James Carville: 55% of voters think Obama is a Socialist

[BostonPirate]

An aside:

Is JB3 Droid in Drag?

he changed his name a few weeks ago, but since I have PM'ed him a few times, he is stuck in my head as droid.

sorry for the confusion, I'll try to use his new name!

 

[altlover85]

I thought you were calling him a droid. I thought it was slightly harsh, but figured whatever.

 

[BostonPirate]

I thought you were calling him a droid. I thought it was slightly harsh, but figured whatever.

no slight intended... we dis agree on most any political issue you can think of but he is a nice guy to talk to in PM when the political thing is not happening. He's kinda cute too....lol

but better get back on topic....

 

[BostonPirate]

Are you saying inspection of food and drugs was just fine before the government got in that business? You are aware of The Jungle, right?

Maybe we could live without none of these government services in a smaller, much less unwieldy society, but the U.S. is far too large, bureaucratic, and diverse at this point. There's a dwindling sense of community. People aren't nearly as civically active as they once were. Expecting people to identify their community's own needs and redress these problems themselves is a tall order, one that I think couldn't be fulfilled.

Well we at least agree upon that.

well theres no nice way to say it... its just looney to think you can get rid of all these government services and still have a functional society... in spite of the FDA we still have contaminated foods getting into the groceries.

and if we don't have a shared water system that we all pay for the entire nation would burn to the ground after we all die of thirst.

The idea that we can trust big business to consider the people over the bottom line profit is the the type of thinking that brought us the BP oilspill. It's what brought us companies selling stocks they knew would go belly up. and took insurance on them to double the profit... one from the sucker that bought the stock and the other from the insurance company that was suckered into covering the crap.

the list just goes on and on

Modern society cannot be undone. We have to work with what we have. I am open to scrapping an old law instead of ammending one when it comes to regulation and oversight, but It is just not realistic to say that you can get rid of all of these parts of the gov't.

its the classic sharon angle arguement that has marginalized her in a race that she should be winning.

Americans do not want to give up their comforts and protections. Unfortunately they also don;t want to pay for them.

 

[Kulindahr]

Are you saying inspection of food and drugs was just fine before the government got in that business? You are aware of The Jungle, right?

Maybe we could live without none of these government services in a smaller, much less unwieldy society, but the U.S. is far too large, bureaucratic, and diverse at this point. There's a dwindling sense of community. People aren't nearly as civically active as they once were. Expecting people to identify their community's own needs and redress these problems themselves is a tall order, one that I think couldn't be fulfilled.

Well we at least agree upon that.

Just because something was a mess before the government got involved doesn't mean that government is needed or is the best way to handle it.

The only reason we couldn't just hand over these functions to private entities overnight is because people have been trained to be dependent on government, a process the liberals have been driving enthusiastically.

The model for many things the government does but doesn't need to is Underwriters Laboratories, which was in the business of regulating quality in the private sector before the government thought of it. They did so well that it became impossible to buy something in areas they covered that didn't have the UL stamp on it, because they did such a good job no one trusted anything without their stamp of approval.

 

[Kulindahr]

well theres no nice way to say it... its just looney to think you can get rid of all these government services and still have a functional society... in spite of the FDA we still have contaminated foods getting into the groceries.

and if we don't have a shared water system that we all pay for the entire nation would burn to the ground after we all die of thirst.

You're making an argument that's akin to saying that if Roto-Rooter went out of business, there'd be no one to unclog our sewers.

BTW, thanks to the FDA, we have thousands of people dying every year because there's care they're not allowed to get.

The idea that we can trust big business to consider the people over the bottom line profit is the the type of thinking that brought us the BP oilspill. It's what brought us companies selling stocks they knew would go belly up. and took insurance on them to double the profit... one from the sucker that bought the stock and the other from the insurance company that was suckered into covering the crap.

Who's talking about trusting big business???

Modern society cannot be undone. We have to work with what we have. I am open to scrapping an old law instead of ammending one when it comes to regulation and oversight, but It is just not realistic to say that you can get rid of all of these parts of the gov't.

That's not so. To maintain that we need all those things to be done by the government is to approve of a mindset that demands that others do things for us -- like this:

Americans do not want to give up their comforts and protections. Unfortunately they also don't want to pay for them.

 

[BostonPirate]

I think that it's bigness that demands government. When you don't know everyone personally, the corporation and consumer become unrecognizable faces in the crowd to each other, the normal (dare I say "natural") social imperatives that would keep people behaving properly break down. May I remind that most of human history was spent in small, roving groups in which government was no more necessary than trying to swindle or disregarding the safety of your fellow tribespeople was advisable.

I think governmentlessness could be handled by people living under civilized conditions, only if communities and trade circles were very small. At least very small compared to what we're used to.

exactly

society has become complex and the gov't has evolved to meet that complexity. this is the flexibility of the american system. Homeland security was not considered an issue because we have two seas and two allies on all four sides.... but technology made an attack from across the globe posible. the complexity of the 9-11 attacks was met with the complexity of the DHS.

when and if the threat of global terrorism subsides, that department can either shrink in size or be eliminated entirely.

Government evolution has to match societal evolution or we as individuals become less safe.

 

[Kulindahr]

I think that it's bigness that demands government. When you don't know everyone personally, the corporation and consumer become unrecognizable faces in the crowd to each other, the normal (dare I say "natural") social imperatives that would keep people behaving properly break down. May I remind that most of human history was spent in small, roving groups in which government was no more necessary than trying to swindle or disregarding the safety of your fellow tribespeople was advisable.

I think governmentlessness could be handled by people living under civilized conditions, only if communities and trade circles were very small. At least very small compared to what we're used to.

Bigness demands governance, not government. UL carries out a form of governance; the Red Cross another; the AMA another.

We don't have to put everything into the hands of one single organizational behemoth.

 

[Kulindahr]

Government evolution has to match societal evolution or we as individuals become less safe.

When government does things for which government is not needed, we as individuals become less safe.

 

[BostonPirate]

When government does things for which government is not needed, we as individuals become less safe.

I would agree

thats why we live in a republic... so those we entrust with authority can make decsions for the whole of us.

And that is how we got to here

hmmm......

that isn't as comforting as it ought to be....lol

 

[bankside]

for you perhaps, but your opinion is not universal or even common.

people want this done for them. they expect it.

I don't agree with you on this point. People don't "want it done for them." which implies a certain kind of lazy sense of self-entitlement. That is certainly true for a few, but we owe our government services to the vast bulk of people who lived without them in the past. They've thought about it, and realised that having a government do X Y or Zed ought to be the most efficient means of accomplishing a given goal.

Even Kulindahr himself admits that his Libertarian Pixie Dust* approach would "take a little more work." in other words, it is less efficient and more wasteful of resources to have something other than government perform certain social functions.

There is a reason I don't build my own highways. There is a reason as a consumer that I don't want to hire a private company to build my highways: government is more efficient at owning, building and maintaining public infrastructure than any private-sector or individual trying to approximate public infrastructure with their own disconnected "self-sufficient" approach. Self-inefficient is more like it.

*Libertarian Pixie Dust:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDv4sYwjO0[/ame]

 

[Kulindahr]

I don't agree with you on this point. People don't "want it done for them." which implies a certain kind of lazy sense of self-entitlement. That is certainly true for a few, but we owe our government services to the vast bulk of people who lived without them in the past. They've thought about it, and realised that having a government do X Y or Zed ought to be the most efficient means of accomplishing a given goal.

"Most efficient"? Most efficient method of requiring everyone else to conform, maybe, but not necessarily the most efficient way to do things. Having things done by government is often just the path of least resistance, not the path to the best job.

Even Kulindahr himself admits that his Libertarian Pixie Dust* approach would "take a little more work." in other words, it is less efficient and more wasteful of resources to have something other than government perform certain social functions.

Nice twist of my words. It would take a little more work to get the things I indicated switched over to private functions than some other things, which could just be handed over. Once switched, they'd be more efficient because they'd actually be accountable.

There is a reason I don't build my own highways. There is a reason as a consumer that I don't want to hire a private company to build my highways: government is more efficient at owning, building and maintaining public infrastructure than any private-sector or individual trying to approximate public infrastructure with their own disconnected "self-sufficient" approach. Self-inefficient is more like it.

You don't build your own highways because you don't know how.
Private companies don't build highways because the government won't let them -- not because it would be less efficient. A group of businessmen here in Oregon wanted to build a highway to connect two areas more directly; it would have moved goods more efficiently, benefiting both customers and the environment. But the government wanted to maintain its monopoly on the building of roads (which, BTW, is unconstitutional).

Government does all services less efficiently, because they respond to political forces, not market information. The market furnishes information about what's really needed, not about who has the most influence to get something done for their county or district.


edit: Somalia has nothing to do with libertarianism.

 

[Kulindahr]

I would agree

thats why we live in a republic... so those we entrust with authority can make decsions for the whole of us.

And that is how we got to here

hmmm......

that isn't as comforting as it ought to be....lol

If you agree, then you should be willing to concede that our government as presently structured makes us less safe -- it does a great many things government isn't needed for.

 

[bankside]

You don't build your own highways because you don't know how.
Private companies don't build highways because the government won't let them -- not because it would be less efficient. A group of businessmen here in Oregon wanted to build a highway to connect two areas more directly; it would have moved goods more efficiently, benefiting both customers and the environment. But the government wanted to maintain its monopoly on the building of roads (which, BTW, is unconstitutional).

Nice twist of my words. What I said was I as a consumer would not provide a market for privately built highways. I'm talking about consumer choice here. The private sector isn't any good at it, and there are a multitude of examples. London Underground is one. The Edmonton ring road is another. Our Provincial government wanted to give the appearance of not borrowing money, so they hired a private company to build the road instead through a rent-to-own contract which will still see them owing money over a 35 year period, in contractual payments rather than. The company has done nothing but build sub-spec bridges, shoddy paving, and generally has cut costs in every way within the narrow letter of their agreement for the purpose of maximising their profit margins.

I don't want to drive on a road where the owner/operator has those incentives. Responding to "political pressure" would frankly have given me a better road to drive on, and I value that as a consumer. And as far as "market signals" go, I can hardly take my business to another ring road, can I? Large infrastructure projects like this are by their nature monopolies, and there is no reason not to put those in the hands of the people.

If you wish to dismiss this example because of the eventual ownership role of the government making it not a "pure" private sector case, there are other examples which were truly privately owned and paid by tolls rather than contractual payments which were also judged unsatisfactory. A highway north of Toronto comes to mind.

Government does all services less efficiently, because they respond to political forces, not market information. The market furnishes information about what's really needed, not about who has the most influence to get something done for their county or district.


edit: Somalia has nothing to do with libertarianism.

Phooey.

(I think that made my point.)

 

[Kulindahr]

Nice twist of my words. What I said was I as a consumer would not provide a market for privately built highways. I'm talking about consumer choice here. The private sector isn't any good at it, and there are a multitude of examples. London Underground is one. The Edmonton ring road is another. Our Provincial government wanted to give the appearance of not borrowing money, so they hired a private company to build the road instead through a rent-to-own contract which will still see them owing money over a 35 year period, in contractual payments rather than. The company has done nothing but build sub-spec bridges, shoddy paving, and generally has cut costs in every way within the narrow letter of their agreement for the purpose of maximising their profit margins.

I don't want to drive on a road where the owner/operator has those incentives. Responding to "political pressure" would frankly have given me a better road to drive on, and I value that as a consumer. And as far as "market signals" go, I can hardly take my business to another ring road, can I? Large infrastructure projects like this are by their nature monopolies, and there is no reason not to put those in the hands of the people.

If you wish to dismiss this example because of the eventual ownership role of the government making it not a "pure" private sector case, there are other examples which were truly privately owned and paid by tolls rather than contractual payments which were also judged unsatisfactory. A highway north of Toronto comes to mind.

There are plenty of examples of highways and other infrastructure built privately which did quite well, and were run better than government ones. Just because some screw up doesn't mean government should have a monopoly. That monopoly means they can do as they please and not provide what is needed, and deny others the opportunity to do what is wanted by business, tourists, and citizens, as in the highway in Oregon to which I referred.

Several highway and bridge projects in this area were built and run by private operators on contract with the government to do so until the projects were paid for by tolls; the two I use fairly often were cared for better under private hands, because they were accountable. How Canada manages to leave private business unaccountable I won't try to discover, but the problem is not that those things were done privately, but that there was no accountability. That made them just like government projects: unless huge numbers of people or some with 'pull' complain, the government doesn't care. That's why US 101 along this stretch of the coast was allowed to deteriorate to a condition where the local logging roads were a smoother, safer drive.

The proper place of government in infrastructure is to see to it that things are built where private business wouldn't bother, e.g. the rural electrification efforts a couple of generations ago. It isn't in being a monopoly getting in the way of doing things efficiently.

Just as an example of that, when a logging company here is working on its own main road, a paving crew is a little more than half the size and costs less than half what the government crew doing an identical job does. As another... when a telephone company is working on a junction, I see three workers; when the government is doing the same job on its own facilities, I see seven. Another: when I put in carpet in an apartment complex, two of us and a gofer sufficed; it went in fast and clean and effectively; when I watched a government crew doing the same thing in offices, they had five workers, a supervisor, and a gofer or two -- and took more than twice as long to do things.


BTW, no, you can't go to another ring road. But market signals will tell you whether there even needs to be another ring road -- instead of, as in Portland, here, politicians deciding that what the public "ought" to be doing is riding mass transit, so they deliberately leave highways unimproved, and instead spend the transportation money on systems that cost three to five times per passenger what the highways the public wanted would, and have to be subsidized at a high rate as well -- and meanwhile, traffic jams are worse than before, wasting time and fuel and increasing air pollution.

It's still cheaper, more convenient, and safer for me to drive all the way into downtown Portland for some event than to park and ride. Frequently it's even faster. And that illustrates the difference between political forces and market forces for information.

 

[Kulindahr]

My esteemed colleague, there's a flip side to that argument.

Let's take the example of Moody's. Untouched by scandal for years, if not decades, it stood as an example of private enterprise policing itself in a credible, reliable way.

The last year or so, it laid an egg, and now its very existence is in question.

That's not the flip side, it's the same side: accountability at work.

In a government agency, the response would have been denials, cover-up, shuffling the people responsible, and then going on just the same.

 

[Kulindahr]

On a personal level:

thanks to the wonderful world of government regulation so many of you love, I may soon be homeless. In a free country, however, I'd already have parked my trailer on the land of one of several people who were willing to have me there in return for beating back the wilderness that has encroached on their landscaping.

Regulations are born of lofty ideals, but serve to keep people poor, drive jobs overseas, increase homelessness and crime, and more. They stifle creativity and generosity and foster antagonism. And they make the word a nice place for the wealthy, but a trap for the poor.

 

[BostonPirate]

On a personal level:

thanks to the wonderful world of government regulation so many of you love, I may soon be homeless. In a free country, however, I'd already have parked my trailer on the land of one of several people who were willing to have me there in return for beating back the wilderness that has encroached on their landscaping.

Regulations are born of lofty ideals, but serve to keep people poor, drive jobs overseas, increase homelessness and crime, and more. They stifle creativity and generosity and foster antagonism. And they make the word a nice place for the wealthy, but a trap for the poor.

they also help some poor people, although your homelesness issue concerns me as I have developed a fondness for you.

not all regs are good, but not all are bad either.

we do not live in an absolute or abstract world... there are mixes and surprises. some things dont work and others do.

 

[Kulindahr]

they also help some poor people, although your homelesness issue concerns me as I have developed a fondness for you.

not all regs are good, but not all are bad either.

we do not live in an absolute or abstract world... there are mixes and surprises. some things dont work and others do.

I have yet to meet any poor people that these regulations help. They may help middle class folks, but mostly, despite the justification, they're so the wussy sensibilities of the rich aren't offended.

They create homelessness and increase poverty, and promote ill-health by forcing people to live in buildings that haven't been condemned because the owners have PTB friends. Oh, and they help keep the jails full, because when someone finally can manage to dance through the regulations and live in a cheap trailer, the annual fees are more than the property taxes on a $200k house... and when someone can't pay, they get evicted, the government seizes their property, and since the property (trailer) wasn't off the landlord's real estate by the rent-due deadline, they go to jail for trespassing.

That's how government "cares for" the poor: they generate more poor, they keep them poor, they throw them in jail for being poor.

 

[Kulindahr]

On the topic of regulation, a path in the middle is surely the most prudent course of action.

What I take umbrage at is the reckless discarding of regulation in the financial markets, which, after all, concerns an intangible product. This deregulation I believe is at the core of our economic collapse.

Kulindahr, I'm genuinely sorry to hear about your predicament. If I were in a better position myself, this commie bastard would be pleased to do something to help, if he could. We've not often agreed on political matters, but you've become one of my most esteemed colleagues.

I hope your plan to be a live-in gardener works out for you.

If I could find a county without all the regulations!

One of the nicest places I've ever visited was in northern Washington, not far from Canada. They had no zoning, no building codes -- and as a result, they had an incredibly lovely collection of houses and shops and businesses, all tucked where their owners decided. I can't even afford to get there..... but if I could, I bet I could find someone who take on a live-in "landscape remodeler".