[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:This was perhaps the dumbest “dialogue” I’ve ever heard, and I want my nine minutes and twenty eight seconds back.[/quote]Please go on. Ya know ya want to and I’m genuinely interested in what you have to say.
[quote]CornSprint wrote:
What would you propose as the path forward to “fix” the current system?
Do you think it is possible? Personally, I do not see the government (executive branch in particular) willingly giving up the powers that it has been given (regardless of who is in office) barring some sort of seismic shift in public opinion/apathy.[/quote]
I certainly think it is possible to “fix” it sure. We need a population that cares first and foremost. You hit the nail on the head with apathy.
As for giving up the power, they won’t have a choice unless they keep it by force. But again, people need to hear the honest truth from good story tellers.
America needs a culture shift. I’m sure it is coming, and I doubt it is going to befull scale European style big government/socialism/collectivism. I have faith in the truth.
I’m also of the opinion today (i may change it the more I think on it) that if I had a time machine and could go back and erase the phrase “provide for the general welfare” from the preamble, I would.
[quote]smh23 wrote:
[quote]StevenF wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
The alternative is: the alien lands, exits his aircraft, stumbles upon a drug-fueled gang-rape, and is stabbed and sodomized.[/quote]
I can think of exactly 0 ways that the government has made my life better. I can think of many ways it has made it worse. [/quote]
Are you suggesting that you’d prefer true anarchism to our current political arrangement?[/quote]
no I am not. But I am suggesting that the current government is not helping but hurting the people it supposedly represents.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Please go on. Ya know ya want to and I’m genuinely interested in what you have to say.[/quote]
I think the dialogue speaks for itself - it’s basically advocating anarchy. There’s nothing about the Human’s speech that couldn’t apply to even basic metropolitan government.
This is the classic libertarian whine - mean ole society imposes all kinds of rules on them and they can’t do whatever they want, whenever they want, and “government” is a “them” that all the time passes “dumb rules” that they don’t agree with but they have to follow anyway.
This is why I shout from the rooftops that libertarianism ain’t, ain’t, ain’t conservatism. This concept - that individuals need to be emancipated from the shackles of society and all of its arbitrary rules - is pure left-wing radicalism, and always has been.
On the practical side, it’s also why conservatives (in the broadest sense) who want to downsize government (particularly the federal government) can’t get any traction - there are too many “conservatives” (scare quotes completely intentional) that are a vocal part of the group who are essentially anti-government - even if they don’t want to get rid of all government, they are still, in tone, anti-government - and they make mainstream conservatism sound like the moron anti-government bozo separatists up in the Pacific Northwest, and fewer and fewer people buy into “downsizing” as a legitimate governing philosophy.
Government is a good thing. I will repeat it - government is a good thing. Society has a number of social institutions that act as agents to secure civilization from the state of nature - government is one, so is family, church, a market, a fraternal organization, a volunteer fire department, a college, etc. Is government good when it oversteps its boundaries? Of course not, but then again, no social institution is good when it oversteps its boundaries.
With respect to the federal government, it was always going to grow. Law and regulations are often lagging indicators, meaning they reflect a response to something that has already happened. Since the birth of the republic, basic commerce across state lines has exploded, and both the volume and type of transactions that occur have required more responsive law and regulation to deal with the explosion. Nothing can change that - the path of American economic expansion forced the hand of the federal government to grow in response to the kinds of problems that have followed in interstate commerce.
Have people taken advantage of it to try and impose a different mission on the federal government? Yes, obviously - out of the concept of “regulating” to “bring order and stability” there came a movement to simply redistribute wealth. That doesn’t mean that the size and scope of federal law and regulations in the 18th century could keep order in the modern national economy. And the Constitution was built to accommodate that.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Please go on. Ya know ya want to and I’m genuinely interested in what you have to say.[/quote]
I think the dialogue speaks for itself - it’s basically advocating anarchy. There’s nothing about the Human’s speech that couldn’t apply to even basic metropolitan government.
This is the classic libertarian whine - mean ole society imposes all kinds of rules on them and they can’t do whatever they want, whenever they want, and “government” is a “them” that all the time passes “dumb rules” that they don’t agree with but they have to follow anyway.
This is why I shout from the rooftops that libertarianism ain’t, ain’t, ain’t conservatism. This concept - that individuals need to be emancipated from the shackles of society and all of its arbitrary rules - is pure left-wing radicalism, and always has been.
On the practical side, it’s also why conservatives (in the broadest sense) who want to downsize government (particularly the federal government) can’t get any traction - there are too many “conservatives” (scare quotes completely intentional) that are a vocal part of the group who are essentially anti-government - even if they don’t want to get rid of all government, they are still, in tone, anti-government - and they make mainstream conservatism sound like the moron anti-government bozo separatists up in the Pacific Northwest, and fewer and fewer people buy into “downsizing” as a legitimate governing philosophy.
Government is a good thing. I will repeat it - government is a good thing. Society has a number of social institutions that act as agents to secure civilization from the state of nature - government is one, so is family, church, a market, a fraternal organization, a volunteer fire department, a college, etc. Is government good when it oversteps its boundaries? Of course not, but then again, no social institution is good when it oversteps its boundaries.
With respect to the federal government, it was always going to grow. Law and regulations are often lagging indicators, meaning they reflect a response to something that has already happened. Since the birth of the republic, basic commerce across state lines has exploded, and both the volume and type of transactions that occur have required more responsive law and regulation to deal with the explosion. Nothing can change that - the path of American economic expansion forced the hand of the federal government to grow in response to the kinds of problems that have followed in interstate commerce.
Have people taken advantage of it to try and impose a different mission on the federal government? Yes, obviously - out of the concept of “regulating” to “bring order and stability” there came a movement to simply redistribute wealth. That doesn’t mean that the size and scope of federal law and regulations in the 18th century could keep order in the modern national economy. And the Constitution was built to accommodate that.[/quote]
TB:
If “T-Nation” had a way of pinning post…this should be one of them.
Mufasa
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Please go on. Ya know ya want to and I’m genuinely interested in what you have to say.[/quote]
…
On the practical side, it’s also why conservatives (in the broadest sense) who want to downsize government (particularly the federal government) can’t get any traction - there are too many “conservatives” (scare quotes completely intentional) that are a vocal part of the group who are essentially anti-government - even if they don’t want to get rid of all government, they are still, in tone, anti-government - and they make mainstream conservatism sound like the moron anti-government bozo separatists up in the Pacific Northwest, and fewer and fewer people buy into “downsizing” as a legitimate governing philosophy.
Government is a good thing. I will repeat it - government is a good thing. Society has a number of social institutions that act as agents to secure civilization from the state of nature - government is one, so is family, church, a market, a fraternal organization, a volunteer fire department, a college, etc. Is government good when it oversteps its boundaries? Of course not, but then again, no social institution is good when it oversteps its boundaries.
With respect to the federal government, it was always going to grow. Law and regulations are often lagging indicators, meaning they reflect a response to something that has already happened. Since the birth of the republic, basic commerce across state lines has exploded, and both the volume and type of transactions that occur have required more responsive law and regulation to deal with the explosion. Nothing can change that - the path of American economic expansion forced the hand of the federal government to grow in response to the kinds of problems that have followed in interstate commerce.
Have people taken advantage of it to try and impose a different mission on the federal government? Yes, obviously - out of the concept of “regulating” to “bring order and stability” there came a movement to simply redistribute wealth. That doesn’t mean that the size and scope of federal law and regulations in the 18th century could keep order in the modern national economy. And the Constitution was built to accommodate that.[/quote]
In a post some time ago, pat was astonished when I wrote in favor of divided–and therefore, inefficient–government. Divided government is one of the great unintended protectors of liberty, or of conservatism. The flaw in this assertion lies in the vacuum created by indecision; that vacuum is filled by regulators who are endlessly employed in the expansion of rules with the effect of law.
This is one more prescient observation by Madison, in Federalist No. 62:
“The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?”
[quote]pushharder wrote:
The problem with TB’s post is that when he says, “Government is a good thing. I will repeat it - government is a good thing,” what he really means, or seems to when you read between the lines, is [i]government is a good thing and more government is a better thing[i].
His attempt to attach nobleness to always increasing governmental power (short of wealth redistribution - I will give him credit there) is flawed. His mindset that all problems and concerns are open for governmental (especially federal) intervention leads to “laws (that) be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”
[/quote]
It is, in short, the mindset that organized violence is the answer to everything.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
TB, is you’d have been more along the lines of “government is a necessary evil” rather than Yea, yea, yea, government rocks, I could’ve hung in there with ya, man. because much of what you wrote was reasonable.
You just don’t seem to fear the encroachment on liberty the way I, and the preponderance of the signers of the D of I and Constitution, do.
Inn other words your expounding on the necessity of good government does not come with enough caveats.[/quote]
Push:
I must have read/misinterpreted what TB wrote.
I thought he was stating that Government was a “neccesity”…BUT…
Bad (“evil”) in some respects…better in others…and that Anarchy (or even VERY “limited” Governmnent) was wrought with a LOT of problems. (History has, and still does, prove that).
So a “neccessary Evil” is the conclusion I drew from the post. (TB can certainly speak for himself in order to clarify!)
(Also…I’m with you on another thread…that I’m having a hard time finding for some reason…with punishing, to the fullest extent of the Law, those who misuse and/or abuse their 2nd Amendment Rights. Restriction after restriction simply will not work).
Mufasa
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
(Also…I’m with you on another thread…that I’m having a hard time finding for some reason…with punishing, to the fullest extent of the Law, those who misuse and/or abuse their 2nd Amendment Rights. Restriction after restriction simply will not work).
Mufasa[/quote]
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
TB, is you’d have been more along the lines of “government is a necessary evil” rather than Yea, yea, yea, government rocks, I could’ve hung in there with ya, man. because much of what you wrote was reasonable.
You just don’t seem to fear the encroachment on liberty the way I, and the preponderance of the signers of the D of I and Constitution, do.
Inn other words your expounding on the necessity of good government does not come with enough caveats.[/quote]
Push:
I must have read/misinterpreted what TB wrote.
I thought he was stating that Government was a “neccesity”…BUT…
Bad (“evil”) in some respects…better in others…and that Anarchy (or even VERY “limited” Governmnent) was wrought with a LOT of problems. (History has, and still does, prove that).
So a “neccessary Evil” is the conclusion I drew from the post. (TB can certainly speak for himself in order to clarify!)…
Mufasa[/quote]
Like I said, much of what he said was reasonable. But it was short what I deem to be the requisite caveats.
He also expresses the idea that government is there to bring “order and stability” to an ever increasingly complex society and that is Oh So True BUT…many of the “repair projects” that government is engaged in is the very result of past government meddling.
[/quote]
There is no order and stability in an increasingly complex world that can be ordained from above.
The free market is an emergent order that is inherently chaotic and if you want it to be as stable as it can be you need to push power as much downward as possible, i.e. to the individual level so that those individuals have room to manouver.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
TB, is you’d have been more along the lines of “government is a necessary evil” rather than Yea, yea, yea, government rocks, I could’ve hung in there with ya, man. because much of what you wrote was reasonable.
You just don’t seem to fear the encroachment on liberty the way I, and the preponderance of the signers of the D of I and Constitution, do.
Inn other words your expounding on the necessity of good government does not come with enough caveats.[/quote]
Push:
I must have read/misinterpreted what TB wrote.
I thought he was stating that Government was a “neccesity”…BUT…
Bad (“evil”) in some respects…better in others…and that Anarchy (or even VERY “limited” Governmnent) was wrought with a LOT of problems. (History has, and still does, prove that).
So a “neccessary Evil” is the conclusion I drew from the post. (TB can certainly speak for himself in order to clarify!)…
Mufasa[/quote]
Like I said, much of what he said was reasonable. But it was short what I deem to be the requisite caveats.
He also expresses the idea that government is there to bring “order and stability” to an ever increasingly complex society and that is Oh So True BUT…many of the “repair projects” that government is engaged in is the very result of past government meddling.
[/quote]
There is no order and stability in an increasingly complex world that can be ordained from above.
The free market is an emergent order that is inherently chaotic and if you want it to be as stable as it can be you need to push power as much downward as possible, i.e. to the individual level so that those individuals have room to manouver. [/quote]
…all of which has made Mogadishu such a garden spot for years…
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
There is no order and stability in an increasingly complex world that can be ordained from above.
The free market is an emergent order that is inherently chaotic and if you want it to be as stable as it can be you need to push power as much downward as possible, i.e. to the individual level so that those individuals have room to manouver. [/quote]
…all of which has made Mogadishu such a garden spot for years…[/quote]
I have to say that what struck me was that they do look healthier and happier than the fat people I see waddling out of the Walmart.
The pictures here are interesting:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/04/africa_mogadishu_life/html/1.stm
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
TB, is you’d have been more along the lines of “government is a necessary evil” rather than Yea, yea, yea, government rocks, I could’ve hung in there with ya, man. because much of what you wrote was reasonable.
You just don’t seem to fear the encroachment on liberty the way I, and the preponderance of the signers of the D of I and Constitution, do.
Inn other words your expounding on the necessity of good government does not come with enough caveats.[/quote]
Push:
I must have read/misinterpreted what TB wrote.
I thought he was stating that Government was a “neccesity”…BUT…
Bad (“evil”) in some respects…better in others…and that Anarchy (or even VERY “limited” Governmnent) was wrought with a LOT of problems. (History has, and still does, prove that).
So a “neccessary Evil” is the conclusion I drew from the post. (TB can certainly speak for himself in order to clarify!)…
Mufasa[/quote]
Like I said, much of what he said was reasonable. But it was short what I deem to be the requisite caveats.
He also expresses the idea that government is there to bring “order and stability” to an ever increasingly complex society and that is Oh So True BUT…many of the “repair projects” that government is engaged in is the very result of past government meddling.
[/quote]
There is no order and stability in an increasingly complex world that can be ordained from above.
The free market is an emergent order that is inherently chaotic and if you want it to be as stable as it can be you need to push power as much downward as possible, i.e. to the individual level so that those individuals have room to manouver. [/quote]
…all of which has made Mogadishu such a garden spot for years…[/quote]
Yeah, sure, because that is a fari comparison.
Compare them to the rest of Black Africa and tell me how bad they really have it.
This is also entirely irrelevant, because it changes zilch, nada, niente that you simply cannot do any meaningful planning in an ever more complex world.
You cant go faster than light speed?
Mogadishu!
WTF?
[quote]Alpha F wrote:
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
There is no order and stability in an increasingly complex world that can be ordained from above.
The free market is an emergent order that is inherently chaotic and if you want it to be as stable as it can be you need to push power as much downward as possible, i.e. to the individual level so that those individuals have room to manouver. [/quote]
…all of which has made Mogadishu such a garden spot for years…[/quote]
I have to say that what struck me was that they do look healthier and happier than the fat people I see waddling out of the Walmart.
The pictures here are interesting:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/04/africa_mogadishu_life/html/1.stm
[/quote]
As I was saying…if you care to read the accompanying text…
“As Somalia awaits a new government which its people hope will restore stability after years of anarchy…”
These happy faces are captured after a government has been “cruelly imposed on them, as organized violence, or at the point of a gun” (the rot as orion would have it).
Nope, I agree with tb…government is a good thing–among other good things–especially when one has witnessed people suffering by its absence.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
TB, is you’d have been more along the lines of “government is a necessary evil” rather than Yea, yea, yea, government rocks, I could’ve hung in there with ya, man. because much of what you wrote was reasonable.
You just don’t seem to fear the encroachment on liberty the way I, and the preponderance of the signers of the D of I and Constitution, do.
Inn other words your expounding on the necessity of good government does not come with enough caveats.[/quote]
Push:
I must have read/misinterpreted what TB wrote.
I thought he was stating that Government was a “neccesity”…BUT…
Bad (“evil”) in some respects…better in others…and that Anarchy (or even VERY “limited” Governmnent) was wrought with a LOT of problems. (History has, and still does, prove that).
So a “neccessary Evil” is the conclusion I drew from the post. (TB can certainly speak for himself in order to clarify!)…
Mufasa[/quote]
Like I said, much of what he said was reasonable. But it was short what I deem to be the requisite caveats.
He also expresses the idea that government is there to bring “order and stability” to an ever increasingly complex society and that is Oh So True BUT…many of the “repair projects” that government is engaged in is the very result of past government meddling.
[/quote]
There is no order and stability in an increasingly complex world that can be ordained from above.
The free market is an emergent order that is inherently chaotic and if you want it to be as stable as it can be you need to push power as much downward as possible, i.e. to the individual level so that those individuals have room to manouver. [/quote]
…all of which has made Mogadishu such a garden spot for years…[/quote]
Yeah, sure, because that is a fari comparison.
Compare them to the rest of Black Africa and tell me how bad they really have it.
This is also entirely irrelevant, because it changes zilch, nada, niente that you simply cannot do any meaningful planning in an ever more complex world.
You cant go faster than light speed?
Mogadishu!
WTF?[/quote]
Then you will be moving there shortly, since it offers incrementally more freedoms than does lower Austria? Good…I will pack your picnic basket.