Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2007 1:26 pm Post subject: Re: Ron Paul is questioning Bernanke
Dems--tax and spend
repugs--borrow and spend.
The dems generally have the onerous job of cleaning up the fiscal mess the repugs create, and then get labelled big spenders. There's a whole lot of propaganda out there. Both parties suck, but the repugs create the greatest vacuum when it comes to fiscal honesty and general morality.
Actually, it's probably best to use the term, neo-conservative, rather than repuglican, and all the repugs from Reagan on, fit that bill. Traditional repugs are conservative in the true sense. The repugs have become radical militarists corporatists, and that, too, ramped up under Reagan
Joined: Aug 11, 2005 Posts: 253 Location: Vancouver, BC
Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2007 1:49 pm Post subject: Re: Ron Paul is questioning Bernanke
Quote:
and spend it the way the see fit, be it for healthcare or otherwise.
And what do you do when a family decides not to spend it on healthcare and their baby gets sick? Do you deny them access to any medical intervention and watch a baby die that could easily have been saved?
Thats the question of complete free spending. Unfortunately we have ALOT of stupid ppl out there. If we leave them to suffer the consequences of their stupid actions to die/starve/etc bc they wasted their money at VTMs or such, then we have a DESPERATE society. Desperate ppl will do desperate things...then we have an unsafe and unstable society.
I'm Canada so I never heard of Paul before...but I'm very supportive of abolishing NAFTA. It has alot of negative impacts for Canadians. I also don't see a problem with the UN & NATO stand - I've never seen the benefit of those organizations. Where are they when all this "war on terrorism" stuff is going on? What about Rowanda? What WTO? They seem useless...but maybe I just don't hear about the value of them...?
Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2007 6:14 pm Post subject: Re: Ron Paul is questioning Bernanke
FairMaiden wrote:
And what do you do when a family decides not to spend it on healthcare and their baby gets sick? Do you deny them access to any medical intervention and watch a baby die that could easily have been saved?
Depends how much saving the baby costs. Suppose only creating a Manhattan style project to discover a cure we could save the baby. Would you be justified in heavily taxing the entire country to save the baby? Now you have reduced the resources with which the rest of the population takes care of *their* babies. Clearly a ridiculous example, but it highlights the unseen costs of your system, and you are talking about more than one baby. You are talking about every baby in fact. Economics is the study of the seen and the unseen. You see the baby benefit. You don't see the ramifications. Once people understand that they are not responsible for caring for their own children, you have increased the incentives to have children that otherwise could not be afforded. Now you'll have to increase taxes to care for the increased number of children. And you have reduced the incentive to save for medical emergencies. Look at the US mess of the elderly who are now dependent upon social security. Why save for your aged years when the government will take care of you? And yet how much more difficult is it for young people to save for theirs when they are forced to pay the onerous tax? Do you really want a society dependent upon the government for health care, for elder care, for anything, for everything? One day it will dawn on you that your government has become a totalitarian regime. It is wrong to steal from a man even if for a purpose that you feel is for the betterment of society. You don't have perfect knowledge. Perhaps HIS baby is sick. Societies are built upon the proscription of violence. And yet that is precisely what you do when you threaten someone with violent physical arrest and imprisonment if they fail to fork over their tax money. Government is the negation of freedom. Freedom IS self reliance. You assume that a society willing to tax itself for the supposed good of the babies is also a society that would not give to charities were they to be richer by the amount you take? A free society is wealthy and generous. The use or threat of physical violence, which is what all government action ultimately is, can only be morally applied in the prevention of one citizen violating the liberties of another. "Wear your seat belt for your own good or else we will hurt you" is morally wrong. A man's life is is own and he must bear the consequences of his actions.
Joined: Oct 27, 2004 Posts: 221 Location: Queensland, Australia
Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 8:55 pm Post subject: Re: Ron Paul is questioning Bernanke
Fairmaiden,
In reference to
Quote:
"I also don't see a problem with the UN & NATO stand - I've never seen the benefit of those organizations. Where are they when all this "war on terrorism" stuff is going on? What about Rowanda? What WTO? They seem useless...but maybe I just don't hear about the value of them...?"
First the 'war on terror stuff', I hope you don't mean Iraq, Iraq was opposed by most of the UN and NATO, those that have joined the coalition did so for the bribes. Some colition members sent single combatants and some didn't even do that. As to the actual war on terror, of the two current major wars, that would be in Afghanistan, where you will find many NATO troops, picking up the slack as americans get pulled out to go into Iraq.
Rwanda and the UN - Er first of all, the 260 UN personnel on the ground when the massacres began, did save between 20-30 000 people directly and lost 10 plus personnel. Thank the Dutch, Canadian and Ghanaian peace keepers and observers for that. Seeing you are in Canada and may be canadian maybe you should know a little bit about Canada's important roles around the world as peace keepers.
Secondly - the mission was continuously being screwed with by France and the US in the security council. Even after the Genocide was effectively over France was pushing to stop the rebels that had intervened and the US did not want an official determination of genocide. It all had to do with leftover Cold war politics and French colonial influence. There was even a concerted vatican push for non intervention, what with the strongly catholic radical Hutu power base and all.
Thirdly - the UN is not a government, they have no standing army, and almost no authority, they are effectively a massive debating forum that can occasionally offer advice ( Eg world over popopulation summit advised numerous things but was mucked around by the US when the US effectively said "abstinence only." It was a rare amalgam of US, Vatican and Islamic power.) . They have almost no enforcement powers. If you want to lay blame at their door, maybe you should push that they should have some power and authority.
Fourthly - it is debatable if there was a UN mandate for any action until after the Genocide had begun as the official government in Rwanda was saying it was all internal security, anti rebel, civil war action. No-one else was pushing for intervention until after it began, the worst was over in weeks and it even took the US a while to mobilise against the Taliban. The moment (well in fact the day of) the declaration of a genocide, the UN requested member nation intervention. They got authorisation but little in the way of pledges of troops or equipment. For example the US was willing to lend some 50 old APC's on direct request but wanted pre payment of a transport fee of $6.5 million. By the time the members came up with the goods the tutsi Rebels had effectively won the civil war, stopping the genocide.
Fifthly - After the war/genocide the UN has assisted with reconstruction and refugee support and was left with the role of trying to clean up the mess which has also seen wars break out in the Congo and Burundi as a result. The Rwandan genocide trials were carried out with UN support. This saw the push for the creation of the International Criminal Court as part of the international court of Justice. This was because of the obvious need for bodies for these purposes at a super governmental level to stop the stupid government level intervention.
Sixthly the UN through numerous authorities and programs helps millions and probably billions of people. Probably not too many in Canada as not that many need help. The UN food programs, WHO (elimination of small pox has probably saved 100's of millions alone), Agriculture programs, Unicef etc the list goes on. Don't believe that the UN does nothing, it does clean up and social work and acts as a talking place for the world while having little power. You could say that they are stronger than the original US federal Government in 1780-90 period in effects but also have no income and enforcement powers.
WTO - Not UN, and has done many things for trade which is all they are for. They are again a debating society for trade issues with almost no power. How exactly are they going to help in Rwanda or in the 'War on terror'?
Nato - Hmmm a military pact to defend europe (which at the time of Rwanda was seeing little purpose and was yet to be restructured for peacekeeping). Well seeing as europe was defended; I'd say it has met it's goals handily, since it's inception.
What do you actually want? It sounds like you want a serious world government structure that can control all these situations and stop bad things. This thing you want doesn't exist and may take 100's of years to develop if at all. In fact almost every international Governing organisation of any form has no power because governments at the national level refuse to give it up. It all has to do with protecting ones own little nationalistic group from others.
I find it interesting that you even lump NAFTA into your dislike list because "It has alot of negative impacts for Canadians", I am fairly certain it has numerous good effects as well and I believe it has done what it was meant to do. That is it was meant to stabalise and enrich North America. This it has done, just probably not for you or 98% of north america directly, but it has generated more profits for the top 2%. Maybe what you actually want is some form of anti corporate, class conflict thing? You know if for example Nafta managed a 20 percent gain economically across america and the Economic assets are 95% owned by the top 2% then that leaves only a (5% of 20% or 1% after the maths) 1% gain for the other 98% of americans. So maybe you don't notice your probable 1 % gain as much as you notice the publicised problems.
Anyway thats enough of an internationalist, humanist, anti-jingo nationalistic rant.
Joined: Mar 09, 2007 Posts: 226 Location: No. Calif.
Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 10:05 pm Post subject: Re: Ron Paul is questioning Bernanke
mattduke, your demonstration of libertarian thinking is precisely why Ron Paul is considered a bit wacko. His voting record seems actually very good to me. It is just when you apply all these principles of ultimate individual freedom, that they don't make sense. We have a communal society in many ways. The human species suceeded because of communal behavior. The worst possible PO outcome is the total breakdown of society.
Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 11:27 pm Post subject: Re: Ron Paul is questioning Bernanke
jedinvest wrote:
mattduke, your demonstration of libertarian thinking is precisely why Ron Paul is considered a bit wacko. His voting record seems actually very good to me. It is just when you apply all these principles of ultimate individual freedom, that they don't make sense. We have a communal society in many ways. The human species suceeded because of communal behavior. The worst possible PO outcome is the total breakdown of society.
I appreciate your thoughts. Some good ideas are not obvious at first. Matter warps space and time. To me, community is helping each other. But applying the taser violence of the government police force is the opposite of community. To me these wacko ideas are just "freedom 101". These wacko principles are precisely the ones enshrined in the constitution. The US consitution really is a radical document. I suggest reading it again for the first time.
Last edited by mattduke on Sat Nov 10, 2007 11:52 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Jun 18, 2005 Posts: 3980 Location: In a van down by the river
Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 11:58 pm Post subject: Re: Ron Paul is questioning Bernanke
.
What do we have now?
Corporations right now get together and literally write and pass the legislation they want through congress and the Senate. Their lobbies have corrupted the whole government all they have to do is buy off a few congressmen and senators and then their law becomes the law in all the 50 states. The best example is the changes to bankruptcy laws that the banks and credit card companies got through congress.
The way to limit them is to make them pay attention to the laws of each individual state. That makes their lives a lot more difficult.
What we have now is the the concentration of power with a very few that overrides the power of the many groups.
Corporations now have national power their next step is multi national.
Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 12:03 am Post subject: Re: Ron Paul is questioning Bernanke
Eli wrote:
There is a big but in there.
What do we have now?
Corporations right now get together and literally write and pass the legislation they want through congress and the Senate. Their lobbies have corrupted the whole government all they have to do is buy off a few congressmen and senators and then their law becomes the law in all the 50 states. The best example is the changes to bankruptcy laws that the banks and credit card companies got through congress.
The way to limit them is to make them pay attention to the laws of each individual state. That makes their lives a lot more difficult.
What we have now is the the concentration of power with a very few that overrides the power of the many groups.
If corporations can distort the political process, at the national level, think what they can do at the state level! Your sentiments are wonderful, and I am totally sympatico with you, but doubt David will be able to smite Goliath, on a day to day basis, at the state level.
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