What Is Your Political Philosophy?

No, all socialism can do is steal from the productive and give to the unproductive, reducing incentive in both groups and diminishing the general welfare. Capitalism has never needed bailing out, it just seems that way when you have overbearing government intervening in private business, burdening people and businesses with taxation and interfering with markets by subsidizing failing industries and cronies with political influence. First they break the market with regulations, bureaucracy, taxation, etc. and then they "save" it by doing more of the same.

 

So what is the better solution?

You have today's circumstance where the polluter continues to operate and pays a fine to the government for any noncompliance and have some level of indemnification against lawsuits or other consequences. The victims of the pollution get nothing but more pollution.

You have the circumstance that occurred during the early days of the industrial revolution where the victim of the damages of pollution could sue the polluter directly and get some compensation and the consequences to the polluter were decided by the courts on a case by case basis. In this scenario you may also have some impact on industry because while the first company may be run out of business, the guys that replace him are on notice that if they don't do better they'll be sued too.

 

I have two distinct philosophies. While I am not in power I am a Libertarian. But, when I do get into power and become a dictator then I will slightly modify my philosophy to "You are all my (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)es".

 

Not at all; Socialism enables States and statism, and everybody knows they create wealth merely by existing. Just socialism bailing out capitalism, like usual.

 

Everybody doesn't know this, as it isn't true. In fact just the opposite is true, without the free market pricing system socialism couldn't exist because it has no way of correctly determining allocation of resources. States are parasites that diminish wealth by consuming it without adding anything to a population's productivity.

 

Denying women control over their bodies doesn't necessarily mean abortion but in my opinion, the best example of when life begins is the biblical explanation that life begins when the first breath is taken. I am the first one to say that Obamacare is a crummy deal for the country. After all, it's a republican program to drum up business for insurance companies. But it's a starting point, a place to build on and make it better for all Americans. If you are truly interested in lies told about Obama, just google it, you'll find them.

 

Only people who appeal to ignorance know it isn't true. Everyone else knows it must be true. States create wealth merely by existing. AnCaps do not. It really is that simple.

 

Only free market pricing doesn't exist wherever States and statism exist. Why do you believe public sector endeavors could not be done at cost? It should be less expensive than on a for-profit basis. A simple example is a private sector doing it for cost plus profit versus the public sector doing it at cost. Infrastructure can be very capital intensive and only the "Firm" with legal recourse to an official Mint has the best chance of being the better capitalist at that endeavor.

 

So the fact that unborn babies are viable to live outside the womb at 20 weeks doesn't matter? Because of the location inside another person they can be killed with impunity?

I've seen lots of claims that this or that was a lie. Most of it is partisan BS. Even the birthers believe what they're saying so, erroneous maybe, but not a lie. If you're claiming that lies are being told, its your responsibility to support your assertion with evidence of specific lies. As illustrated here, an erroneous belief doesn't constitute a lie.

If you're in favor of government taking more liberty from the individual through some healthcare scheme more extreme than Obamacare, you aren't a disillusioned republican, you're an extreme, big government statist.

How do you reconcile your support of a woman over her own body to the extent of being able to kill other beings based on their location within it, and at the same time support government control of everybody's body by means of mandated government healthcare?

 

Your appalling misuse of claims of logical fallacy is tiresome. Its amusing however, that you commit the fallacies of begging the question and appeal to the popular in the same post where you misuse the claim of appeal to ignorance.

If everyone knows the moon is made of cheese, that doesn't make it so, and saying something is true doesn't make it true.

 

The problem isn't the cost of producing a good, its figuring out whether the good should be produced, at what quantity, with what materials. Without a price system to indicate a shortage or an overage, the central planner will order too much or too little because he has to guess. A good can be made as inexpensively as possible and still be a wasteful expenditure if there is no demand for that good. In the free market, producers know that their product is valuable because its being purchased. If demand falls for that product the producer will know demand has fallen because of a reduction of sales and revenue. He'll respond by reducing production of that item. If he fails to respond correctly he goes out of business and the resources he was using become available for someone else to use in their production of some other good. None of this market activity can happen in a centrally planned economy where there is no way to judge demand and therefore adjust production to meet demand. When the central planner gets it wrong, because there is no effective feedback mechanism, the wrong production continues for much longer, misallocating resources and causing privation in one area and wasteful overabundance in another.

 

Infrastructure should be a simple mater of Standards; a program of continual upgrades to our infrastructure can supply better products at potentially lower cost with production runs potentially as long as our wars on crime, drugs, poverty, and terror, combined.

 

So you would endlessly produce infrastructure that is no longer needed at the expense of producing other things that are vital to survival. That's how the Soviet Union got bread lines and mass starvation.

We'd be far better off to end the "war on..." and leave the taxes supporting those idiocies in the hands of the people who earned that money in the first place, allowing them to spend it or save it as they choose.

 

Both the Soviets and Chinese and today the North Koreans demonstrate the truth of the post just above.

 

Infrastructure is always needed and continual upgrades may be necessary to accomodate advances in technologies. It really is that simple.

 

Infrastructure isn't always needed and there is no way to tell whether its needed or not without market feedback. If you build a bridge to nowhere you've misallocated resources that could have been used better elsewhere. Building such a bridge diminishes the general welfare by wasting resources. Even if/when some piece of infrastructure is necessary, in order for the government to build it they have to take resources that would likely have been used better, from the productive members of society. Since the lost productivity of the private sector isn't seen, its difficult or impossible to put a value on it. We can't know the value of the infrastructure built by government because there is no feedback mechanism that indicates the value of it to the users. We can't know with any real precision what the value of the productivity lost to the taxation that paid for the infrastructure so there is no way to tell if that infrastructure is a net benefit or a net loss to the society. What we can know is that if the private sector had kept the money and used it to buy and sell goods in a free market, every transaction would be voluntary and therefore all parties benefit, while the tax transaction between the private sector and the government is done by force creating a benefit to the government and a loss to the taxpayer.

 

Yes, there is always a need for Infrastructure

The feedback mechanism is lowering to cost of Government to the private sector. Why make things more complicated than they should be?

 

Infrastructure is a big category. If you don't differentiate between a bridge in Alaska and a levy in Louisianna, you're going to have huge misallocations of resources. You build a bunch of stuff where it isn't needed and some other stuff where it is needed and even if you cut the price of every item in half you're still spending much more than you would if you had some way of determining where the need is and only building necessary and wanted projects.

Of course government is one huge example of misallocated resources, which is why it costs so much. Government doesn't lower cost, it increases it substantially because of its inherent difficiencies.

This isn't complicated. The private sector works, is productive, creates wealth. The public sector is a parasite that consumes wealth, is not productive and doesn't work.

 

I am center-right fiscally and center-left socially. Fiscally conservative with some safety net for the poor, with education being my most conservative view. Socially moderate with gay marriage being my most liberal view.

 

[/QUOTE] How do you reconcile your support of a woman over her own body to the extent of being able to kill other beings based on their location within it, and at the same time support government control of everybody's body by means of mandated government healthcare?[/QUOTE]

Again, I defer to the biblical view as to when life begins. I trust God to judge what's right or wrong.

 

Yes, infrastructure is very important. I don't believe the general government should miscalulate any given Thing, with enough knowledge of it. We still don't have high speed maglev capable mass transit to connect each of the several States with the general government, and likewise, State governments to county governments.

It is infrastructure like that, that can lower times to markets and lower market based costs for the private sector by simply have such infrastructure available.

Our exorbitantly expensive, War on Drugs, is not a very rational choice or opportunity cost, or even a good "lifestyle choice" for the several citizens in the several States.

 

I am with you,I noticed a previous poster remarked about Unions giving back. But I did not see anything about companies paying fair wages. I have to wonder as one of those whose families went through the strikes,seeing people beaten and killed to get Health care,40 hour work week, safe working conditions Why does he think companies are going to do that with out Unions,who brought the living standards up for the Middle Class.

Frankly,the destruction of Unions is why we are stagnating today. True,Unions are not perfect,neither is the ACA, but it is a start. Just like there has to be give and take between Unions and companies. Compromise.

 

How about ending the wars in the Middle East that we are now trying to pay for?

 

I believe the right claimed to believe in Capitalism then, even if we had to use Socialism to bail it out.

It can be very difficult to convince the wealthiest to insist their public servants simply purchase the finest solutions money can buy with an official Mint at their disposal, when they can practice American Exceptionalism as a privilege and immunity, and invest in wars on a for-profit basis.

Some on the left believe we should insist on wartime tax rates on the wealthiest, at least, for any delegation of wartime (social) Powers to our elected representatives.

There is no latitude of construction to provide for the general warfare or the common offense, nor any wartime related (social) Powers.

 

I didn't say infrastructure was important, I said it was a big category. When you say "infrastructure" without context or specificity, its meaningless; You're saying nothing.

What the general government should do and what it actually does are two very different things. The federal government overspends on virtually everything it does. It doesn't control fraud, waste or abuse and it doesn't work to find the best price or the most efficient processes because it doesn't have to. Having a monopoly on whatever it wants to, it can be as inefficient and wasteful as it is without fear of losing customers or market share.

If the government does anything better than a private market alternative would, why does it need a monopoly? There is no need to take functions away from government to give them to the private market, just let them compete on a level playing field. If the government is as good as you think it ought to be, it will be unaffected by competition. If government is as wasteful as I think it is, the private market alternatives will replace it with better, faster, cheaper services.