- Jul 29, 2001
- 39,398
- 19
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New post-
Partisan Squad,
First of all, I want to congratulate you on what is perhaps the most succinct short list of standard conservative bromides I have seen in one place. Yes, these ten statements -- not really questions are they, but why quibble -- are the "standard issue" crap you will run into, usually very shortly after encountering a right-winger.
That's why it took so long to respond. These questions were a feast. I haven't this much fun in a month.
But enough babble, let's get to it.
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1.) It's my hard earned money! What gives you the right to take it away from me to give to others? It's no better than outright theft!
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Taxation is no more "theft," than imprisonment is "kidnapping," killing enemy soldiers in war is "murder," or other laws compelling compliance on pain of fine or imprisonment are "extortion." If you catch someone breaking the law, you have no individual right to lock him in your basement for some period of time, or to form a "necktie party." Such rights are exclusive to the government -- proving that the government has rights, you don't.
As for the federal government's specific power to tax, it is found in Article I Section 8, where the Congress is given the right to "lay and collect taxes . . . to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." The government provides a vast array of services and infrastructure such as roads, schools, the banking system, port facilities, air traffic control, hydroelectric dams, communications satellites, R&D into a vast array of technologies such as radar and semiconductors -- not to mention the most basic functions of establishing and vindicating your basic commercial rights in property and contracts.
In other words, your "hard earned money" wasn't earned in a vacuum. You aren't Robinson Crusoe -- as proven by the fact that you don't live like he did. The commercial enterprise where you work -- or that you own, as the case may be -- operates within a society that has a vast public infrastructure that someone has to pay for. But of course, that vast public infrastructure also creates vast opportunities such that the taxes you pay reap you tremendous returns. The proof of that is the fact that the twenty wealthiest nations on earth -- as measured by per capita GDP -- all have an extensive public sector. Every one of them.
"Minimalist government" countries, with low taxes and little public investment in infrastructure and government services, are impoverished cesspools -- except for a handful of wealthy elites.
Or this that the true goal of conservatives?
As for the specific justification for our "safety net," Congress and the states have made a judgment that very substantial numbers of homeless, jobless, destitute and desperate people pose a potential threat of "domestic distubances" -- you know, food riots and such. Preventing such "domestic disturbance" is deemed to be a legitimate matter related to providing for both the "common defense and general welfare."
And I have frequently said that such "public assistance" is good for one thing, preventing starvation. Actual prosperity requires full employment at decent wages. As for whether preventing starvation is a legitimate action to "promote the general welfare" by preventing "domestic disturbances" -- in addition to promoting, in a very limited way, the particular welfare of individuals -- I think that it is.
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2.) You're just lazy. You can't compete in the real world so you want 'society' to support you. Where I come from everyone is supposed to carry their own weight. If you can't cut it, don't go about blaming others for your faults.
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The question is who is carrying whom, and who "society" supports. Or do you suggest that a Wall Street investor is deriving his dividends from his own "hard work," -- as opposed to the hard work of the people who work in the factories and shops he invests in. In fact, he doesn't produce anything at all. Everything that you see in the room you're sitting in was produced by a wage earner. The investor's income is only possible if there is a work force organized to produce useful products and services. Furthermore, his opportunity to invest in such organizations is the result of a vast web of legal, social and economic conventions that allow him to organize a workforce to produce a useful product or service, and derive a living -- if not a fortune -- from what that workforce produces.
So if you want to talk about people "carrying their own weight," I say we start at the top. Otherwise, let me suggest an alternative. If we can create infrastructure and organizations the benefit one group of people who are not directly productive, we can create other infrastructure and organizations the benefit other groups. And we can damn sure create infrastructure and organziations that benefit people who are directly productive -- meaning wage earners.
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3.) Leftism doesn't work. Man is inherently greedy and the only motivation that gets anything done is profit. Take that away and society collapses.
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Man is inherently greedy? What about Woman? I assume that you mean that "people are inherently greedy."
Most progressives would argue with this basic assumption about human nature. They would point out the many and varied examples of cooperative effort -- including examples of self-sacrifice. Even, conservatives are typically at the head of the line to honor the sacrifice of soldiers in war "making our freedom possible." Fair enough, but I'm have to tell you that I just don't see the "profit" in getting your ass shot off. In fact, conservatives will -- with great sanctimony and self-righteousness -- tell you about the "debt" you owe to our military for "keeping you safe," "protecting your freedom," and presumably also the fortunes made by some. This means that someone SACRAFICED HIS VERY LIFE to make your opportunity to prosper in a free society possible. That's according to their own rhetoric. And they're bitching about spending a few pennies out of every tax dollar to give some brown kid a bowl of gruell and send him to a decent school? Fuk 'em!
Was that a little harsh? Well, okay, let's go the other way then, and acknowledge that, yes indeed, greed or more accurately "self-interest" is indeed the great motivator to "get anything done." We still win.
The assertion is "people are inherently greedy." By its terms, this means that "greed" is a fundamental of human nature. We're all that way -- every one of us. Including guys working on the shop floor for an hourly wage. So naturally, conservatives recognize that "making a profit" is what motivates the hourly wage earner -- say the working mother who works for Walmart. By this logic, the best way to motivate that low wage employee is to pay her a wage sufficient to give her a "profit" over her cost of living -- requiring a wage substantially above our current miniumum wage. That's what conservative believe, right?
Well, not quite. It seems that decent wages -- allowing the accumulation of savings and property -- leads to "laziness." The working man won't take advantage of the opportunity to actually get ahead. He will get complacent and "lazy." So are people inherently greedy? Or are they inherently lazy? Or are they both greedy and lazy -- wanting to live off the labor of other people? And what does that say about the capitalist? More to the point, how does anything ever "get done" with people motivated by a combination of greed and sloth?
Ouch! Something has to give here. Either people aren't "inherently lazy" -- which means that they will seize the chance offered by profitable wages to provide for their own economic security, or there is serious flaw in your model of human nature.
If you are a conservative, I will now save your bacon on this issue -- at a cost. If people are "inherently greedy," and thus not especially motivated to bust their ass in someone else's business enterprise, where they don't earn any "profit," what can we predict about "low wage" economies? Doesn't this suggest that "low wage" economies will wind up being stagnant, underdeveloped cess pools? And isn't that just what we find when we look around the third world?
Now look at the list of the twenty richest countries, as measured by per capita Gross Domestic Product.
1 Luxembourg $ 44,000 2002 est.
2 United States $ 37,600 2002 est.
3 San Marino $ 34,600 2001 est.
4 Norway $ 31,800 2002 est.
5 Switzerland $ 31,700 2002 est.
6 Ireland $ 30,500 2002 est.
7 Canada $ 29,400 2002 est.
8 Belgium $ 29,000 2002 est.
9 Denmark $ 29,000 2002 est.
10 Japan $ 28,000 2002 est.
11 Austria $ 27,700 2002 est.
12 Australia $ 27,000 2002 est.
13 Monaco $ 27,000 1999 est.
14 Netherlands $ 26,900 2002 est.
15 Germany $ 26,600 2002 est.
16 Finland $ 26,200 2002 est.
17 Hong Kong $ 26,000 2002 est.
18 France $ 25,700 2002 est.
19 Sweden $ 25,400 2002 est.
20 United Kingdom $ 25,300 2002 est.
That's right. They're all "high wage" economies. Blow me down. THE CONSERVATIVES ARE RIGHT!!! Self-interest does create prosperous economies, and one sure way to create a prosperous economy is WITH A DECENT WAGE SCALE furnishing just such a motivation to the work force.
In the movies, this is the part where you get a long shot of planet earth, with the sound of conservatives howling in pain heard all the way into outer space. I just love skewering those mother fukers with their own logic. You see, cheap-labor conservatives aren't interested in a high wage economy. And they don't think "greed is good" for everybody. It's just good for them.
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4.) Capitalism has been proven to be the only system that works. Look at the Soviet Union, it was a miserable failure.
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And along the same lines there is also this.
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10.) Liberalism, socialism, communism; it's all the same. You just want to rob from the productive elements of society and give it to the unproductive.
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We've already dealt with the "productive/unproductive" question. Since my position is that wage earners have a superior right to profit from their own labor, than any investor has to profit from the labor of those same wage earners, I agree 100% that we should end the robbery of productive elements of society by unproductive elements. But that isn't what you meant, is it?
Meanwhile there is this assertion that "liberalism, socialism, and communism are all the same." You'd just be amazed at how many conservatives make this absurd claim -- accusing supporters of our social democratic mixed economy of supporting Soviet style communism. But I have a way to shut them up, and shut them up good.
As a matter of fact, one of the points I would try to force them to make -- in order to use it against them -- is the first point, "Capitalism has been proven to be the only system that works." Really. You mean "capitalism" the way we practice it in the US and in Western Europe? Or did you have in mind some other place, where they practice pure unregulated capitalism?
If your conservative interlocutor is really ignorant, he might say the latter, which presents the challenge, "show me one place that practices 'minimalist government' unregulated capitalism that is more prosperous than the mixed economies of the US and Western Europe." And of course, he can't.
But wait, there's more.
"Liberalism, socialism and communism are all the same." In other words liberalism EQUALS communism. I could argue with that, but why do I want to? You're absolutely right. Liberalism equals communism. You said it, I didn't -- but here in just a minute you're going to take it back. Bet me. You'll be back pedalling off of this very shortly -- even after I said that you would. Your tit is such a wringer over this assertion, that you will hedge away from it and suffer embarrassment rather than stick to your guns. Don't think your tit's in a wringer? Just watch.
Because we've been practicing "liberalism" in the United States for the last seventy years. All of the stuff I argue about on a regular basis -- social security, medicare, the minimum wage, unions, rural electrification, socialized medicine [in every other western democracy], FHA mortgages, grants and loans to college students, and of course "welfare" -- those are the initiatives of New Deal liberalism and other social democratic mixed economies.
Every bit of it is "communism." Remember? Liberalism is communism. You have said so. Social security is communism. You have said so. Medicare is communism. You have said so. The minimum wage is communism. You have said so. FHA mortgages? More communism. You have said so. [Trial lawyer's trick. Get a cadence going.] We're not living in a capitalist country. We're living in a communist country. You have said so. And what about those countries of western Europe? They're more communist than we are. You have said so.
According to your own statement -- liberalism, socialism and communism are all the same -- our New Deal mixed economy is a communist system. AND JUST LOOK AT HOW WELL IT WORKS!!!!
Here's that list again of the twenty richest nations on earth.
1 Luxembourg $ 44,000 2002 est.
2 United States $ 37,600 2002 est.
3 San Marino $ 34,600 2001 est.
4 Norway $ 31,800 2002 est.
5 Switzerland $ 31,700 2002 est.
6 Ireland $ 30,500 2002 est.
7 Canada $ 29,400 2002 est.
8 Belgium $ 29,000 2002 est.
9 Denmark $ 29,000 2002 est.
10 Japan $ 28,000 2002 est.
11 Austria $ 27,700 2002 est.
12 Australia $ 27,000 2002 est.
13 Monaco $ 27,000 1999 est.
14 Netherlands $ 26,900 2002 est.
15 Germany $ 26,600 2002 est.
16 Finland $ 26,200 2002 est.
17 Hong Kong $ 26,000 2002 est.
18 France $ 25,700 2002 est.
19 Sweden $ 25,400 2002 est.
20 United Kingdom $ 25,300 2002 est.
Every one of them is a social democratic mixed economy -- and by your own definition is a "communist" country. EVERY GOD DAMNED ONE OF THEM.
I'd say "communism" works pretty good, and your statement that "capitalism is the only proven system" is just dead wrong.
ROTFLMAO!!!
It gets worse. You can't show me one, not one, society that enjoys our level of prosperity that also practices "minimalist government" unregulated capitalism. There is no nation on earth that does things the conservative way that enjoys the prosperity of the social democratic mixed economies. Not one. Not anywhere. Not ever in history.
And of course, you say that "liberalism and communism are the same," so that means you can't show one "capitalist" country that enjoys more prosperity than "communist" countries -- since we live in a "communist" country by your own definition.
Now, watch the conservative back pedal from his claim that "liberalism" is the same as "communism." To which my response is, "thank you very much. I've only been telling you assholes that for thirty fuking years."
But the conservative's problem isn't over. Because now that you acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, there are some key differences between "liberalism" and "communism," you still have to account for the fact that the "liberal" and "socialist" economies of the US and Western Europe are also the most prosperous nations on earth.
In fact, minimalist government unregulated capitalism doesn't work, and a simple look at which kinds of economies perform well, and which don't, proves it. Or maybe that's why conservatives call liberalism "communism," and then take credit for the prosperity of "liberal" economies -- trying to make us proponents of Soviet communism. They have to steal our achievements. They have none of their own. Remember the Great Depression? What about the unregulated "minimalist government" cess pools all over the third world? Unregulated capitalism is damn near as big a disaster as Soviet communism -- maybe bigger.
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5.) Stop being a loser! Get positive and things will bound to get better. Be negative and they never will.
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Well, I have to agree with this one. But then, conservatives are the "pessimists." They're the one's that say that humans are greedy, lazy bums -- some of whom are only motivated by "profit," but others of whom must be motivated by the threat of starvation. Conservatives are the one's who say that poverty is an insoluable problem, that democratic governments "can't do anything right" -- notwithstanding the experience of the "liberal" economies of the twenty richest nations on earth. [Do I have to put "the list" up again, or have you seen it enough.]
So yes, be optimistic. Don't let the conservatives tell you that you, as a citizen acting with other citizens, can't solve your own problems. Don't let them tell you that capitalism just "can't afford" for you to profit from your own efforts, and that the "free market" is such a feeble system that only a few can prosper, only a few can have decent health care, only a few can get decent educations, and only a few can enjoy the prosperity all around us.
Now, we're going to have to make some changes in the way we currently do business. But don't you worry. You have the power to make those changes -- and history shows that the people can indeed "institute new government, laying its foundations upon such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
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6.) Immigrants come to this country with nothing and get rich pretty quick. If you can't do the same, it's because you don't want to.
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Did all of the immigrants get rich? Are there no middle class immigrants? No poor immigrants? Here's the real question, can everybody get rich? Who will that leave to do the work of society? If anybody can get rich, surely everybody can't. What happens to those who don't?
This leads to the ultimate question which is not "can everybody get rich," but can everybody prosper, and enjoy a measure of the tremendous wealth in this country? Can we impose one simple and easy requirement to get a "piece of the pie," that requirement being that you get a job do something productive. The question is fundamental. Can capitalism -- you know, the only system that "works" [see "the list"] -- provide a "profit" to the lowest paid wage earner? But wait, you've answered this question.
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7.) The free market determines a person's value. If they aren't making much it's because they aren't that productive.
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Here is the operative fact that disembowels this assertion about the "natural market price" of low skilled labor. If you are a low-skilled, low wage working person, somebody is profiting from your labor, even if you aren't. How is it that your labor produces a product or service that investors profit from, but wage earners don't?
Consider "the example" -- the one everybody uses as the paradigm for low wage employment. Consider McDonald's. Now when you walk into a McDonalds and order a Big Mac, McDonald's stock holders aren't back there behind the grill. Your Big Mac, fries and soda pop are prepared by some joker working twenty feet away from you. You are paying for what he produces. But at $5.15 an hour, he isn't making a profit, since $5.15 an hour doesn't cover his cost of living. But McDonald's stock holders are making a profit, and the proof of that is all of the new Mickey D's popping up like mushrooms across the countryside.
The conservatives will tell you how McDonald's is "creating jobs." They sure are. They're creating jobs that don't generate any profit for the people who work in them, but indeed require those people to subsidize their cost of living from other sources -- like say their parents, spouses or roommates. Which raises a rather elementary question. If I made Big Macs and french fries in my own hamburger stand, and sold them for the same price McDonald's charges, would I be offering a profitable product? Would I enjoy the profits of the product I am producing in my own hamburger stand?
The answer to this question puts the defender of capitalism in a "sticky wicket." Because if I can't profit producing in my own business, what McDonald's profits by selling, where is their profit coming from? The answer is me. Meanwhile, the product isn't really profitable, is it? You see, the "natural market value" of what I produce --as a McDonald's fry cook -- is the value of that product or service to you, the purchaser. If that natural market value -- what YOU are willing to pay, won't pay the guy producing the service a profit over his "cost of doing business," which is the same as his cost of living, the product isn't really profitable. Is it?
Now let's talk about Nike tennis shoes -- the one's that sell for $100 a pair. Nike's Indonesian contractors were paying their employees 24 cents an hour to assemble a pair of tennis shoes. The market value of the shoes is $100, and you can take it to the bank it doen't take 400 hours [that's ten weeks] to produce a pair. I mean, if I make one pair of tennis shoes A DAY, we're talking about a labor cost of $2.00 a pair.
In other words, there's plenty of "margin" to pay that 24 cent an hour employee much more. We know that because Nike was previously paying $11 an hour to its US employees to make the same shoes -- a labor cost still paid by Nike's competitors who didn't move to the third world. All of which proves one thing, namely that low wage workers produce goods and services that command a market price that is plenty sufficient to spread the profits around.
The proof of this is the fact that companies unionize from time to time -- seeing large increases in the earnings of their workforce, and lo and behold, they don't go broke. Oh, they bellyache to high heaven about how they "just can't compete" if their workforce has to make a profit for its time and energy. But they can compete, and they do.
Oh, and if they can't. If capitalist businesses just can't turn a profit, unless labor makes less than a living wage, how is that proof of the "superiority" of capitalism? If capitalist business "can't afford" for their workforce to earn a profit -- more than their base cost of living -- how exactly is capitalism "successful?" Because it makes some people rich, while others labor in poverty? Medieval feudalism managed to provide prosperity for some people. Hell, at the end, Soviet communism furnished a decent standard of living for a few people. Isn't the measure of system how well it treats the people on the bottom? Every social system treats the people on top just fine.
Right here is the stake through the heart of unregulated corporate capitalism. You produce a product that is profitable for the business investor, but not profitable for you -- and the spokesmen for capitalism says the business investor "can't afford" for you to profit from your own labor. Only he can profit from your labor. The system won't allow anything more. That sounds like a weak system, if you ask me, not a strong one.
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8.) Privatization is the key to improving public services. Look at the Post Office, it's a complete mess.
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Everyday I go out to my mailbox, and there in it is all kinds of stuff sent to me by all kinds of people. Every year, my mother sends me birthday card with a twenty in it to go play golf. In 25 years since I left home, my birthday card has never failed to arrive. Something else that never fails to arrive are bills from my creditors, bank statements, magazine's, and enough junk mail over the years to sink a battleship. I occasionally use "Express Mail" -- which sends to PO boxes, unlike FedEx -- and costs less. I've never had a item sent by "Express Mail" fail to arrive, the next day, just like it was supposed to.
So I don't know what you're talking about. I've heard conservatives complain about the post office, I've never had any bad experience with it. Hell, I wish they'd lose some of the sh!t that they can reliably be counted on to deliver. Listen up. "The check is in the mail" is a lie. So is "I never got it."
Meanwhile, I regularly hear stories out of the third world, where electric utilities, drinking water and other publically owned utilities were privatized. The price went up -- sometimes by factors of three and four. Look what happened when electric power was deregulated in California. Electric bills went up by a factor of three, and rolling blackouts resulted. Here's a challenge for you. Show me a successful example of "privatization." I've never heard of one -- and I notice you didn't furnish one.
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9.) Socialized medicine doesn't work! People come from all over the world to use our health services. If you don't have health care, tough, not my problem.
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Health care is part of your "cost of doing business." For a wage earner, his physical body is part of his "equipment" -- and every business owner understands that "equipment maintenance" is part of your overhead. I don't really care where the working person gets this item in his cost of living covered. His employer can pay him a sufficient wage to cover it, can offer it as a 'benefit' package, or we can socialize it. You decide, with one caveat. Since it's part of the cost of living of the wage earner, not providing it is not an option.
As for people coming from "all over the world," does that include places in the third world where they practice unregulated capitalism? And if the US healthcare system is so much superior, perhaps that's because we spend a higher percentage of Gross Domestic Product on healthcare than any other nation. And we still can't manage to provide universal care -- compared to other countries who do provide universal care, for a smaller percentage of their annual GDP.
So when you say that "socialized medicine doesn't work" what do you mean? Doesn't provide universal coverage? It does. You mean "socialized medicine" is more expensive? Sorry, our system is more expensive. You mean our more expensive system delivers a better product? I sure hope so, since it costs more. But a fat lot of good "better quality at a higher price" does you, if you're one of the 40 million Americans who don't have access to the system. If my choice is drive a Rolls Royce or walk, I have to tell you, I'd like getting into a Volkswagen as a third option.
Again, thanks for the opportunity, Partisan Squad. Hell, I might clean this up and post it at the main site.
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