When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before. - Mae West

Dexter · Worst Poster of Always

RE: So stupid old conserv. republican at work

SlashXLA · Senior Member

It takes a while for a bubble to grow before it bursts.

Andy001 · Spaghetti

You know what Dexter? You're aaaalright.

Andy001 · Spaghetti

MorisUkunRasik wrote: A truly free market can and will fix itself, even if that means people will lose their jobs or businesses.

Priceless.

Jason · Only in cartoons

People will lose their jobs/businesses temporarily as the market redesigns itself to be better than it was before.

Also, the Bush administration's economic policy, if it has one, is an abysmal failure even if this crisis has its roots in Clinton-era politics (which in no way suggests Bill Clinton's politics are primarily responsible for the present situation).

Slash, are you seriously saying that two recessions under the same president is entirely the responsibility of the previous president?

Andy001 · Spaghetti

How do you 'temporarily' lose your business?

Jason · Only in cartoons

You a) make another one or b) find another occupation.

Don't get me wrong -- recovery after an economic catastrophe of this scale will be painful for a lot of people who weren't even responsible for the catastrophe. However, the mismanagement that caused this crisis, from what I understand of it, is a product of distorted incentives put in place by state intervention. The fact that these interventions coincided with deregulation in other fields could be just that -- a coincidence.

Andy001 · Spaghetti

Or it could not be.

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

Or this mess could have been caused by leprechauns conspiring with unicorns.

Jason · Only in cartoons

Let's postpone any broad-based conclusions about the entire idea of a free market before we decide what the actual cause was, shall we?

DEATHPIGGIE · I'm fat and nobody likes me

We all know America is a laissez-faire society, and George Bush regularly considers the writings of Ludwig Von Mises

Jason · Only in cartoons

When politicians constantly remark on how they're in favor of free markets, how they want markets to be free, how, after you've given them your voice and they've assumed ultimate power over your life, they'll make the markets free.... it makes it very difficult to tell people free markets work. Whatever the politicians are doing, it isn't working.

However, it becomes difficult to convince people that the markets aren't free. It draws forth analogies between laissez-faire and communism, that is "sounds good in theory" and that its proponents always suggest that "Sure, this doesn't work, but it's not REALLY communism/laissez-faire... When we really get to communism/laissez-faire, society will work and everything will be okay."

Sure, these aren't good arguments, but that doesn't matter for most people. I almost feel like we need another word to use in favor of our theory, one that bureaucrats and plutocrats haven't stolen and abused for their own purposes.

DEATHPIGGIE · I'm fat and nobody likes me

A society free of coercion, where the government remains constrained to it's job of retaliating against the initiation of force is a society I don't believe can fail. I don't gage the success of a society by how many people are employed.

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

I agree. The idea of capitalism has been so twisted in modern discourse, that most people don't know what it actually means. Of course, it still has a real meaning, notwithstanding the pretend version of capitalism that politicians espouse.

I think it's important to educate people about what capitalism actually is (and, maybe more importantly, what it is not), and remind them of the fact that, unlike communism, the merits of capitalism are actually borne out by reality: the closer any society has come to true capitalism, the better off it's been.

DEATHPIGGIE · I'm fat and nobody likes me

The misrepresentation of capitalism is precisely why voting for Republicans is probably just as damaging as voting Democrat, if not more. At least a Democrat is a bit more up front of their hatred of free markets.

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

The way I see it, you're going to lose economic freedom either way. The question, then, is whether you wan to give up more social and personal freedom, in addition to that (free speech, abortion rights, religious freedom, etc.).

As an Objectivist, I think that voting for either political party is largely futile, but it seems that the net loss of freedom is slightly smaller when voting for Democrats. I'm probably not going to bother voting for president, though. I'm just going to vote on ballot initiatives, where my vote might actually matter a little.

Dexter · Worst Poster of Always

Andy001 wrote:

You know what Dexter? You're aaaalright.

I just might send you cookies now.

AssGrinchReturns · Guru

MorisUkunRasik wrote:

was blaming democrats for the bail out not going through. Her reasoning?

"40 Percent of democrats voted against it!"

That statement alone is enough to get slapped for. Without including the fact that 67 percent of Republicans voted against the bail out.

I had a stupid liberal democrat tell me the same thing at work today. What an idiot!

DEATHPIGGIE · I'm fat and nobody likes me

john31584 wrote:

The way I see it, you're going to lose economic freedom either way. The question, then, is whether you wan to give up more social and personal freedom, in addition to that (free speech, abortion rights, religious freedom, etc.).

As an Objectivist, I think that voting for either political party is largely futile, but it seems that the net loss of freedom is slightly smaller when voting for Democrats. I'm probably not going to bother voting for president, though. I'm just going to vote on ballot initiatives, where my vote might actually matter a little.

I argue with so many Objectivists and libertarians who may fall on the pro-war side of foreign policy, and they always seem to come up with a rationalization for voting Republican. More and more over the past year, I really don't see what any political libertarian can see in the Republican party at all.

Jason · Only in cartoons

Is PIGGIE voting Democrat?