Land Of The Free?
- Thread starter WORTHYWISH
- Start date
So do you think that the wealthy all were born into those circumstances? If I ascend into the wealthy by merit and ability my money is safe, but my inherited neighbor isn't.
How does that work exactly?
It works all around you. Not even the conservatives at Cato could deny it. Open your eyes.
Don't dodge.
Your American Indian Reservation style government has been in place for hundreds of years. That is the failure you are advocating for.
By redistributing the fruits of a free society back into the system. Freedom must be fed.
Of course most wealthy come from an advantaged back ground. I'm opening the chance to be wealthy to more people by raising the mean background circumstances for the lower classes. Let those with merit rise.
I am still waiting for your answer to my question.
And yes, a redistributive government is successful. Especially when it is small and rooted in Capitalism.
What you are describing something out of a Vonnegut novel.
I've been in the 1% twice in my 42 years. I hope to be there again.
You would advocate for me never to return. That's oppression, not freedom.
That's all we libs ever advocate, governments just like they have in Switzerland, Denmark or Canada. You know, where they are free.
Not at all, return there as often as you are able. I'm just trying to help by making that achievement a repeatable challenge.
Yes it is. You have been arguing a silly red herring caste system point this whole time. Ive been using the socialist nations Cato is in love with as my benchmark.
LOL.
I tried to copy/paste all of the Socialist nations that have collapsed in the last 200 years.
Rival's shot me an error saying that I had to keep my post character count under 1000.
When was Switzerland founded. There is good socialist policy and bad. I'm only advocating for the sort Denmark and the rest of the Cato free nations have pioneered for us.
Please do if you can. That's clearly not my position and you took it to be you were in error.
The yes was in reference to your last sentence. The notion that I would favor an assigned caste system was assumed to be nincompoopish hyperbole but perhaps I gave you too much credit as a reasonable man. In any event, let me clarify. I advocate for similar pro middle class policies already enacted in the nations that Cato says are the most free. So empirically, my policy positions can't be assailed on the freedom front. You will need to find new reasons to oppose them.
You sounds like LC telling us all we continually misunderstand him.
I know you spend a lot of time on here telling us how to think, what to believe, what to accept.
I think it was a pretty reasonable leap for me to make to assume you wanted to dictate to us what we should earn as well.
Regardless. The original topic was about freedom. Your system is built on constraints. Constraints don't enable freedom for anyone not pre-determined to be free.
I thought Strumm diagnosed your thought process pretty well.
The real would often disagrees with strum and if you're tossing your lot in there I'll just point to the Cato list as my empirical proof of concept. I got to say it's pretty satisfying when even your opposition has to admit your ideas are intrinsically correct. I've enjoyed this topic.
I don't want to get into a war of Links showing "empirical evidence" and counter evidence. You know both sides have it.
I already told you I couldn't post the list of failed attempts at your Utopia.
I'm afraid we'll bring down the Rivals server.
It's pretty clear the other way around. Socialism has lead to societies with an enormous underclass and a small ruling elite. US was built on capitalism and became the worlds premiere nation before it implemented any wealth redistribution. Hong Kong became what it is through pure capitalism. History does not support your argument at all. It directly refutes it.
There is no shortage of bad policy under any system you might pick. Which is why good policy is all that matters. And when you have a conservative libertarian group like Cato telling you that the most free societies follow a raft of good socialist policies, the message should be clear. Simply adapt their good socialist policies. This knee jerk reaction to socialism is ridiculous. You don't see me inditing capitalism for all the failures it has racked up over the centuries because I'm reasonable enough to know that there are good capitalists policies and bad. I only ask the same reasonable level courtesy.
Switzerland, Denmark, Canada; you were saying? And you might be surprised to find out Hong Kong has a more generous social safety net than the rest of China. Perception is not reality.
http://hongkong.angloinfo.com/information/money/social-security/
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There is no knee-jerk reaction.
There are hundreds of years and hundreds of failed countries in the population data.
And yet the most free nations are socialist, even cons think so. Thats going to be a nagging burr under your saddle for some time.
The Soviet Union, The current former Soviet States, Easter Europe, Mediterranean European countries, all of Eastern Africa, Southeast Asia, Most of South America, All American Indian Reservations...
You were saying?
It might work if it was the Country of Massachusetts, and the Country of Illinois. Those are smaller concentrations of government activity that better serve the direct community. The USA is 50 small countries pretending to be one big Socialist country that uses Capitalism and IT DOESN'T F*CKING WORK!
Going by ones interpretation of what is fair and ignoring another individuals interpretation of what is fair, is hardly fair.
Capitalism is why we are who we are. Without it, we wouldn't have taken over the world in the time we did. Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Ford, etc.,..
Capitalism is your hero here Natural. Perhaps you should show your respect to it.
Yep, I love capitalism. I just want an open relationship so I can get with socialism when Capitalism has a headache. You know we have both now right? So do all those nations ahead of us on the CATO (libertarian) list. They just mix a bit more socialism into their economies in smart ways making their citizens more free apparently. So let's get free too, free to enjoy both. Socialism is your hero too AT, start respecting it.
Well that's fine and all, I don't agree at all, but it's your opinion. I don't see our freedoms expanding as our social programs do....
Again, how does Socialism solve the Oligarchy problem? As long as they exist, the balance will never happen.
I'm not sure the oligarchy problem is socialism's main target, capitalism's either I would point out. Participation in the system solves the oligarchy problem To that end socialism gets more people with skin in the game and socializing campaigns mean the candidates work for the taxpayer rather than the oligarchs. All around, socialism certainly does more to address your concerns than capitalism ever will. But a little utilitarianism is what we really need, just ask Australia.
