principle, they’re based on corruption. That leaves conservatives and libertarians, many of you middle-class folk just like me, with what excuse? Why would those of us who don’t plan on sponsoring political candidates â like companies do racing teams at NASCAR â support this latest SCOTUS decision?
Given comments I’ve read at other blogs, it seems to me that conservative folks think their favorite religious and socially conservative organizations are going to win this bidding war for elective offices. . . They’re wrong. Those with the most money don’t give a damn about social issues, justice issues, or any other issues that matter to regular folks. Their sole interest is securing economic profit and total market share for their corporation or cabal of corporations.
Delusional you say? Which of us are still voting for candidates who don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of winning?
posted by DragonScorpion on
I appreciate your charity. And just what âstuffâ might this be?
You talk as though there is some vast repository of vindicating information about libertarianism out there, and if only I read it, I, too could be enlightened. I’ll put both the presumptuousness and the arrogance of this aside.
Years ago I used to buy into much of this libertarian âstuffâ. As I think I told you before, I voted Libertarian in the 2000 presidential election and I have voted Libertarian in state/local offices since.
Over time I started to learn just how complicated the real world is. I learned more about inherent imbalances of power between individuals and corporations. I learned about the lack of ethics which generally accompanies any large corporation beholden only to the bottom line. I learned about the sort of nefarious deeds that a lack of public accountability among government and corporate officials can lead to. I learned that our society, as any modern one does, experiences real & serious problems that require practical solutions. Not dogmas, not ideological purity, not romantic theories nor nostalgic platitudes about the infinite wisdom of the Founding Fathers.
I found that the real world, how it works, how people and institutions behave in it often doesn’t match the quaint theories at how âfree marketsâ regulate themselves, and regulation really isn’t necessary, and corporations will generally do what’s best for the public, their employees, and their consumers or else they’ll be punished by the masses.
Ron Paul, such an aw-shucks kind of guy, a man of real principles which he doesn’t compromise even when faced with such fierce adversaries as reality. He makes it all sound so fair, so noble, so easy. If only we could suspend about 80% of our government, return to the gold standard, and use our scaled down military to patrol our borders for terrorists all our problems would go away… I’m not buying.
Now I’m not suggesting that libertarian philosophy is a total sham. Not at all. When it comes to the rights of individuals (that’s people, not corporations, unions and special interest lobbies) I am a strong advocate of maximum freedom to make decisions for ourselves. That means I’ll decide whether I wear a seat-belt, whether my diet is vegan or McDonalds, whether I use natural lighting in my home or burn fifty 100w bulbs 24/7/365, whether my hobby is exercise or drinking a fifth of whiskey every day, and yes, I’ll decide who I sleep with. I don’t need nor want big-brother guiding me to the ârightâ decisions. Nor is this necessary.
As long as my choices are not curtailing the rights of others to decide for themselves, then it’s no one’s business. And I’m as aware as you are, I’m sure, that this is fast becoming a minority view. The rationalizations for paternalism are fast becoming the Zeitgeist.
But here is where you and I likely part company on libertarian principles. Corporations are entities which have far more power and influence than you or I ever could. Merely their ability to hire and fire gives them a great deal more leverage over individuals than individuals could ever have over them.
Things like employee organizing, collective-bargaining, mandatory safety regulations, paying overtime, minimum (or living) wages all attempt to recalibrate this imbalance. And are all protections libertarians/conservatives, again, tend to dislike…
Letting corporations decide that things like a safe working environment is not necessary can certainly help their bottom line, but it does so at the expense of the health of their employees. Letting car manufacturers decide that seat-belts weren’t really necessary in low-end cars didn’t give buyers much options either, and it certainly put their customers at unnecessary risk.
Oh, sure, an employee can quit over bad safety conditions, and they’ll be eagerly replaced by some poor sap who needed a job a little more desperately. And sure, if I want a seat-belt in my car and Ford doesn’t bother with them, I can buy a different brand. But then if Ford doesn’t think they need them, neither does Chevy. That’s your âfree marketâ in action.
Does OSHA, for instance, go too far? Oh yes. Is there a need for government-regulated workplace safety standards? Without a doubt.
Again, that’s where libertarian purist ideology tends to fail. And that’s why I concluded several years ago that libertarianism, while charming, just isn’t very practical.
posted by Bobby on
“No, on that I fundamentally disagree. I’m convinced it’s in the public interest to fix the system. It is an inequitable system and it is the public’s responsibility to share the burdon of making it more equitable. If you’re lucky enough to have a tax burden at all I frankly don’t care about it against this issue.”
—What about other inequalities? Should we pay more taxes to give people housing? I have credit card debt, should Uncle Sam pay it for me? Do you realize that collectivism doesn’t work as intended? What about education? Public colleges that get money from the taxpayers charge a free and have requirenments for entry. Why? If free healthcare is a good idea why should I not be able to study for free at FIU? In fact, so-called private non-profits like Harvard get millions of taxpayer dollars even though they charge $45,000+ a year in tuition. Hey, if Uncle Sam owes me free healthcare then maybe they should either stop subsidizing Harvard or force them to lower their tuition and academic standards. See what I mean? If free healthcare is allowed, other “free” things must be allowed as well. Which results in extremely high taxes for all.
“Why would those of us who don’t plan on sponsoring political candidates â like companies do racing teams at NASCAR â support this latest SCOTUS decision?”
—Because those of us who love free speech don’t cry when people who are richer than us get to enjoy it. Why should free speech be limited to the liberal media? If an asshole like Paul Krugman can write against a company and for a politician, why can’t a company do a commercial for their comany and against a politician?
posted by Lori Heine on
Dragon, you have drunk the kool-aid. At bottom, you’re arguing that the people are such idiots they’ll believe ANYTHING — simply because a big corporation spent a lot of money to pay for it.
Australia places almost no restrictions on corporate political speech, yet it has a vibrant democracy. Maybe that’s because its people actually THINK about what they hear, wonder where it comes from and use this information to make discerning choices in the voting booth.
What a concept!
The underlying argument of liberals is always that they are so much smarter than everybody else that they must protect the poor masses from themselves.
But if we’re too stupid to govern ourselves, we’re also FAR too stupid to presume we can govern one another.
posted by Amicus on
“Big business wastes an incredible amount of wealth. I think that is plain to anyone who has worked in a big company.”
—Who decides what is waste and what isn’t?
Clearly, whoever decides, there is paltry evidence that Big Business is any better at it than Big Government.
“I don’t see it as a failure because my family is full of doctors and anyone who understand science knows you don’t find solutions right away”
—
Again, had this been a government-led “failure”, missing promised deadlines by so much, no such leeway would have been given. It would have joined the pantheon of cases of “Big Government” failure. In other words, ideology, even for Libertarians, has paralyzed the ability to think critically on these issues.
it is private companies that have come up with AIDS drugs that let people live. I challenge you to ask yourself what has the government done for you lately, because when I do I have no freaking idea.
—
I challenge you to compare for me the basic research budgets of the NIH and private companies. And I mean basic research. The hard truth is that we socialize the costs of research and, for reasons unknown, allow economics rents of a huge magnitude for private firms.
And who pressured the banks to make loans to the poor? The government!
—-
zzzzzz. I can’t tell if you are just yanking my chain by repeating rightwing talkingpoints or if you’ve actually thought about what you read and come to your own conclusions.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/21/at-long-beach-mortgage-a_n_399295.html
Crony capitalism created a system
——
Show me the end-run around “crony capitalism”. Regardless of what Milton Friedman may have told you, “politics” is part of the profit motive, regulation or no regulation. [and you won’t sell too many Californians, burned for a couple of generations by the ginormous costs of energy deregulation, with “hey, let’s deregulate everything”…]
Don’t you realize that people in the government never worry about getting fired?
—-
Indeed, I would advise many people to find a good union to work under for or to seriously consider government work, unless they can afford to self-insure themselves or would feel their lives wasted if they spent their time on corporate treadmills and corporate jobs that are so poorly designed that they border on Kafkaesque. (All the same, I don’t believe in ‘job rights’, except as redress).
Do travel. Go to other parts of the civilized world, where societies have made different choices about the labor-leisure balance. Yes, they are materially less wealthy, yet, …
posted by Lori Heine on
“In other words, ideology, even for Libertarians, has paralyzed the ability to think critically on these issues.”
Ideology, Amicus, or simple common sense?
There are straights, not surprisingly, who like being on the gravy train and never want their little trip to end. They frequently come here to split hairs, arguing that their hands must remain in our pockets because they do such a wondrous service to society by breeding and having kids.
They agree with St. Hillary that “it takes a village” to raise a child.
I will quote a passage from that “aw-shucks kind of guy,” Ron Paul. In his book, “The Revolution,” he quoted a Jacksonian editorialist named William Leggett as follows:
“Governments have no right to interfere with the pursuits of individuals, as guaranteed by those general laws, by offering encouragements and granting privileges to any particular class of industry, or any select bodies of men, inasmuch as all classes of industry and all men are equally important to the general welfare, and equally entitled to protection.
Whenever a Government assumes the power of discriminating between the different classes of the community, it becomes, in effect, the arbiter of their prosperity, and exercises a power not contemplated by any intelligent people in delegating their sovereignty to their rulers. It then becomes the great regulator of the profits of every species of industry, and reduced men from a dependence on their own exertions, to a dependence on the caprices of their Government. Governments possess no delegated right to tamper with individual industry a single hair’s-breadth beyond what is essential to protect the rights of person and property.
In the exercise of this power of intermeddling with the private pursuits and individual occupations of the citizen, a Government may at pleasure elevate one class and depress another, it may one day legislate exclusively for the farmer, the next for the mechanic, and the third for the manufacturer, who all thus become the mere puppets of legislative cobbling and tinkering, instead of independent citizens, relying on their own resources for their prosperity. It assumes the functions which belong alone to an overruling Providence, and affects to become the universal dispenser of good and evil.”
— Just as Leggett suggests, a government that today fancies it will reward straight people for breeding — something they’ve always been perfectly capable of doing prodigiously without getting paid for it — by stealing the hard-earned money of single people, gay and straight. Tomorrow, under a different group of political operators, it may decide there are too many children in the world and levy tax penalties against these same breeders.
It would, indeed, be poetic justice if they did. I would not be in favor of it, but I would certainly find it difficult to squeeze out too many tears for those into whose wallets I — then considered a virtuous non-breeder — might be able to reach.
posted by Jorge on
What about other inequalities? Should we pay more taxes to give people housing? I have credit card debt, should Uncle Sam pay it for me? Do you realize that collectivism doesn’t work as intended? What about education? Public colleges that get money from the taxpayers charge a free and have requirenments for entry. Why? If free healthcare is a good idea why should I not be able to study for free at FIU? In fact, so-called private non-profits like Harvard get millions of taxpayer dollars even though they charge $45,000+ a year in tuition. Hey, if Uncle Sam owes me free healthcare then maybe they should either stop subsidizing Harvard or force them to lower their tuition and academic standards. See what I mean?
No of course not. I’ve already made up my mind.
posted by DragonScorpion on
@Lori Heine
I’ve always found it rather ironic that those who acknowledge the realities of the world, the human condition, and our political system are often derided as having âdrank the kool-aidâ, while those whose political philosophy exists primarily in the theoretical are, presumably, sober…
First of all, I’m not arguing that we, overall, are too stupid to govern ourselves and therefore we just shouldn’t allow people to vote anymore. Having said this, there is no honest denying that we have a grossly uninformed electorate who is easily mislead.
Afterall, isn’t the narrative on the right about the election of Barack Obama and the now trendy, climate-change craze due to too many folks being mindless drones, âsheepleâ who just believed what we were told to believe and signed on without thinking about it?
For me the re-election of George W. Bush after 4 years of total incompetence and mismanagement, as well as the embarrassment having such a man as our president, was more than enough to convince me of the ignorance and foolishness of a too large portion of the electorate.
But really, you can see this sort of thing play out in so many elections… One candidate is well ahead in polling, then a last minute dirty ad blitz, typically playing on people’s worst (and often irrational) fears and BAM, the other candidate surges and closes the deal.
Is this because voters are really that savvy and they just suddenly became informed? Or is it because a few slick ads with the scary music and imagery can easily fool the average voter who not only doesn’t really have a grasp of complex political issues but doesn’t really have the time (or the motivation) to learn more?
On top of most folks not being well-informed, having too-short an attention span, and not being level-headed enough to differentiate between genuine pertinent information and bogus propaganda, we also tend to have an alarmingly low turnout in our elections. This invariably means that a relatively small percentage of the public becomes the determining factor in elections.
The application of some common sense would reveal that a campaign doesn’t need to convince the minority of truly well-informed voters out there. Supposedly those folks are all voting Libertarian, anyway, right…? No, they only need to convince the majority of people who make their decisions on the fly, and based on visceral reactions.
Be honest, Lori, given your previous statements about statism and suggestions that we’re all duped into believing government is going to fix all our problems, wisecracks about how we’re hoodwinked by the doe-eyed empathizing stares into the camera by the likes of Rachel and Keith. Are you now going to claim that you see ours as a well-informed electorate that simply votes its deeply-held convictions based on objective assessments of real issues?
And tell me, do you honestly believe that political campaigns spend millions, now hundreds of millions of dollars on these nauseatingly predictable, misleading advertisements believing that they don’t really have much effect on public opinion and the outcome of elections?
Are you really convinced that corporations being open to spend however much of their general fund as they want bankrolling political ads isn’t going to affect the outcome of elections? If so, then apparently you’re the one that’s been hitting the âkool-aidâ a little too hard.
Just what do you think all these ads are meant to buy? And why would corporations be willing to spend a portion of their profits on them? Merely for the good of the public? I think that would be a very naive conclusion to reach.
posted by DragonScorpion on
I’m no Hillary fan, not at all. But, frankly, Lori, it really does take a village. This concept isn’t some new age, modern socialist concept. It goes back to the stone age and can be found in just about any tribal community you could name.
Now I’m not proposing that we be strict about this. Some conservatives like to apply such collectivism to justify their homophobia on the grounds of upholding “community standards” for the “good of the children”, and the like. But in all seriousness, as a community/society we all have things to both gain and to lose from children not being raised to be well-adjusted, educated, etc. We all have things to gain and to lose by folks being productive rather than destructive members of society.
By the way, I don’t know all that much about the political system of Australia, but I do know it’s vastly different from ours, they don’t spend nearly as much on their elections as we do, they don’t have nearly the corruption we do, and in many respects their political system and their political parties are more liberal/socialist/collectivist than ours.
posted by Bobby on
“For me the re-election of George W. Bush after 4 years of total incompetence and mismanagement, as well as the embarrassment having such a man as our president, was more than enough to convince me of the ignorance and foolishness of a too large portion of the electorate. ”
—This is exactly why many people fear progressives. They look at the electorate as stupid people that need to be controlled. In fact, Stalin, Mao, Hitler and other despots always looked at their populations as children that needed to be guided. That’s why progressives have been trying to get Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck off the air for years, they hate ideological diversity and independent thought. They even hate blue dog democrats and will fight their own kind if they have to.
Yet when I see blue collar republicans telling the camera that they don’t care if the rich get tax breaks because it’s the rich who creates jobs, it makes me feel proud that the so-called “stupid” people have more intelligence than all those marxists in academia. In fact, the real idiots are the ones who compare Mother Theresa to Chairman Mao, or the people who praise Che Guevara not realizing that he murdered hundreds of people.
“I challenge you to compare for me the basic research budgets of the NIH and private companies. And I mean basic research. The hard truth is that we socialize the costs of research and, for reasons unknown, allow economics rents of a huge magnitude for private firms.”
—It was private companies that invented Viagra, Prozac, gastric-bypass operations, cellphones, the civilian application of GPS technology, etc. Sure the military invited the GPS but you think the government would have had the insight that maybe civilians would need it as well? No. Goverment is useless, in fact, it’s cheaper for the government to outsource things to private companies than to do them themselves.
“Show me the end-run around “crony capitalism”. Regardless of what Milton Friedman may have told you, “politics” is part of the profit motive, regulation or no regulation. [and you won’t sell too many Californians, burned for a couple of generations by the ginormous costs of energy deregulation, with “hey, let’s deregulate everything”…]”
—California is full of green wackos that always protest whenever the electric company tries to build a plant. In Texas we had 3 different electric companies and our rates were low because of it.
“Do travel. Go to other parts of the civilized world, where societies have made different choices about the labor-leisure balance. Yes, they are materially less wealthy, yet, …”
—I have visited over 20 countries in my life and have friends in Europe and Asia. I am well informed of different societies. However, what works for them doesn’t work for us because we aren’t socialists.
“By the way, I don’t know all that much about the political system of Australia, but I do know it’s vastly different from ours, they don’t spend nearly as much on their elections as we do, they don’t have nearly the corruption we do, and in many respects their political system and their political parties are more liberal/socialist/collectivist than ours.”
—While Australia is roughly the size of the USA, they don’t have 300 million people. Less people means less TV channels, cheaper advertising rates, etc. Besides, if politicians want to speak to us they should pay for the priviledge. For example, I’m dissapointed that the major broadcast networks are going to broadcast the state of the union this Wednesday. Why? I’d rather watch Ugly Betty than seeing Obama talk a bunch of bullshit, and I’m sure I’m not alone in those views.
posted by Lori Heine on
Dragon, you have just eloquently proved this article right. Your arrogance is breathtaking.
You are among the exalted few who are wise enough to run this country — by confiscating large sums of other people’s hard-earned money and distributing it as you see fit. Everybody else is an idiot, so no one else may be trusted to run their own life.
Again, the problem. If we’re all that stupid, then who among us is smart enough to run anyone else’s life — anyone’s at all — besides their own?
…Oh, that’s right. I guess you are. How nice it must be to be so special.
The straight folks who come here, of course, don’t only think they’re smarter than we are. They also want to take our money. Not too hard to figure out why they’re so adamantly against gay marriage.
We already work six months out of every year for the government. If powerful majorities can figure out ways to steal more of it from us, maybe they can correct the balance somewhat.
This, of course, is the essence of postmodern social conservative thought.
It’s all about the boodle. Follow the money and see where it leads.
But of course, Dragon, I’m so STOOOOPID that I can’t govern myself. Lucky for me I have exalted beings like you to run my life for me.
That I’m not the only American who’s sick of arrogant pig-swill from people like you is becoming increasingly apparent. And thank God, the focus is finally where it should be — on the looting and thievery of those who want to rule our lives — instead of on the dirty queers and the scandal that they think they’re human like everyone else.
I truly believe that the very survival of this country depends on whether too many people think like you. If they do, we’re sunk. God help us.
posted by DragonScorpion on
Well, Ms. Heine, I see honesty is not one of your strongpoints. Nor is legitimate debate.
Rather than provide a rational argument or challenge my suggestions you’ve opted for theatrics, hyperbole, distortions instead. Rather than explain the inconsistencies of your positions in which sometimes those of us in favor of government regulation and statism are naively falling for some BS line, and your position that big government and big corporate are in bed with each other, yet, here you claim that opening up big corporate to spend unlimited amounts from their general funds isn’t going to compromise elections because most folks aren’t really foolish enough to fall for a slick campaign blitz.
So which is it, is their collusion between corporations and our political system or not? Is there too much influence of money on political elections or not? Are average folks slavish to big daddy government and the touchy-feely pols who are âgazing into their eyes, breathing in their faces, feeling their painâ or not?
I don’t see how you get to have it both ways. Either big corporations are having a negative effect on our political system or they’re not. And if they are, opening up more and more options for them probably isn’t wise.
I resent that you’ve managed to twist my (rather accurate) depictions of a largely uninformed electorate who too easily falls for propaganda as âbreathtaking arroganceâ; insinuations that I declare myself among the âexalted few who are wise enough to run this countryâ, apparently because I believe in paying taxes and I’m just âso specialâ; and allegations of my supposed view that âeverybody else is an idiotâ, including you, so âSTOOOOPIDâ that all of you can’t possibly govern yourself.
Where in the hell in my comments here did I suggest any of this? People can’t govern themselves? What, as if I’m suggesting that people are just too ignorant to be allowed to vote for their representatives? Or were you suggesting that we don’t need representatives to govern we can just adopt anarchy and all govern ourselves?
On top of everything else, you reiterate a point you made once before in another thread: âI truly believe that the very survival of this country depends on whether too many people think like you. If they do, we’re sunk. God help us.â
God help us! And all the rending of clothes and gnashing of teeth…
Yes, people who think like me are a real menace to society. Oh but me, I’m “arrogant” for daring to suggest that too many folks are swayed by dishonest political ads in this country and the prospect of far greater amounts of money being poured into these ads just might have some sort of detrimental effect on our political system…
I suppose you are frustrated because most folks obviously reject a libertarian form of government and don’t buy into the ‘we can all govern and regulate ourselves’ theory of governance.
I can understand that. But your misrepresentations and drama really aren’t necessary.
posted by Bobby on
“I suppose you are frustrated because most folks obviously reject a libertarian form of government and don’t buy into the ‘we can all govern and regulate ourselves’ theory of governance.”
—No they don’t, the success of the Tea Parties are proof of that. While not all Americans are perfect libertarians, most of them want less government. Check out the polls, the popularity of Obamacare is eroding fast, a republican was elected in Massachusetts, with the way things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised if a republican became mayor of Chicago.
posted by Lori Heine on
So here we get the real, underlying incivility of statists like DragonScorpion. Now the nasty names start flying fast. This is always how it ends.
Explain to me how limiting one group’s access to political advertising is going to solve the problem. Then explain how you are any smarter than those you so mindlessly impugn.
Big business certainly is in bed with big government. That’s how the problem started in the first place, as I have several times explained. One of your mistakes is that you attribute to me a point of view I never gave. Another is that you’ve ignored the fact that I have said the opposite.
I favor full disclosure of where political campaign money comes from. If companies are using it for propaganda against the interests of the people, they can — not only as voters, but as consumers — take action against those companies.
This would be consistent with American principles. And it would not involve automatically assigning guilt to every corporation that wanted to fund political advertising. We don’t do that in America; we wait until someone has done something wrong and then punish them for it.
You have yet to answer why you’re so sure American citizens are automatically going to believe everything they hear in a political ad — just because a lot of money was paid to make it.
As the “progressive” statists fail, again and again, in their attempts to further socialize our country, I’m sure we will be treated to more childish foulness from people like DragonScorpion. “You’re all stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!”
No one can argue that every American is as smart as every other. In their fear and confusion after 9-11, quite a number allowed the Bush administration to seize powers our Constitution specifically prohibited the chief executive from having. I warned my GOP friends that they were foolish; I asked them what they’d do if the next president happened to be a Democrat. Did they think he or she would simply be generous and relinquish all those ill-gotten powers?
They wouldn’t answer me. Now some of them are still, here, trying to persuade us that if some citizens are allowed tax-funded goodies to marry and breed, such larceny will NEVER be used against them by anyone else.
I hope the Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy all turn out to be real. About the same odds exist for both premises.
What is needed, again, is more transparency about who’s advertising, not less money to fund it.
This is OUR country. We should demand not less money being spent to lie to us, but a clearer view of who is doing the lying.
Pardon me for not trusting those self-exalted beings who purport to think for me and protect me from myself. From Bush to Obama, and at every point in between, they have shown themselves to be less that trustworthy.
posted by Lori Heine on
It occurs to me that an additional remark is called for.
The reason, above all others, that the American people should not be condescended to and treated like fools is that it is an affront to our basic dignity as human beings. We shouldn’t have to be Albert Einsteins, or prove to some high-handed, self-appointed busybody that we are capable of making decisions for ourselves. We are human beings, and we deserve to be able to make decisions for ourselves. It is our birthright as members of the human race.
None of us has to prove, to DragonScorpion or to anybody else, that we ought to be able to make our own decisions. Passing laws to restrict how much the supposedly evil and Svengali-crafty corporations can spend on political advertising is nannyism, plain and simple.
Of course, people with such degraded views of humanity that they call those with whom they disagree “liars” simply because they disagree with them are probably not to be expected to respond to appeals for respect for human dignity.
Nor should we be expected to listen to them when they tell us what idiots we are.
posted by DragonScorpion on
Apparently you’ve picked up on some of North Dallas Thirty’s bad habits. You have delegated me to the category of âstatistsâ and of course, âstatistsâ are those bad people who want to control everyone else, see everyone else as âSTOOOOPIDâ, and we’re just generally lacking in civility. The message: just dismiss anything DragonScorpion has to say because he’s one of those (gasp!) arrogant âstatistsâ…
As for incivility, I notice you have a habit of flying off the handle with others here when they don’t accept your version of things. You went off on me a few weeks back for misinterpreting a remark I’d made about Debrah as being directed at you.
I’d like to bring it to everyone’s attention that it is you who scoff at government involvement or solutions to just about anything, and deride those of us who don’t buy into the old conservative line ‘government isn’t the solution; government is the problem’ as being either delusional, drunk on the âkool-aidâ, dishonest or mindlessly repeating what other people have made up.
You should back track a bit. I disagreed with you, and some of the cheap dismissals you like to employ against political ideologies contrary to yours, but I didn’t insult you, your intelligence, your honesty, and I damn sure didn’t start in on any ânasty namesâ, you know, like âarrogant pig-swillâ and the like…
I don’t know what you’re fishing for here other than character assassination, but it is very unbecoming. I’ve tried to be civil with you but you’re making it increasingly difficult. And if you don’t want to dismissed as dishonest that you stop grossly mischaracterizing what others have suggested.
Oh, and for the record, this quote: “You’re all stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!” which was attributed to me is NOT mine nor have I made any suggestions to that effect. Unfortunately, some people resort to lies when rational argumentation fails them.
posted by DragonScorpion on
Now with the personal stuff out of the way, I’ll try to address the salient points you mentioned intermingled with the hyperbole, distortions, and projections.
1) The individuals {read: citizens} who work for or own that corporation have a right to such access, no one is interfering with this. However, corporations are not citizens, as such corporations can’t vote and shouldn’t have the same access to political campaigns as citizens. This should be especially obvious considering corporations can be multi-national and are not necessarily owned and controlled solely by U.S. citizens. So on top of everything else, we can now look forward to foreign agents having more influence on our political systems, as well.
2) âSmartâ and informed are relative terms. I’m smarter and more informed than some people, others are smarter and more informed than me. I think I’m fairly intelligent and fairly informed. Sadly, far too many people in this country are not very well-informed about political issues, political candidates or even how our system of government works. Turn loose your political correctness for a minute and acknowledge that reality, even if only to yourself. It has nothing to do with arrogance and superiority.
It’s not necessarily how much money is poured into an individual ad â though the more polished and poll-tested the concept, imagery, etc. is the more effective it is likely to be â it’s the prevalence of advertisements.
I would recommend doing a little research on advertising and just how sophisticated it has become. Corporations and soon political campaigns spend enormous amounts of money pushing their product, service, candidate. They don’t do this simply because they like spending money. It’s an investment. Spend a million on an ad campaign for the purposes of making hundreds of millions or billions in sales.
It’s obvious why a corporation does this to sell their product, they stand to make a lot of profit that way. It’s their livelihood. But spending large sums of money trying to get politicians elected? Why? Merely because they share political philosophies? Or because they expect favors, government contracts or legislation that works in their favor…
That’s what I thought, which is why it is so mind-boggling that you really don’t see a problem with big business now being recognized as having a constitutional right to spend however much money they want electing politicians…..
You mentioned transparency in who donates to whose campaigns. I must have missed where you argued this the first time… Actually, I think I was the one that brought this up. So yes, I’m all in favor of this, it is definitely a step in the right direction, but it isn’t enough.
Our political system is not improved by a barrage of misleading TV and radio advertisements that are nothing more than the same sort of substance-less gimmicks that companies use to convince people they really, really need to buy their latest product.
If you can’t see the obviousness of this, I don’t know how to make it any clearer to you. And considering your reactions, I’m starting to think it wouldn’t be worth the effort.
As for the powers that the nation ceded to Bush after 9/11. I read an article a while back, I forget where, and it suggested that many of those who are so paranoid about the powers of President Obama, are the same ones who didn’t mind it when Bush with the aid of Congress created those powers.
I am very critical of the many extra-constitutional powers granted the government via the Patriot Act, and it makes no difference to me that those powers are in effect now under a President that I actually voted for.
Pretty rhetoric. You should run for public office…
The American people aren’t âfoolsâ, but some really bad politicians have been elected (and re-elected) because of some foolish people. Gee, maybe even you will agree with that one, but probably not since that might seem too âstatistâ or whatever cliche label you have in your talking points guide.
I’m also not suggesting genius level proficiency, nor am I suggesting intelligence tests and the like so let’s not go down that disgusting path, shall we?
Yes, we can make decisions for ourselves. I think I went over some of those earlier, which you completely ignored because it didn’t fit your narrative of me as a “kool-aid” drinking, “breathtakingly arrogant” “statist”.
While decisions involving our personal lives should be left to us, some decisions have to be made for all of us by those we elect to represent our collective interests. Believe it or not, it’s even constitutional, so you won’t be a bad libertarian if you agree…
I disagree. I believe it is necessary to protect our political system from big-corporate-brother.
posted by Bobby on
Dragon? Do you even work in advertising? I wish it worked as well as you say it does, if it did I would still have a job. In fact, in advertising a successful junk mail delivers a response rate of 3% to 6%. That means 94% to 97% of the people getting that message are throwing it away in the garbage, one study claims that 50% of people don’t even bother opening their junk mail.
In fact, a small group of people online was able to get a huge corporation like Pampers to change their product.
http://adage.com/article?article_id=141552
Obama did not get elected because of advertising, he got elected because he was able to exploit the mood of the country. Now all the advertising in the world isn’t going to save him, if he doesn’t improve the economy he’ll be a one term president, you can bet on that.
posted by Lori Heine on
Bobby,
“They” (evil big corporations) always possess diabolical super-duper mind-control powers that can cut through kryptonite. Therefore “we” (and for these people “we” always, ALWAYS means the government) need more money and more police-state powers to deal with them.
Funny how the money and power always ends up in the hands of the government — not “the people” in whose name they claim to speak.
The problem, of course, of government-big corporate intertwinement was caused by too much government meddling in the first place, so the knee-jerk statist solution is…more government regulations.
You have actually worked for a living, as have I, so you understand how much of the time, when we work for “evil corporate America” we actually work for the government.
posted by DragonScorpion on
Ooh, look, we don’t have to debate this reasonably and rationally, Lori can just throw out absurdities. Ex: Since companies clearly don’t possess âdiabolical super-duper mind-control powers that can cut through kryptoniteâ, then obviously advertising doesn’t really sway public opinion, and therefore giving corporations the right to spend as much money as they want on political advertising couldn’t possibly have a negative impact on our political system.
I think you should keep the definition of the logical fallacies strawman and appeal to ridicule in mind in the future, because you employ both of them far too often. And they’re really not building up your case.
I have news for you, giving corporations more opportunity to effect the outcomes of elections will not alleviate the problem of corporate/government collusion. To the contrary, it promises to make it far worse.
But then libertarianism, in its absolute adherence to ideology, has a tendency to undercut its own stated goals.
posted by Lori Heine on
“But then libertarianism, in its absolute adherence to ideology, has a tendency to undercut its own stated goals.”
And government has done such a fabulous job of regulating big business that you actually want more of the same?
How, exactly, has it been successful in reining it in up to now?
Please try to stop acting like a child. Calling me a liar simply because I disagreed with you was way out of line. We were having, at the very least, a very civil discussion on this board until you felt the need to do that.
Kindly attempt to refrain from flinging poop if you intend to address me in the future. Reason works much better.
posted by DragonScorpion on
Do you work in advertising, Bobby? Seriously? If so, what sort of advertising is your field of expertise in and what sort of work did you do in it?
You suggest that junk mail isn’t very successful. It’s certainly inefficient. But it does work. If it didn’t, companies wouldn’t rely on it so much.
Junk mail isn’t a panacea to a product’s success, rather, it is seen as a cost-effective method of keeping their product name in the minds of the public or target audience and achieving sales through shear volume of advertising. i.e. a company may only sell their product 3 times per every 100 pieces of junk mail. If they wish to sell 3,000 products via a junk mail campaign, they would need to send out at least 100,000 pieces of junk mail. Considering that junk mail isn’t generally as expensive, compared to radio or television ads, it is often well worth a company’s money to buy some marketing via junk mail.
There are many, many factors involved in marketing. Some advertising campaigns in history have been extremely successful, others have failed miserably.
Did Barack Obama’s message get out, in which he âexploited the mood of the countryâ? Apparently so, wouldn’t you say?
Naturally, there are many factors which contribute to the success of a product or in this case an election. Advertising is a highly significant factor. It can’t necessarily make or break a product. If done poorly or the product is simply really bad or is ravaged by controversy then the advertising could either hurt or at least not really help the product be successful.
Essentially, all the great ideas in the world cannot win someone an election unless those ideas are promoted. This comes down to word of mouth, news coverage, marketing… Corporations and political campaign have the most control over their message and the promotion of that message through advertising. All this costs money.
Let’s just assume, as you apparently do, that only about 3% of advertising is effective. Then one is going to have to either use highly crafted advertising for maximum performance, or rely on shear volume of advertising to really push their product.
The more money a company has to rely on and the more they have to gain from spending that money, the more willing they will be to do so. And now, the sky is virtually the limit when it comes to funding political advertising…
An interesting article on advertising.
posted by DragonScorpion on
~”Please try to stop acting like a child. Calling me a liar simply because I disagreed with you was way out of line. We were having, at the very least, a very civil discussion on this board until you felt the need to do that.” ~ Lori Heine
The dishonesty began in earnest from you here and continued on here.
You have repeatedly distorted my actual viewpoint and my suggestions and twisted them into the absurd. You also relied on derisive labels for myself or anyone that agrees with me. This is many things, but rational, civil, reasonable is not among them…
~”Kindly attempt to refrain from flinging poop if you intend to address me in the future. Reason works much better.” ~ Lori Heine
Apply that to yourself then.
Now, as I work for a living (because my being “Statist” doesn’t actually pay me money) I’ll address any legitimate comments you have to offer, later.
posted by Lori Heine on
Sorry, Dragon, I looked at your “here” and “here” and see opinions that oppose yours, but no lies. Unless you’re trying to claim that Australia DOES restrict its corporate speech as much as we do. If that is a fact, please cite some evidence. As I was repeating information I heard elsewhere from a source I believe reliable (“Hit and Run” at Reason magazine online), please tell me how that can — in any logical way — be construed as “lying?”
Use that word carefully in dealing with me, because it is slander and legally actionable. If you don’t like something I said about you, just go ahead and cite that.
posted by DragonScorpion on
~LMAO~ âLegally actionableâ, eh…? Yeah, sure. Sue me.
Let me assist you in examples to your dishonesty (and childishness):
âDragon, you have drunk the kool-aid. At bottom, you’re arguing that the people are such idiots they’ll believe ANYTHING — simply because a big corporation spent a lot of money to pay for it.â ~ Lori Heine
Not only a juvenile, all-too-typical right-wing insult by you, but a fallacious mischaracterization of what I have actually stated here. No where did I argue that âthe peopleâ are âsuch idiotsâ that they’ll fall for anything.
âThe underlying argument of liberals is always that they are so much smarter than everybody else that they must protect the poor masses from themselves.â
Another childish mischaracterization which, again, you try to equate with my stance.
âYou are among the exalted few who are wise enough to run this country — by confiscating large sums of other people’s hard-earned money and distributing it as you see fit. Everybody else is an idiot, so no one else may be trusted to run their own life.â ~ Lori Heine
Again you dishonestly claim this as my position â I think of myself as the âwiseâ one, while everyone else is an âidiotâ. This is entirely untrue.
You then go on to accuse me of âconfiscating large sumsâ of other people’s money and âdistributing itâ as I see fit. That’s a lie.
âIf we’re all that stupid, then who among us is smart enough to run anyone else’s life […] …Oh, that’s right. I guess you are. How nice it must be to be so special.â ~ Lori Heine
Again, childish and a dishonest characterization of me.
âBut of course, Dragon, I’m so STOOOOPID that I can’t govern myself. Lucky for me I have exalted beings like you to run my life for me. â ~ Lori Heine
And I suggested this when? Where? Again this is childish on your part, and a very dishonest misrepresentation of what I have tried to convey here. But you obviously don’t want honest debate, you twist my arguments into something absurd, attack those, and concoct some insulting caricature of me to beat on like a piñata.
This was a nice insulting touch:
âThat I’m not the only American who’s sick of arrogant pig-swill from people like you is becoming increasingly apparent.â ~ Lori Heine
Lastly:
âAs the “progressive” statists fail, again and again, in their attempts to further socialize our country, I’m sure we will be treated to more childish foulness from people like DragonScorpion. “You’re all stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!”â ~ Lori Heine
Which âchildish foulnessâ was that of mine? Having the honesty to point out that many people who vote in this country are very uninformed about politics and political candidates…? To make it seem as such, you invented something that actually was childish, threw quotes around it and attributed it to me, as if I said it. That’s known as a lie.
So, as I said, Ms. Heine, honesty is obviously not one of your strongpoints. Nor is legitimate debate. And if you can’t manage intellectual honesty, then don’t bother debating with me. I get enough of that from ND30.
posted by Lori Heine on
Dragon, you have demonstrated once again that you use word “lie” the way a give-year-old child would. You need to go and get yourself a dictionary, because you don’t know what the word means.
The quotes you cite are MY OPINIONS, and I have every damned right to hold them. I think you are a socialist, and I believe that socialists are thieves who confiscate other people’s hard-earned money, at the point of the government gun, to use for things of which they do not approve.
You’re perfectly entitled to disagree with me. What you are not entitled to do is slander me. You are showing yourself not only to be a thief, but a very petty and childish one.
You suggested that the citizens of this country were stupid when you arrogated to government the role of determining how much free speech corporations are allowed to have. Another difference of opinion exists between us on that matter, certainly. But you are infantile to set your hair on fire and shriek “liar, liar!” just because I expressed my own opinion of your opinion.
I gave MY opinion of YOUR opinion. That is what I did. I did — and still do — believe my opinion to be the truth. Get yourself that dictionary, look up the meaning of “lie,” and you will probably find that it defines the word as “intentionally deceiving.”
I cannot intentionally deceive someone when I believe that I am telling the truth.
If you keep slandering people like that, eventually you are going to get either (A) horsewhipped or (B) sued.
Of course I’m sure you merely skulk around on websites, under aliases, to do things like that. You have already shown yourself to be utterly without honor.
I told the truth there, too. I’m every bit as entitled to my opinion as you are to yours.
Get over it and grow up.
posted by DragonScorpion on
Is that how the libertarians do it now? Resort to violence and frivolous lawsuits? Considering the sort of despicable remarks people make toward each other online daily, I’m not too worried about getting sued for calling folks out for displaying dishonest characterizations of what I state. As for violence, I’m not dainty and I hit back…
Let’s take a look at that definition:
1) a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood.
2) something intended or serving to convey a false impression; imposture
3) an inaccurate or false statement.
4) the charge or accusation of lying
5) to speak falsely or utter untruth knowingly, as with intent to deceive.
6) to express what is false; convey a false impression.
You repeatedly gave false impressions, in fact, gross mischaracterizations of my positions and statements and even attempted to attribute a quote to me which was not mine and in no way matched anything I’ve stated.
Your excuse is that these are your âopinionsâ and that since you believe them to be true they are not dishonest. Then I guess I’m entitled to my sincere “opinion” that you’ve been very dishonest in how you have attempted to portray me and my viewpoint here.
By the way, I also never suggested that you do NOT have a right to your opinions or even to offer falsehoods. You can, as far as I’m concerned, pretty much say whatever you want, but that doesn’t mean what you say is accurate or honest. Much of what you wrote above, which I outlined for you, was inaccurate and/or dishonest.
And speaking of slander:
You accuse me, again, and more directly this time, of being a “thief”.
As for your other baseless accusations, no, actually, I don’t use aliases and I’ve NEVER used a ‘sockpuppet’.
You can find me lots of places, and I always use the same username:
The Daily Beast
Queerty
Mediaite
Reason
I’m also over at 365.gay, the Advocate, NPR, Newsweek, Time, etc.
And of course, my blog… So, take your own advice and grow up. Stop making so many asinine assumptions (and BS accusations) about people, what they believe, and what they do.
posted by Lori Heine on
Scorpion, you continue your abuse of the word “lie” — amazingly, even after having consulted a dictionary.
What I said about you were things you didn’t like. As they were things I believed to be true, they do not meet the definition required to be “lies.”
Had you been an honorable person, you could have simply called what I said unfair and erroneous and left it at that. But your inner five-year-old required you to pretend that you could read my mind and guess at my motives.
We are also treated to further cyberspace posturing. I was kind enough to lay it on the line with you and describe what happened — in the real world — when people popped off and called people “liars” — using their own names to do it.
One of those options involved potential violence. You’re such a hysterical old maid that of course you have to start shrieking about being threatened with violence. You didn’t piss yourself and scream about being threatened with a lawsuit — something much more likely to happen in actual fact — because it doesn’t pack the same dramatic punch.
I still believe that people who wish to confiscate others’ tax money at gunpoint to force changes in the law are like members of an armed gang — they are thugs. No matter how noble they claim their aims are, what they are doing is theft.
I would defend to the death my right — or anyone else’s — to state this once-obvious truth, and I will not be bullied out of it by you or anyone else.
Have the guts to stand up, use your own name (I am not going to chase you all over cyberspace to find out who you might be), and == if what I’m saying is so damned erroneous — actually deliver the goods, for a change, by explaining why.
If you’ve actually ever read any libertarian literature, surely none of the ideas I’ve expressed here can be at all unfamiliar to you. Until this post, you were able to conduct yourself on this blog like a relatively sane person. Keep coming unhinged and blathering like a loony and no one will be left to care what you have to say about anything.
posted by DragonScorpion on
Round and round we go. . . . .
I think it is quite revealing of Lori Heine’s lack of character that while she can refer to others, like myself, as a âthiefâ, and while she can promote falsehoods about myself, my statements here, and my ideology, she gets in a tizzy when people call her out for it, even invoking âslanderâ.
And what is that ideology that Ms. Heine feels it necessary to deride as âthieveryâ, âdrunk on kool-aidâ, âbreathtaking arroganceâ, etc. It’s all because I believe in some government regulations, I believe in paying taxes to pool our resources and provide for common needs, I don’t believe corporations should be allowed to bankroll political ad campaigns, and because I tell the apparently politically incorrect truth that too many voters in this country are poorly informed about political issues and political candidates. The shock! The horrors!
For this, according to Ms. Heine, I am a âthie[ving]â âStatistâ, who thinks myself âexaltedâ above all the âidiotsâ whose lives I âcontrolâ and âconfiscateâ money from âat gunpointâ.
When she isn’t threatening law suits or insinuating that if I don’t watch myself someone might give me a good âhorsewhippingâ, she hides behind âit’s just my opinionâ. Alright then, my opinion is Lori Heine is very dishonest in her dealings with other people here, and has in fact lied about myself, my statements and positions. [see definition of liar above â esp. 3, 5, 6 ]
While she now pretends that she wants rational debate, the truth is that’s what I was giving her several posts above [ here & here ], until she decided she couldn’t handle legitimate debate on this issue and went for the typical asinine right-wing insults and gross mischaracterizations, and decided to attack her strawman substitutes of my ACTUAL positions.
And you’re hypocritical on top of everything else. I have been thinking the very same about you. We had several substantive discussions, before you became âunhingedâ above.
I can conduct myself quite sanely, Ms. Heine, when dealing with rational people who are willing to conduct themselves honestly and with some civility. When they go off the tracks with the kind of dishonesty and debate killing rhetoric depicted here and here and here, then I can give as good as I get.
Naturally, you see nothing wrong in what you do. In your mind you have rationalized why it is appropriate to not only attack political philosophies you don’t like (-haters, to use your terminology) and invent horrible little caricatures of them, but you also find it appropriate to attack those who hold to these political ideologies.
Be aware that others who don’t live in your head are not likely to find such stunts as mature, legitimate, rational, reasonable and the like. And if you keep this up, more folks here are unlikely to care what you have to say about anything.
posted by Lori Heine on
Thus does DragonScorpion continue to rationalize slander. Of course he does.
People who vote themselves a share of other people’s money can best be described as…if “thieves” is not the right word, then YOU fill in the blank.
When people like Dragon think of corporations, evidently, they imagine cartoon characters like the Monopoly guy in the top-hat, lounging behind a big desk and laughing as he counts his bags of money. But corporations are mostly made up of ordinary people: workers and shareholders (many of whom are not Daddy Warbucks types, but grandparents on fixed incomes). Limiting the political speech of corporations limits their free speech, too.
I say, more power to insurance company workers who want to lobby to save their livelihoods from the grandstanders in Washington who would take their jobs away. When the companies they work for are muzzled, these folks are muzzled, too.
Dragon, you have a very immature notion of what goes on when citizens lobby their government. It is THEIR government.
Again, transparency is the key. No mention as to why this would not work better than simply muzzling some people’s free speech — which is thoroughly un-American.
It’s still up to each individual citizen whether he or she chooses to be a thief or not. No one else can make that decision for us. All we have to do not to be thieves is to resist the temptation to turn our fellow citizens’ wallets inside-out every time some politician blows sunshine up our skirts about how much more important we are than others.
Don’t want to be called a thief, don’t be one. It’s that simple.
If you think the things I called you were extreme, prove it. Thus far all you’ve done is prove me right.
posted by DragonScorpion on
I’ve got news for you, Lori, grandparents on fixed incomes don’t run the corporations that give large sums of money to political campaigns. But they sure as hell are going to get shafted by them. So I hope you’re proud of yourself, proud to support this recent decision by the Supreme Court. Because it’s going to fuck a lot of people. But that’s okay. Just as long as your warped ideology of bribery = âfree speechâ is the way of our political system, then all is well in your comfortable little libertarian utopia.
You have a very warped notion that when corporations â not ran by little mom & pop poor folk, but rather by multi-millionaire executives that don’t give a rat’s ass about your insurance, your job, your libertarian principles, or even your life â they’re just exercising some sort of ârightâ to âlobbyâ their representatives.
Instead, they are buying slick political campaign ads for politicians that have promised to meet that corporation’s interests. And somehow, to you, this is how it should be.
You are so ate up with your libertarian delusions that you completely forfeit your beliefs about the nefarious, toxic connections of BIG business to BIG government, when you gladly welcome those very businesses to put however much money they want from their general funds behind the politician that they believe will most further their interests.
You think transparency is just going to fall from the sky. You’re really that far off the deep end, that you believe those corporations that are going to literally buy politicians into office, are in favor of transparency… Or, you’re really stupid enough to believe that putting millions of dollars into advertising for a congressional campaign isn’t a near guarantee that he/she will win.
Perhaps you are delusional enough to think some miracle is going to happen, and before these greedy corporations that already had too much influence on our political system already, somehow, some way, our entire political system is just magically going to become transparent so that they can’t grow that influence…
Apparently your kool-aid is laced with acid. You’re living in a dream world of shear imagination and wishful thinking. As you remarked earlier, this stuff isn’t funny, it isn’t nursery school. There is no excuse is such stupidity from people when the truth is right there in front of you. But you’re just too ass deep in fairy-tale ideologies that the wealthiest among us are really all just like those of us who work for a living, and just want the best for us all. . . . .
By the way, people who deliberately distort the viewpoints of others can best be described as…well, if “liar” is not the right word, then YOU fill in the blank.
Don’t want to be called a liar, then don’t be one. It’s that simple.
I won’t accept your bullshit characterizations of me, not here, and no where else. So keep that with you, Ms. Heine. And you can save your threats of violence and lawsuits, I’m not the least bit intimidated.
posted by Lori Heine on
Dragon, Exactly what sort of a piece of crap excuse for a human being are you, anyway?
You’re too infantile to disagree with anyone without resorting to screaming and pissing yourself. Grow up.
I do not agree that more government control will alleviate any of the problems you keep screaming about. I will continue to disagree with you. STFU and go away.
Do not address me again. I don’t know how old you are (probably no more than 20 or 25, judging from the fool you keep making of yourself and the grandiose sci-fi nickname). I am a middle aged woman, and I have taken enough crap from the likes of you. Have the sense to back off while it’s still possible. Shut up and go play with yourself.
I am entitled to my opinion, as well, that tax confiscation of other people’s income is theft. I am entitled, by logical extension, to tell you that if you support taking their money from them, then you are a thief. Quit crying and sniveling about it and either prove me wrong or, again, just shut up.
You say nothing new or original, you just rant and rave more about how not-afraid you are. Usually when people do that they doth protest too much, but I really don’t care. If I’d wanted to be pestered by anybody’s bratty little kids I’d have had some myself.
Do not engage me again. I don’t care to hear the same, toddler-level bragging and screeching and raving time and time again. Shut up. If it’s so important what other people on this board think of you, then poll them and see if they don’t tell you to shut up, too.
I’m sure you’ll come back to try and save your miserable, worthless, ultimately quite boring face. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Yeah, right. That was beyond saving a long time ago.
posted by DragonScorpion on
You claim I just keep âthe same, toddler-level bragging and screeching and raving time and time againâ, yet in just the last post you told me to âshut upâ 4 times, and twice demanded that I not address you again… How redundant.
As usual, Ms. Heine doesn’t bother to apply her own supposed standards to herself… Hypocrite, indeed.
This is apparently Ms. Heine’s idea of mature, and oh-so-civil:
âDragon, Exactly what sort of a piece of crap excuse for a human being are you, anyway?â
âI will continue to disagree with you. STFU and go away.â
âShut up and go play with yourself.â
âI’m sure you’ll come back to try and save your miserable, worthless, ultimately quite boring face.â
Classy, real classy. Now. How about you take your own advice, stop having a conniption fit and grow up. Act your age. At least try.
As for your request that I prove you wrong about describing me as a âthiefâ… How convenient, you demand that I prove a negative, or else you must be right. I suppose you’ve got me there, I can’t PROVE that I’m not a thief. And I certainly can’t prove that here… Neither can you. All the same, I’m not a thief nor have I advocated thievery, and no, supporting the notion of taxes isn’t thievery, either.
You, on the other hand, are a seriously immature, petty and dishonest person to accuse me of such when you really don’t know a damn thing about me.
Let’s see how consistent you are. Do you intend to brand everyone else here who believes in the need and purpose of paying-taxes and having government regulations as a âthiefâ? Or is this just some asinine, slanderous accusation you’re directing at me because of your frustrations at having made an absolute fool of yourself?
By the way, I’ll be sure to keep this oh-so-mature example of the REAL Lori Heine on hand when altercations come up between us in the future…
posted by Lori Heine on
“Do you intend to brand everyone else here who believes in the need and purpose of paying-taxes and having government regulations as a ‘thief’?”
Totally apart from the fact that income taxation is fundamentally immoral — it is intrinsically theft — anyone who believes in using other people’s money without their permission is definitely a thief.
It could very well be that people who try to muzzle others, while expecting full freedom of speech for themselves, are worse than that.
Transparency, not censorship, is the American way.
Now come on back and scream some more, Dragon. You can’t win an argument based on the facts, so I suppose name-calling and ranting are all you’ve got.
posted by charlesbrooks on
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