Text of Dean's speech about national security, Iraq, etc.

[Pabst]

Rogue is right about the evils of capitalism. The U.S., Canada, Japan, Western Europe, Oceana are littered with starving, uneducated people with dytheria dying in the streets. Back in the good old days of serfdom we sure didn't have these problems.

And this horrible distribution of wealth!! Why just tonight I went out to buy an extra large sausage pizza and the counter girl told me that Bill Gates could order 1 billion pizzas if he wanted! Wow!
What disparity. He must never have to use coupons!

 

[ShoeshineBoy]

Another factor that I think ART is avoiding is the danger of concentrating that much wealth under a beauracracy. I remember being at a restaurant on that same Czechoslovakia trip and one of the waitresses had a beautiful cross on. I looked at it and the next time she came back it was tucked into her dress.

My point is this: giving the lion's share of a nation's wealth to one group of individuals is the most dangerous thing I can think of and is in my mind the single most negative aspect of socialism. Look at western europe: while it's form of socialism is comparatively mild, it will be next to impossible for europeans to ever break out of it should they want to. Let's say in fifty years Asia begins to supplant western europe because of their free markets - will western europe even then be able to break out of it? I don't think so...

 

[ShoeshineBoy]

Quote from ARogueTrader:


The distribution of wealth in captialist economies is one of its most contentious issues. To properly visualise the shape of these distributions it is useful to imagine what it would be like if some other commonly known characteristic of people were to be distributed this way. If height were distributed in the same way as wealth with the same average height as now, most people would be under 1 meter (3 feet) tall, but you would still see people 100 kilometers (60 miles) tall, if you could see up that far, and the wealthiest would rise well into space.

You can argue whether or not this is fair and equitable. Carnegie argued that it was not and lobbyed the super-wealthy to give away their wealth. His famous maxim was "To die rich is a disgrace." But that said, I still cannot see forced wealth redistribution by a monstrous beauracracy working. Wealth distribution only works, as someone else pointed out, if it voluntary.

But, that said, I am glad that we have semi-regulated capitalism. Having a monopoly in any one industry or sector is almost as bad.

 

[Maverick74]

Here is something to think about. Which scenario would you rather have. Would you rather have capitalists like Bill Gates and Jack Welch and all the evil corporations, would you rather they have all the money and power and have government watching over them or would you rather have the government to hold all the wealth and power?

Think about this now for a second. If corporations have all the wealth we can regulate them, we can send bad CEO's to prison, we can break apart their monopolies, we can take way their power. However, on the flip side, if the corporations have no power and the gov't has all the power then we are powerless to stop them. We cannot regulate the gov't and we can't send the gov't to prison and we cannot take their power away from them.

See I rather have the gov't act as a watchdog and let US have the power. It's much easier to go after the bad apples in corporate america then to try to go after the gov't and take the power away from it. Wouldn't you agree?

 

[ShoeshineBoy]

Quote from Maverick74:

Here is something to think about. Which scenario would you rather have. Would you rather have capitalists like Bill Gates and Jack Welch and all the evil corporations, would you rather they have all the money and power and have government watching over them or would you rather have the government to hold all the wealth and power?

Think about this now for a second. If corporations have all the wealth we can regulate them, we can send bad CEO's to prison, we can break apart their monopolies, we can take way their power. However, on the flip side, if the corporations have no power and the gov't has all the power then we are powerless to stop them. We cannot regulate the gov't and we can't send the gov't to prison and we cannot take their power away from them.

See I rather have the gov't act as a watchdog and let US have the power. It's much easier to go after the bad apples in corporate america then to try to go after the gov't and take the power away from it. Wouldn't you agree?

Well said, although I'd go even a step beyond:

Let's say a "doomsday" scenario occurs and 10-20% of our middle class disappears never to return and I'm one of the unfortunate slobs that gets laid off and I have to work at some low paying job w/o health insurance. I would still take that any day over socialism just so I (and my little boy) could live in freedom. No job would be worth the price of living under some Clintonesque, Goreified beauracracy...

 

[ARogueTrader]

Standards of living exclude the quality of life? Since when?

Howard Hughes toward the end of his life had a high quality of life, a standard of living that normal people would aspire to?

That is the problem with compartmentalization, a study it may measure one aspect of a chapter but often misses the larger point of the story.

"The higher the standard of living, the more time and resources that are available for the pursuing of mental health and well being."

Mental health and well being are a luxury of the wealthy? Not from what I have seen. This is the fallacy, that money, free time, and other luxury can produce mental health and well being.

Many Americans in our history worked their entire life from dawn to dusk, and could be seen to have a high state of mental health and well being.

Quote from TriPack:

When comparing economic models, the only comparison that matters is standard of living. An economic system is an economic system, not a mental health system or a sense of well being system.

The higher the standard of living, the more time and resources that are available for the pursuing of mental health and well being.

 

[ARogueTrader]

Quote from TriPack:

exploitation, raping, disproportionate, fairness. Quite a litany of hot-button words.

Hot button for whom? For those who are raping the environment, exploiting cheap labor, and being unfair in their business practices by use of their capital to influence lawmakers?

If you think the USA is an experiment in unbridled capitalism, you don't know what the word "unbridled" means.

Compared to most countries, our system is unbridled.

And as to fairness, how is slavery more fair than self-determination?

Slaves were not fee stop working. In socialist countries, people can go on the dole if they want.

Socialism turns its citizens into slaves by forcing them to work for the state without allowing them to share in the fruits of their innovation, hard work, productivity.

If the goal of someone's hard work was capitalistic acquisition then it is true that pure socialism would not allow them the goal and motive behind their efforts.

By taking away the effect of their personal productivity and giving it to someone who didn't earn it, socialism robs personal initiative, discriminates against aptitude and puts limits on how far a citizen may advance.

If someone is personally productive and has initiative but for the good of society only, socialism doesn't rob them of their initiative or productivity, it enhances it.

Socialism turns its citizens into slaves, robots and drones who have no incentive for excellence and no way to improve their situations short of escaping this stifling society for one that allows for personal progress.

Capitalists would naturally feel this way, as their goal is accumulation of capital, not the well being of society.

 

[TriPack]

If you are a US citizen, perhaps you've heard this bit of truth:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

I subscribe to the idea that the pursuit of happiness, or in other words the ownership of property is a self-evident right. People living in a socialist economic system are unable to pursue happiness according to this definition. Socialism also fails to live up to the standard of a form of government that derives its power from the consent of the people, and that is answerable to the people.

And as to those on the dole, they are slaves just as much as those who are the workers in the socialist society because they only have what is given to them and they cannot improve their situation through their own effort.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance

The preceding explains why the fall of Communism and other repressive regimes is inevitable. The main theme running through the Colonies' list of grievances is lack of representatation.

 

[ARogueTrader]

Quote from TriPack:

I subscribe to the idea that the pursuit of happiness, or in other words the ownership of property is a self-evident right.

You equate ownership of property as happiness? That is completely illogical.

I can show you illegal aliens on the street corner who own nothing who are happier than people who own a lot of property.

People living in a socialist economic system are unable to pursue happiness according to this definition. Socialism also fails to live up to the standard of a form of government that derives its power from the consent of the people, and that is answerable to the people.

According to your definition of what constitutes happiness.

And as to those on the dole, they are slaves just as much as those who are the workers in the socialist society because they only have what is given to them and they cannot improve their situation through their own effort.

You are making speeches without making arguments.

The preceding explains why the fall of Communism and other repressive regimes is inevitable. The main theme running through the Colonies' list of grievances is lack of representation.

The grievance was lack of representation related to taxation, not a restriction on the pursuit of material possessions.

 

[TriPack]

What does this have to do with the pursuit of happiness? Locke's original formulation was life, liberty and property. These are the natural rights which government exists to protect. In fact, they are the description of freedom. If a government has arbitrary rights to take your life, liberty or property, that society will inevitably deteriorate into tyranny, as power accumulates towards the center, and the exercise of that power requires ever more arbitrariness in order to grow.

Jefferson's innovation, "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness," expands upon Locke in one important way: it recognizes that property ownership is a means to an end. Having property means that one has the ability to support one's self without the need for any outside agency - you could if necessary grow your own food and clothes stocks, make whatever implements you need and so forth, as well as sell your products for cash to pay taxes and buy needed goods you can't produce yourself, so long as you have enough land. (The necessary amount of land is remarkably small.) However, property ownership is really only a way of ensuring that you cannot be made desperate and miserable by others because of lack of food/money. The critical natural right is the ability to pursue happiness in whatever way you choose. Property rights allow you the resources to pursue that happiness. The pursuit of happiness encapsulates property ownership. A society that does not allow for property ownership cannot provide the pursuit of happiness for all its citizens.