What about the Elders of Sion, Illuminati and the reptile men from Venus?
Yes, be sarcastic, ridicule me. Whatever you do, don't go checking any facts or do any digging on your own. That might be uncomfortable for you. Much easier and safer to stick with the groupthink.
If you lack the capacity to the see that the government is controlled by the rich and powerful, then honestly, you are beyond saving.
I see it just fine, TYVM. That's actually been my point about a too-large government all along. As long as governments are made up of people, there will *always* be wealthy & powerful interests corrupting it whether the government is large or small, and regardless of the form of that government. That's why, to remain free and without a bloody revolution every few years/decades, government must be kept as small and weak as possible.
Government is a necessary evil. All governments eventually become tyrannies, given enough time. The larger the government, the more wealth and power that it controls, the more quickly that happens, and the bloodier it will get before the tyranny is stopped.
I guess you conveniently ignored the link to the SF Examiner story I provided (there are many, many other mainstream news services/papers reporting the same thing)?
Nice ad-hominem spew. Attacking the messenger assures me you've got nothing to say worth reading to refute me.
Your Liberal-fu is weak. All your base are belong to us.
Yes because how dare they bring medical supplies and food
Please see my other post where I explained the term "useful idiot". If you actually believe that's the true purpose, then please avoid passing on your genes to the pool.
They could bring in those supplies without the so-called "flotilla". Medical and other humanitarian supplies can be transported freely into Gaza and the West Bank by land. The Israelis would probably even provide the trucks.
It's nothing but a naked attempt to force an incident resulting in violence for propaganda to be used in helping to turn the world against Israel and paint them as "oppressors". These flotilla people and all their fellow-travelers are just using the poor Palestinians. If they weren't a great tool for anti-Israeli propaganda and terrorist attacks, none of these groups and people would give a crap about them at all.
Heck, why should they? The Palestinians' own Arab "brothers" in Egypt & Syria had many decades in which they could have given them land in what eventually became Israel. Funny how these same countries and people didn't give a crap about Palestinians until they became a useful tool against Israel after 1948.
It's the same old "kill the Jews!" hatred from WW2 Germany that horrified & sickened the world, and caused us all to swear; "Never again!".
Yet, here we are again, and supposedly educated and sophisticated people, those who consider themselves oh-so compassionate, are silent or active "me-too's"...perfectly fine with going along with the bigotry, hatred, and the re-emergence of the cause behind the worst of the horrors of WW2.
I wasn't aware that the Final Solution was back in fashion among Liberal/Progressives. Silly me, I thought from all the T-shirts that Liberal/Progressives were still doing the "Mao", "Chavez", and "Che Guevara" Communist/Murdering Thug thing.
I guess the Left just loves the smell of Jewish genocide in the morning.
Absent the government, they'd skip the middle man and simply hire goons to get rid of people they find disagreeable with a lot more impunity.
Absent the government!?!? LOLwut!?!?
Who do you think hires and runs the goons (police)? If the government wasn't so large, powerful, arrogant, and corrupt, it/they wouldn't be looking to hire out law enforcement to rake in off-the-books wealth from rich special interests with agendas.
He's not a Republican, just your run-of-the-mill retard. Yes I know there can be some overlap, but I don't know many (any?) Republicans who actually believe the grandparent's nonsense.
And, just like in those times, there were people who thought that the problem was not enough government power/control/wealth rather than too much, and who ridiculed, ostracized, and virulently opposed those who realized that government was the problem, not the solution. Those kinds of people came to be known as "useful idiots" thanks to Kruschev and the 20th century struggle against Marxism.
Thanks for proving my point. Although, in your case, there's very little "useful" to your idiocy.
EXACTLY! The action of these cops is DIRECTLY related to the growth of government! We should return to a time of smaller government - say, the 1950s or even the early 1900s - when police in the US deep South never abused anybody.
Strawman and false dichotomy. I never said that. Additionally, having a smaller government doesn't mean everybody gets a lobotomy and immediately starts swilling moonshine, ruining perfectly good sheets, and burning crosses. That's just ignorant, simplistic propaganda.
If you're going to bother replying, at least try to make some kind of coherent argument.
Yes, Code Pink. Code Pink has been neck-deep in the Middle East wanting, apparently, to finish what the Nazis started with the Holocaust. How tolerant and "Progressive" of them.
Former Weather Underground leaders William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, as well as Code Pink founder Jodie Evans, helped organize the Free Gaza Movement, which launched the six-ship flotilla from Turkey to Israel that ended in a violent clash with Israeli Defense Forces, BigGovernment.com reported.
In January, the trio were spotted in Egypt attempting to stir up crowds on the streets with 1,400 other left-wing activists after the Egyptian government refused to allow Free Gaza Movement members to enter the Gaza Strip. About 100 marchers were eventually allowed to cross the border, where they were met by former Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh.
Now, go back to sleep Doc, and dream about your perfect socialist nirvana that will never, ever be.
Any government big enough to have local police forces is big enough to do this.
Local police who are locally funded and controlled by local officials can only go so far before the other local citizens take their power and wealth away and replace them with better police with better, less-abusive policies.
When law enforcement gets a large amount of funding, receive orders, and follow policies and directives from a large central government, then local law enforcement loses accountability to their local populations.
There's a reason we talk about "police states" rather than "bureaucrat states" or "social worker states".
Yeah, the former USSR and China didn't/don't have much bureaucracy to run their police states and control their populations...
Oh, wait...They do/did! You're just talking out of your cloaca.
It's not the social programs that empower the goon squads.
If there wasn't so much government to protect, there wouldn't be as many goons. If the government didn't control the amount of wealth necessary to pay for social programs, they couldn't pay for as many goons. Money going into government coffers gets used for whatever those in power want, regardless of what any Constitutional Amendment, law, regulation, or politician promises.
So, yes. More wealth...even for social programs...controlled by government means more resources for the government to use against the people's interests. Where's that Social Security "lockbox'? Outside of what's collected from current wage earners to pay current recipients, how much is *not* government IOUs in the form of Treasury Notes etc?
The government wanted that SS money and took it. Just as it will any other wealth it wants...unless enough people stand up and demand the madness stop.
The French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and today the Arab Spring.
Apparently you are *not* a student of history, or else you'd know that every single one of the revolutions/uprisings you listed (with some exception for the "Arab Spring") was caused directly or indirectly by a too-large and powerful government that took too many resources away from the citizens and ignored their needs because they felt they had grown powerful enough to not care what the citizens wanted/needed.
Gee, just like the times we find ourselves in now, and for the exact same reasons. And, just like in those times, there were people who thought that the problem was not enough government power/control/wealth rather than too much, and who ridiculed, ostracized, and virulently opposed those who realized that government was the problem, not the solution. Those kinds of people came to be known as "useful idiots" thanks to Kruschev and the 20th century struggle against Marxism.
With the "Arab Spring" we see now that much of the preparation & planning in most of the countries where uprisings occurred/are occurring was/is being, at least initially, organized and funded by Code Pink, the AFL-CIO, SEIU, and other Liberal/Progressive, Socialist/Communist activist organizations who oppose Israel and wish for worldwide chaos as an opportunity for them to gain power and overthrow Western Capitalism.
That aside, you can really depend on fascist state to behave, well, like a fascists.
It's what happens when government grows too big and powerful. It's happened every single time throughout the history of national governments whenever they grow too big. It has absolutely no relation to which political party is in control. It's because of human nature and how humans behave when in large, powerful groups.
So, who's in favor of government spending more money (getting larger) again? Anyone willing for the government to become smaller, less-powerful, and less expensive in exchange for less arrogance and tyranny from those who work for us?
Is anyone willing to *personally* take a good working-over by government thugs in exchange for another social program? *Someone* is going to get one. Likely many "someones". If you're not willing to take one, then why are you "volunteering" someone else to take one for something *you* want??
Every time people want the government to do yet another thing, add yet another program, department, administration, taskforce, panel, bureau, etc...whenever the government is given control of more wealth and power to legislate & regulate...that's the same as saying they want more of this crap like this videographer received, and other types of injustice from the government. It's what has always happened. You can see it happening now.
Even with a minimal government a concentration of wealth can be problematic. It can be as big a problem as a large corrupt government.
If you've reduced the scope & size of government sufficiently so that it adheres reasonably-well to it's constitution and actually is fairly representative of, and controlled reasonably-effectively by the citizens, then private wealth will lose a contest of power and/or attempts to corrupt, as government holds the monopoly on armed force.
This is why power & wealth is so much more dangerous in the government's hands than in the private sector's hands. Individuals and corporations don't have a military. The government does.
If Walmart does something I don't like, I can choose not to do business with them, even organize others against them. If I try that against the government, I'll be killed or imprisoned.
The key is to keep government only as powerful, and allow it to spend and control only the minimum amount of wealth necessary to accomplish it's basic minimum functions. It will then have to come hat-in-hand to the citizens for permission to do anything of consequence.
With a government thus controlled by the citizens, laws and regulations against private-sector interests using wealth for nefarious purposes can be enforced and thus the power of private wealth can be kept in check and balanced against individual and national interests.
I think your characterization of "Capitalism is good and Government is bad" is a false dichotomy.
I think your false dichotomy died at the hands of your own strawman argument.
What if the wealth controls, or as we see now, heavily influences government? Is only the government to blame for this corruption?
You talk as if this corruption of government by wealth either didn't exist in every government ever to a greater or lesser degree and extent, or that some magic new form of governing will be found where it can't or won't happen. The problem is not wealthy interests nor strictly government. It's human nature.
The point is that *corruption will always happen*, whether or not the government controls/confiscates all wealth, some portion, or none at all. Corruption accelerates, however, the larger and more powerful the government becomes and the more wealth it controls. It's intrinsic to what a government is, as governments are made up of, and it's functions carried out by, corruptible, weak, vain, power-hungry, and yes, sometimes outright dangerously psychotic people.
There is no such thing as a nation, government, or empire that can last forever. All that can be done is to delay as long as possible the eventual need to "reboot" government through collapse, coup, civil war, and/or revolution by limiting as much as possible the amount of power and wealth government controls and maximizing the amount of power and wealth controlled by the citizens.
The most successful system yet discovered to do this is by distributing government power down towards local government and the people as much as possible and practical, and for central government to perform as few functions and provide/maintain as few departments and services as possible while keeping as much wealth as possible out of the hands of government and politicians.
The simple truth is that the more power and wealth retained by individual citizens and not their government, the more free they'll be and the longer they're likely to stay that way.
It saddens me that so many have either forgotten or were never taught this lesson.
a reality thrust upon the less wealthy by the wealthier.
Damage to others by wealth only becomes a problem when that wealth is controlled by government. If government is working properly, then it will see to there being a relatively-even economic playing field.
Do you have more of a problem with Capitalism as opposed to the political structure of government? If so, that's sad.
Capitalism has raised more people out of poverty, created more wealth for them, and increased people's standard of living to the highest levels ever known, and for a longer period, than any other economic system. Ever.
The problem is not wealth or Capitalism. Government is not the solution to what you rail against, it's the problem.
This view seems to discount the effective lobbying Wal-Mart has employed on local Governments on an international scale. On the collective, it is as worth it to corrupt many small governments as it is to corrupt a larger one for the wealthy interests. Small and weak government or cooperation among a population limits the potential to counter the influence of a concentration of wealth.
Maybe much of what you define as "corruption" is actually local populations and their governments making a conscious decision to make themselves attractive in order to compete for the presence of a Walmart in their community in order to benefit from economic investment, tax-base growth, and employment.
There is value in large government that needs to be measured against the value of small government with less bureaucracy.
Government only needs to be large enough to accomplish those duties, and only those duties, mandated by the US Constitution. You want it to do more? Fine. Pass a Constitutional Amendment.
This relates to my prior analogy regarding government being a distributed-network design that's been hijacked and altered by rogue BOFHs without proper testing and vetting according to network administration rules. This is pretty much the current state of the US Government as it relates to it's adherence to the "network rules" set forth in the US Constitution.
Any well-functioning and "healthy" network and system needs rules and permissions. If you've got users (some actively hostile) on your system that can sudo random commands and install/uninstall any system software and bypass admin controls, it will become unworkable and insecure. If you've got politicians that can effectively bypass the Constitution whenever they feel like it, you will get corruption and tyranny.
"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." -Thomas Paine
"The government is best which governs least." -Thomas Jefferson
And, one of my favorite Jefferson quotes for it's relevancy and accuracy regarding US political trends over the last number of decades:
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." -Thomas Jefferson
Poor Thomas Jefferson...he must be spinning fast enough by now to be a good practical experiment in Einstein-ian relativistic theory!
You are arguing that smaller government is less corrupt because a money won't be effective in corrupting a small non-corrupt Government.
That's incorrect.
What I said was that a smaller, less-powerful central government is less-susceptible to corruption because there is less reason to attempt to bribe or influence a politician or government body that doesn't have enough power to accomplish the goals sought by those wishing to influence national laws, regulations, and policies, and when corruption *does* inevitably occur to some degree, it does less damage and is more visible.
Corruption is inevitable due to human nature. It will occur no matter the form of government. All one can do is to design a government that is small and weak enough to minimize damage possible through corruption and make it stand out like a sore thumb through reducing the "can't see the forest for the trees" effect of a huge government bureaucracy where wrongdoing can be more easily hidden and buried.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Minimize power, minimize corruption. It's not a difficult concept, but a shockingly large number of people seem to not understand it, or don't want to understand it for personal ideological/political reasons.
I think that the part of my post I quoted that's in bold is where you're at.
It's a waste of time & effort to attempt to debate/discuss something with someone who does the mental equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears while going "LA LA LA LA LA...I can't HEAR you!!"
How would making government weaker in a way that reduces the incentive to corrupt it ALSO result in a government that exerts more influence over corporate (just to pick a common example) malfeasance?
With a weaker central government (weaker politically in comparison to States and to current status, nothing at all to do with a weaker justice/LE system) that experiences less corruption and influence, the justice system will be more effective at actually enforcing laws against corruption, etc due to less influence on the process, and less corruption in the legislative process means fewer unjust/unfair/corrupt bills passed as quid pro quo.
Less overall corruption makes it more likely that wealthy/powerful bad actors will face consequences. Smaller government means less areas and people to maintain oversight on, and allows more time and resources to be applied to possible cases of government corruption/influence peddling/other illegal behavior.
It also makes it harder to hide corruption and other illegal behavior from public awareness, just as it's harder to hide pick-pocketing in a small crowd as compared to a huge crowd.
its not human nature to be selfish or greedy.if so, you wouldnt have families.
That's just idiotic sophistry, sorry.
Bernie Madoff had a family. So did most of the Nazi leadership. Family relationships are another, separate area of human interaction. Many times the desire to provide wealth and power to family results in acts of greed and selfishness towards those outside the family unit.
All humans are weak, corruptible, fallible creatures to a greater or lesser extent. There are no perfect people. People cannot be made to be incorruptible or infallible. Ghandi wasn't perfect, nor was MLK or George Washington. Even Saints aren't perfect.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Minimize power, minimize corruption. It's not a difficult concept, but a shockingly large number of people seem to not understand it, or don't want to understand it for personal ideological/political reasons.
america, land of the free. as much as they have money that is. more money, more freedom. less, less freedom. hilarious irony of the land of the free in which freedom is tied to money, and those with the most money can decide how much others can be free.
This is a problem of human nature, not political ideology or system of government. It has and will occur in any and every government, no matter the society, ideology, or political system. Wealth, in whatever form it may take depending on the type of society/government/political ideology, has always and will always be able to buy privilege and favor.
Private wealth in and of itself is not to be despised, as it is not the problem. The rich vs poor class warfare is simply a propaganda tool to distract and deflect attention from a too large, powerful, and corrupt government and therefor maintain the status quo by keeping people divided and angry.
Humans are corruptible, weak, greedy, and fallible creatures. You can attempt to put in all the government restriction and oversight you want, but corruption will still occur. The larger and more powerful the government, the worse the corruption and the results of that corruption over time. All anyone can really do is keep it to a minimum at best.
As I've stated in previous posts under past topics, the only way to keep government corruption to a reasonable minimum is to make the central government as weak as possible while still fulfilling essential functions. Keep as much governing local as possible/practical so as to distribute power and thus make influencing enough politicians to make a national impact impractical.
As a bonus, and contrary to what many would say would happen with a smaller central government (that corporate/monied interests would more-easily influence/control government), with a less-corrupt government and justice system, corporations/businesses/unions and other wealthy/powerful interests that engage in bad/illegal behavior will actually have a decent chance of having meaningful consequences and penalties applied for their misdeeds.
You certainly can't remedy a corrupt government by giving it more power and wealth. That's how governments become corrupt to begin with. You also can't remedy a corrupt government by removing/redistributing private wealth. That just puts *all* the wealth and *all* the power in the same small set of corrupt government hands that were the problem to begin with. The citizens would then find themselves even more helpless against government/political injustices while living in poverty and having little incentive to be productive.
Many mistake the US Constitution as a purely political/ideological document. It's more than that. It's a distributed-network design. It's designed to distribute and regulate power just as the internet does with data. As with the original internet designs, it was designed to route around "damage" (corruption, etc) and report it to the rest of the network.
Let me take the networking analogy a bit further to describe current conditions/trends in the US.
What has happened in/to the US is management (We the People) have been off on the golf course instead of paying attention, listening to glowing reports from corrupt lackeys, meanwhile groups of rogue BOFHs have been running wild in the data centers and server rooms, doing everything from ripping out entire server racks and selling them from the back door, to installing their own hardware and software, selling company/customer data, running spam servers, etc etc.
They've radically altered the network's design while we were apathetic & distracted for a decade or six. It needs to be returned to a state more closely resembling the original network.
Slashdot Mirror
What about the Elders of Sion, Illuminati and the reptile men from Venus?
Yes, be sarcastic, ridicule me. Whatever you do, don't go checking any facts or do any digging on your own. That might be uncomfortable for you. Much easier and safer to stick with the groupthink.
After all, facts are over-rated, right?
Strat
If you lack the capacity to the see that the government is controlled by the rich and powerful, then honestly, you are beyond saving.
I see it just fine, TYVM. That's actually been my point about a too-large government all along. As long as governments are made up of people, there will *always* be wealthy & powerful interests corrupting it whether the government is large or small, and regardless of the form of that government. That's why, to remain free and without a bloody revolution every few years/decades, government must be kept as small and weak as possible.
Government is a necessary evil. All governments eventually become tyrannies, given enough time. The larger the government, the more wealth and power that it controls, the more quickly that happens, and the bloodier it will get before the tyranny is stopped.
Strat
As a licensed lefty, I restate, I have no sympathy of either.
The road to hell is paved with moral equivalency.
Strat
crazy paranoid explanations (Code Pink? Really?)
I guess you conveniently ignored the link to the SF Examiner story I provided (there are many, many other mainstream news services/papers reporting the same thing)?
Nice ad-hominem spew. Attacking the messenger assures me you've got nothing to say worth reading to refute me.
Your Liberal-fu is weak. All your base are belong to us.
You set *yourself* up the bomb.
Strat
"Uncomfortable But Honestly-Held And Explained Opinions I Disagree With" != "Troll"
Or is non-groupthink suppression & control part of that "Hope 'n Change"?
Strat
Yes because how dare they bring medical supplies and food
Please see my other post where I explained the term "useful idiot". If you actually believe that's the true purpose, then please avoid passing on your genes to the pool.
They could bring in those supplies without the so-called "flotilla". Medical and other humanitarian supplies can be transported freely into Gaza and the West Bank by land. The Israelis would probably even provide the trucks.
It's nothing but a naked attempt to force an incident resulting in violence for propaganda to be used in helping to turn the world against Israel and paint them as "oppressors". These flotilla people and all their fellow-travelers are just using the poor Palestinians. If they weren't a great tool for anti-Israeli propaganda and terrorist attacks, none of these groups and people would give a crap about them at all.
Heck, why should they? The Palestinians' own Arab "brothers" in Egypt & Syria had many decades in which they could have given them land in what eventually became Israel. Funny how these same countries and people didn't give a crap about Palestinians until they became a useful tool against Israel after 1948.
It's the same old "kill the Jews!" hatred from WW2 Germany that horrified & sickened the world, and caused us all to swear; "Never again!".
Yet, here we are again, and supposedly educated and sophisticated people, those who consider themselves oh-so compassionate, are silent or active "me-too's"...perfectly fine with going along with the bigotry, hatred, and the re-emergence of the cause behind the worst of the horrors of WW2.
I wasn't aware that the Final Solution was back in fashion among Liberal/Progressives. Silly me, I thought from all the T-shirts that Liberal/Progressives were still doing the "Mao", "Chavez", and "Che Guevara" Communist/Murdering Thug thing.
I guess the Left just loves the smell of Jewish genocide in the morning.
Strat
Absent the government, they'd skip the middle man and simply hire goons to get rid of people they find disagreeable with a lot more impunity.
Absent the government!?!? LOLwut!?!?
Who do you think hires and runs the goons (police)? If the government wasn't so large, powerful, arrogant, and corrupt, it/they wouldn't be looking to hire out law enforcement to rake in off-the-books wealth from rich special interests with agendas.
Strat
He's not a Republican, just your run-of-the-mill retard.
Yes I know there can be some overlap, but I don't know many (any?) Republicans who actually believe the grandparent's nonsense.
And, just like in those times, there were people who thought that the problem was not enough government power/control/wealth rather than too much, and who ridiculed, ostracized, and virulently opposed those who realized that government was the problem, not the solution. Those kinds of people came to be known as "useful idiots" thanks to Kruschev and the 20th century struggle against Marxism.
Thanks for proving my point. Although, in your case, there's very little "useful" to your idiocy.
Strat
EXACTLY! The action of these cops is DIRECTLY related to the growth of government! We should return to a time of smaller government - say, the 1950s or even the early 1900s - when police in the US deep South never abused anybody.
Strawman and false dichotomy. I never said that. Additionally, having a smaller government doesn't mean everybody gets a lobotomy and immediately starts swilling moonshine, ruining perfectly good sheets, and burning crosses. That's just ignorant, simplistic propaganda.
If you're going to bother replying, at least try to make some kind of coherent argument.
Strat
Code Pink?
Yes, Code Pink. Code Pink has been neck-deep in the Middle East wanting, apparently, to finish what the Nazis started with the Holocaust. How tolerant and "Progressive" of them.
http://www.sfexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/ayers-dohrn-helped-organize-flotilla-group
Former Weather Underground leaders William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, as well as Code Pink founder Jodie Evans, helped organize the Free Gaza Movement, which launched the six-ship flotilla from Turkey to Israel that ended in a violent clash with Israeli Defense Forces, BigGovernment.com reported.
In January, the trio were spotted in Egypt attempting to stir up crowds on the streets with 1,400 other left-wing activists after the Egyptian government refused to allow Free Gaza Movement members to enter the Gaza Strip. About 100 marchers were eventually allowed to cross the border, where they were met by former Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh.
Now, go back to sleep Doc, and dream about your perfect socialist nirvana that will never, ever be.
Strat
Any government big enough to have local police forces is big enough to do this.
Local police who are locally funded and controlled by local officials can only go so far before the other local citizens take their power and wealth away and replace them with better police with better, less-abusive policies.
When law enforcement gets a large amount of funding, receive orders, and follow policies and directives from a large central government, then local law enforcement loses accountability to their local populations.
There's a reason we talk about "police states" rather than "bureaucrat states" or "social worker states".
Yeah, the former USSR and China didn't/don't have much bureaucracy to run their police states and control their populations...
Oh, wait...They do/did! You're just talking out of your cloaca.
Strat
It's not the social programs that empower the goon squads.
If there wasn't so much government to protect, there wouldn't be as many goons. If the government didn't control the amount of wealth necessary to pay for social programs, they couldn't pay for as many goons. Money going into government coffers gets used for whatever those in power want, regardless of what any Constitutional Amendment, law, regulation, or politician promises.
So, yes. More wealth...even for social programs...controlled by government means more resources for the government to use against the people's interests. Where's that Social Security "lockbox'? Outside of what's collected from current wage earners to pay current recipients, how much is *not* government IOUs in the form of Treasury Notes etc?
The government wanted that SS money and took it. Just as it will any other wealth it wants...unless enough people stand up and demand the madness stop.
Strat
The French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and today the Arab Spring.
Apparently you are *not* a student of history, or else you'd know that every single one of the revolutions/uprisings you listed (with some exception for the "Arab Spring") was caused directly or indirectly by a too-large and powerful government that took too many resources away from the citizens and ignored their needs because they felt they had grown powerful enough to not care what the citizens wanted/needed.
Gee, just like the times we find ourselves in now, and for the exact same reasons. And, just like in those times, there were people who thought that the problem was not enough government power/control/wealth rather than too much, and who ridiculed, ostracized, and virulently opposed those who realized that government was the problem, not the solution. Those kinds of people came to be known as "useful idiots" thanks to Kruschev and the 20th century struggle against Marxism.
With the "Arab Spring" we see now that much of the preparation & planning in most of the countries where uprisings occurred/are occurring was/is being, at least initially, organized and funded by Code Pink, the AFL-CIO, SEIU, and other Liberal/Progressive, Socialist/Communist activist organizations who oppose Israel and wish for worldwide chaos as an opportunity for them to gain power and overthrow Western Capitalism.
Strat
Ha!
50% Overrated
50% Underrated
Now that's funny, I don't care who you are!
I guess we have a mix of masochists and others...not so much.
Strat
That aside, you can really depend on fascist state to behave, well, like a fascists.
It's what happens when government grows too big and powerful. It's happened every single time throughout the history of national governments whenever they grow too big. It has absolutely no relation to which political party is in control. It's because of human nature and how humans behave when in large, powerful groups.
So, who's in favor of government spending more money (getting larger) again? Anyone willing for the government to become smaller, less-powerful, and less expensive in exchange for less arrogance and tyranny from those who work for us?
Is anyone willing to *personally* take a good working-over by government thugs in exchange for another social program? *Someone* is going to get one. Likely many "someones". If you're not willing to take one, then why are you "volunteering" someone else to take one for something *you* want??
Every time people want the government to do yet another thing, add yet another program, department, administration, taskforce, panel, bureau, etc...whenever the government is given control of more wealth and power to legislate & regulate...that's the same as saying they want more of this crap like this videographer received, and other types of injustice from the government. It's what has always happened. You can see it happening now.
Strat
Even with a minimal government a concentration of wealth can be problematic. It can be as big a problem as a large corrupt government.
If you've reduced the scope & size of government sufficiently so that it adheres reasonably-well to it's constitution and actually is fairly representative of, and controlled reasonably-effectively by the citizens, then private wealth will lose a contest of power and/or attempts to corrupt, as government holds the monopoly on armed force.
This is why power & wealth is so much more dangerous in the government's hands than in the private sector's hands. Individuals and corporations don't have a military. The government does.
If Walmart does something I don't like, I can choose not to do business with them, even organize others against them. If I try that against the government, I'll be killed or imprisoned.
The key is to keep government only as powerful, and allow it to spend and control only the minimum amount of wealth necessary to accomplish it's basic minimum functions. It will then have to come hat-in-hand to the citizens for permission to do anything of consequence.
With a government thus controlled by the citizens, laws and regulations against private-sector interests using wealth for nefarious purposes can be enforced and thus the power of private wealth can be kept in check and balanced against individual and national interests.
Strat
I think your characterization of "Capitalism is good and Government is bad" is a false dichotomy.
I think your false dichotomy died at the hands of your own strawman argument.
What if the wealth controls, or as we see now, heavily influences government? Is only the government to blame for this corruption?
You talk as if this corruption of government by wealth either didn't exist in every government ever to a greater or lesser degree and extent, or that some magic new form of governing will be found where it can't or won't happen. The problem is not wealthy interests nor strictly government. It's human nature.
The point is that *corruption will always happen*, whether or not the government controls/confiscates all wealth, some portion, or none at all. Corruption accelerates, however, the larger and more powerful the government becomes and the more wealth it controls. It's intrinsic to what a government is, as governments are made up of, and it's functions carried out by, corruptible, weak, vain, power-hungry, and yes, sometimes outright dangerously psychotic people.
There is no such thing as a nation, government, or empire that can last forever. All that can be done is to delay as long as possible the eventual need to "reboot" government through collapse, coup, civil war, and/or revolution by limiting as much as possible the amount of power and wealth government controls and maximizing the amount of power and wealth controlled by the citizens.
The most successful system yet discovered to do this is by distributing government power down towards local government and the people as much as possible and practical, and for central government to perform as few functions and provide/maintain as few departments and services as possible while keeping as much wealth as possible out of the hands of government and politicians.
The simple truth is that the more power and wealth retained by individual citizens and not their government, the more free they'll be and the longer they're likely to stay that way.
It saddens me that so many have either forgotten or were never taught this lesson.
Strat
a reality thrust upon the less wealthy by the wealthier.
Damage to others by wealth only becomes a problem when that wealth is controlled by government. If government is working properly, then it will see to there being a relatively-even economic playing field.
Do you have more of a problem with Capitalism as opposed to the political structure of government? If so, that's sad.
Capitalism has raised more people out of poverty, created more wealth for them, and increased people's standard of living to the highest levels ever known, and for a longer period, than any other economic system. Ever.
The problem is not wealth or Capitalism. Government is not the solution to what you rail against, it's the problem.
Strat
This view seems to discount the effective lobbying Wal-Mart has employed on local Governments on an international scale. On the collective, it is as worth it to corrupt many small governments as it is to corrupt a larger one for the wealthy interests. Small and weak government or cooperation among a population limits the potential to counter the influence of a concentration of wealth.
Maybe much of what you define as "corruption" is actually local populations and their governments making a conscious decision to make themselves attractive in order to compete for the presence of a Walmart in their community in order to benefit from economic investment, tax-base growth, and employment.
There is value in large government that needs to be measured against the value of small government with less bureaucracy.
Government only needs to be large enough to accomplish those duties, and only those duties, mandated by the US Constitution. You want it to do more? Fine. Pass a Constitutional Amendment.
This relates to my prior analogy regarding government being a distributed-network design that's been hijacked and altered by rogue BOFHs without proper testing and vetting according to network administration rules. This is pretty much the current state of the US Government as it relates to it's adherence to the "network rules" set forth in the US Constitution.
Any well-functioning and "healthy" network and system needs rules and permissions. If you've got users (some actively hostile) on your system that can sudo random commands and install/uninstall any system software and bypass admin controls, it will become unworkable and insecure. If you've got politicians that can effectively bypass the Constitution whenever they feel like it, you will get corruption and tyranny.
"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." -Thomas Paine
"The government is best which governs least." -Thomas Jefferson
And, one of my favorite Jefferson quotes for it's relevancy and accuracy regarding US political trends over the last number of decades:
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." -Thomas Jefferson
Poor Thomas Jefferson...he must be spinning fast enough by now to be a good practical experiment in Einstein-ian relativistic theory!
Strat
You are arguing that smaller government is less corrupt because a money won't be effective in corrupting a small non-corrupt Government.
That's incorrect.
What I said was that a smaller, less-powerful central government is less-susceptible to corruption because there is less reason to attempt to bribe or influence a politician or government body that doesn't have enough power to accomplish the goals sought by those wishing to influence national laws, regulations, and policies, and when corruption *does* inevitably occur to some degree, it does less damage and is more visible.
Corruption is inevitable due to human nature. It will occur no matter the form of government. All one can do is to design a government that is small and weak enough to minimize damage possible through corruption and make it stand out like a sore thumb through reducing the "can't see the forest for the trees" effect of a huge government bureaucracy where wrongdoing can be more easily hidden and buried.
Strat
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Minimize power, minimize corruption. It's not a difficult concept, but a shockingly large number of people seem to not understand it, or don't want to understand it for personal ideological/political reasons.
I think that the part of my post I quoted that's in bold is where you're at.
It's a waste of time & effort to attempt to debate/discuss something with someone who does the mental equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears while going "LA LA LA LA LA...I can't HEAR you!!"
Good day, sir.
Strat
How would making government weaker in a way that reduces the incentive to corrupt it ALSO result in a government that exerts more influence over corporate (just to pick a common example) malfeasance?
With a weaker central government (weaker politically in comparison to States and to current status, nothing at all to do with a weaker justice/LE system) that experiences less corruption and influence, the justice system will be more effective at actually enforcing laws against corruption, etc due to less influence on the process, and less corruption in the legislative process means fewer unjust/unfair/corrupt bills passed as quid pro quo.
Less overall corruption makes it more likely that wealthy/powerful bad actors will face consequences. Smaller government means less areas and people to maintain oversight on, and allows more time and resources to be applied to possible cases of government corruption/influence peddling/other illegal behavior.
It also makes it harder to hide corruption and other illegal behavior from public awareness, just as it's harder to hide pick-pocketing in a small crowd as compared to a huge crowd.
Strat
its not human nature to be selfish or greedy.if so, you wouldnt have families.
That's just idiotic sophistry, sorry.
Bernie Madoff had a family. So did most of the Nazi leadership. Family relationships are another, separate area of human interaction. Many times the desire to provide wealth and power to family results in acts of greed and selfishness towards those outside the family unit.
All humans are weak, corruptible, fallible creatures to a greater or lesser extent. There are no perfect people. People cannot be made to be incorruptible or infallible. Ghandi wasn't perfect, nor was MLK or George Washington. Even Saints aren't perfect.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Minimize power, minimize corruption. It's not a difficult concept, but a shockingly large number of people seem to not understand it, or don't want to understand it for personal ideological/political reasons.
Strat
america, land of the free. as much as they have money that is. more money, more freedom. less, less freedom. hilarious irony of the land of the free in which freedom is tied to money, and those with the most money can decide how much others can be free.
This is a problem of human nature, not political ideology or system of government. It has and will occur in any and every government, no matter the society, ideology, or political system. Wealth, in whatever form it may take depending on the type of society/government/political ideology, has always and will always be able to buy privilege and favor.
Private wealth in and of itself is not to be despised, as it is not the problem. The rich vs poor class warfare is simply a propaganda tool to distract and deflect attention from a too large, powerful, and corrupt government and therefor maintain the status quo by keeping people divided and angry.
Humans are corruptible, weak, greedy, and fallible creatures. You can attempt to put in all the government restriction and oversight you want, but corruption will still occur. The larger and more powerful the government, the worse the corruption and the results of that corruption over time. All anyone can really do is keep it to a minimum at best.
As I've stated in previous posts under past topics, the only way to keep government corruption to a reasonable minimum is to make the central government as weak as possible while still fulfilling essential functions. Keep as much governing local as possible/practical so as to distribute power and thus make influencing enough politicians to make a national impact impractical.
As a bonus, and contrary to what many would say would happen with a smaller central government (that corporate/monied interests would more-easily influence/control government), with a less-corrupt government and justice system, corporations/businesses/unions and other wealthy/powerful interests that engage in bad/illegal behavior will actually have a decent chance of having meaningful consequences and penalties applied for their misdeeds.
You certainly can't remedy a corrupt government by giving it more power and wealth. That's how governments become corrupt to begin with. You also can't remedy a corrupt government by removing/redistributing private wealth. That just puts *all* the wealth and *all* the power in the same small set of corrupt government hands that were the problem to begin with. The citizens would then find themselves even more helpless against government/political injustices while living in poverty and having little incentive to be productive.
Many mistake the US Constitution as a purely political/ideological document. It's more than that. It's a distributed-network design. It's designed to distribute and regulate power just as the internet does with data. As with the original internet designs, it was designed to route around "damage" (corruption, etc) and report it to the rest of the network.
Let me take the networking analogy a bit further to describe current conditions/trends in the US.
What has happened in/to the US is management (We the People) have been off on the golf course instead of paying attention, listening to glowing reports from corrupt lackeys, meanwhile groups of rogue BOFHs have been running wild in the data centers and server rooms, doing everything from ripping out entire server racks and selling them from the back door, to installing their own hardware and software, selling company/customer data, running spam servers, etc etc.
They've radically altered the network's design while we were apathetic & distracted for a decade or six. It needs to be returned to a state more closely resembling the original network.
Strat
The mob or the government.
It can be hard to tell the difference.
Strat