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2016 American Presidential Campaign

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^ i have to agree. i do believe in the free market's ability to solve some problems when there's a buck in it but, jesus, look at what the market's greed has done to the u.s. in the last 15 years.

it's pretty astonishing to hear some of those who lean right rail against 'handouts' when some impoverished family is getting a couple of hundreds bucks yet they turn a blind eye to corporations being given millions :\

alasdair
 
alasdairm said:
i'm interested to read this. don't you think that the free-market has totally and utterly failed here? so why? because it's not been "left mostly to itself"?

when i lived in the u.k. i paid about the same amount of tax (proportionally) i pay here. when i needed a filling or had to see a doctor, i did just that - walked in, got help, walked out without (directly) paying a penny. people get care and it just works.

i didn't feel that my freedom was somehow threatened because the country i lived in thought that taking care of the health of the population was, you know, a good thing :)

alasdair
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Well to be fair, because of the nature of income-based tax, I don't have enough information to make a qualitative response.

But yes, I do think the marketplace in this country is not being left mostly to itself. I believe that there is a place for anti-trust legislation, just like there is a place and a time when unions are necessary -- but today the government is in charge of the monopoly, and they are not in the business of charity--rather, what exists is a corporo-fascist system where government and big businesses (too big to fail, remember that line?) work together to cheat the masses.

I'm a minarchist, so my position is defensible only if you accept that taxation is theft, and that small government, one that starts from the bottom up, is the only kind that offers true liberty.

I appreciate the civil convo, folks! :)
 
As someone who has studied medicine I'd like to comment on this when I have a bit of a clearer head. I don't believe capitalism has a place in medicine or hard scientific research for that matter. I'll expand when it isn't so late.
 
Just A Guy said:
But if taxation is to remain the same, there is so much waste and abuse that could be reallocated to subsidized healthcare, and that would be an improvement.
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Politicians use a divide-and-conquer strategy all the time over the lower-magnitude taxation topics. Drives me insane that so many people get caught up in it. Imperialism and inefficiency/bureaucracy - that's where the most significant problems are. That's where the tax dollars go. If we could "magically" make both of these vanish, tax rates would fall so much that covering things like universal healthcare would suddenly seem way less-intrusive to our paychecks. This is not to say that they still couldn't be disagreed with from a libertarian position, but from a utilitarian one, we really could do much better, like you said, reallocating tax money. Which is why I'd like to see candidates pushing for tax transparency. Republicans say nothing to this extent. Neither do most Democrats.


Anyway, anyone who thinks that the United States is a good example of a (very) free-market has some reading to do...

Most Republicans/neo-cons, despite what the left will tell you, are not really free-market purists if you look at their voting records and positions on things. As well, "trickle-down Reaganomics" is NOT anywhere close to being a real-world example of theoretical free-market capitalism. Reagan was the worst president in American history and it's a shame that a lot of leftists use him as an example within arguments.

Look at the two places that are regularly shown to be the world's freest markets - Hong Kong and Singapore. What do both of these places have? Universal healthcare. Who is third on the current list? New Zealand. What does New Zealand have? Umm, it's starting to look like moves toward both a freer market and universal healthcare may not be mutually-exclusive...
 
I have trouble comprehending a real free market on a mass scale. Like bigger than a bazaar, and it is hard for me to see how it works.

I'll have to do some reading into HK and Singapore, and how their stuff works. Thanks for the starting point.
 
RedLeader said:
Politicians use a divide-and-conquer strategy all the time over the lower-magnitude taxation topics. Drives me insane that so many people get caught up in it. Imperialism and inefficiency/bureaucracy - that's where the most significant problems are. That's where the tax dollars go. If we could "magically" make both of these vanish, tax rates would fall so much that covering things like universal healthcare would suddenly seem way less-intrusive to our paychecks. This is not to say that they still couldn't be disagreed with from a libertarian position, but from a utilitarian one, we really could do much better, like you said, reallocating tax money. Which is why I'd like to see candidates pushing for tax transparency. Republicans say nothing to this extent. Neither do most Democrats.


Anyway, anyone who thinks that the United States is a good example of a (very) free-market has some reading to do...

Most Republicans/neo-cons, despite what the left will tell you, are not really free-market purists if you look at their voting records and positions on things. As well, "trickle-down Reaganomics" is NOT anywhere close to being a real-world example of theoretical free-market capitalism. Reagan was the worst president in American history and it's a shame that a lot of leftists use him as an example within arguments.

Look at the two places that are regularly shown to be the world's freest markets - Hong Kong and Singapore. What do both of these places have? Universal healthcare. Who is third on the current list? New Zealand. What does New Zealand have? Umm, it's starting to look like moves toward both a freer market and universal healthcare may not be mutually-exclusive...
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That is certainly thought-provoking.
 
^ Shimmer.Fade actually brings up the best argument against my point - that free-markets and their effectiveness may be bounded above by population and/or by physical landscape. That these paradigmatic capitalist economies are all small and rather insular, and that it's only conjecture that modelling them would be of any benefit to a giant, overextended country like the USA.

Granted, I think that similar rules apply to other economic systems. I don't really think it's possible to govern gigantic populations over huge land masses without turning to some kind of force, be it physical, psychological or economic (any of which is wrong if you believe in non-aggression). I don't think there's any benevolent way to govern this many people while allowing them to retain their liberty. On the grand scale of things, gigantic nation-states are a terrible choice for humanity.

I don't know what the practical solution is. All of my ideas are theoretical in nature.
 
I've been reading through the Obamacare laws lately to find a loop hole to get out of paying the penalty next year. They have a good bit of wiggle room, but damn the shit is unconstitutional as hell. Reminds me of that U.S. Territory that just put a 1000 dollar excise tax on handguns. Politicians try to circumvent the constitution and it sickens me. Only a matter of time before California try's to implement a excise tax on buying guns IMO


Still can believe Clinton said color people time lol
 
Just A Guy said:
The health system in the USA is hardly free-market, left most to itself. That would have been more like what we had in the 60s, before Medicare and Medicaid -- while there still was limited government involvement
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Right, when people were still dying of the sniffles.

Seriously though, in the free market vs single payer healthcare system debate, we have to ask ourselves - is your health a commodity or a basic human right? Should your health be bought and sold like potato chips? Are we really such a disgustingly greedy country that we put a price tag on whether someone lives or dies according to how fat their wallet is? This sounds like a dystopian nightmare, honestly.

When the founders were designing their new country, they agreed that humanity should have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Life is not a privilege.
 
Shimmer.Fade said:
Your logic here is very flawed. If you recall to that time period once the decision to go to war had been made, it would have been tantamount to killing our own soldiers by not funding them. Do you honestly think he wanted his young constituents being sent out unprepared to a slaughter? If anything, this shows just how good of a president he would be.
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Nonsense. Without funding, the war is over. The troops come home. Voting for the funding is tantamount to killing our own soliders and the civilians of those countries, deaths that occurred even though they were fully funded.
 
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^ There are several extensions/funding bills that Sanders voted for. Some of them came bundled with humanitarian stuff, others did not. But if we can just put those aside right now and pretend that the above argument holds, that it's "protecting our soldiers" or whatever, not authorizing war.

S Con Res 21 - Kosovo Resolution Sanders votes yes. Authorizes Clinton to use military force against Yugoslavia. It's estimated that this "conflict" had 5000+ civilian casualties.

Why did the anti-war Sanders vote for this conflict? Note that this vote was largely a Democrat-Yes, Republican-No thing. Still, if Sanders wants to differentiate himself in 2016 from the Clintons and the Democrats in Washington, then why would he vote with them for this? (This is not rhetoric. I don't actually know why he voted as he did and would like someone to fill in the blanks for me).
 
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RedLeader said:
^ There are several extensions/funding bills that Sanders voted for. Some of them came bundled with humanitarian stuff, others did not. But if we can just put those aside right now and pretend that the above argument holds, that it's "protecting our soldiers" or whatever, not authorizing war.

S Con Res 21 - Kosovo Resolution Sanders votes yes. Authorizes Clinton to use military force against Yugoslavia. It's estimated that this "conflict" had 5000+ civilian casualties.

Why did the anti-war Sanders vote for this conflict? Note that this vote was largely a Democrat-Yes, Republican-No thing. Still, if Sanders wants to differentiate himself in 2016 from the Clintons and the Democrats in Washington, then why would he vote with them for this? (This is not rhetoric. I don't actually know why he voted as he did and would like someone to fill in the blanks for me).
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He's not an isolationist or a pacifist he has said that he thinks we need to defend ourselves as a nation and we should consider each situation case by case. Like gun control and securing the borders he is far more centrist on these things than he lets on.
 
Droppersneck said:
I've been reading through the Obamacare laws lately to find a loop hole to get out of paying the penalty next year. They have a good bit of wiggle room, but damn the shit is unconstitutional as hell. Reminds me of that U.S. Territory that just put a 1000 dollar excise tax on handguns. Politicians try to circumvent the constitution and it sickens me. Only a matter of time before California try's to implement a excise tax on buying guns IMO


Still can believe Clinton said color people time lol
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"Circumvent the constitution" is a matter of opinion, there's a reason the founding fathers made it so the constitution could be amended and changed. During the founding fathers lifetime they forced all draft age men to buy and keep a gun and they made the businesses and owners of large ships be monetarily responsible for the sailors health care. Lots of precedent for the ACA. Not that I like it, it's ultimately a republican legislation by a republican lite candidate. We should pass the public option already.
 
noone1 said:
He's not an isolationist or a pacifist he has said that he thinks we need to defend ourselves as a nation and we should consider each situation case by case.
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Nothing at all about Kosovo threatened the safety of America. It was not our defensive war. Other parts of Europe, well maybe they faced some threat (and ya, the EU pressed the US into this). But the stuff going on in Iraq/Syria right now could be argued as an active threat the neighbours of those countries (or EU nations), yet this isn't sufficient for Sanders in 2016. And if we went to Kosovo on humanitarian grounds, then there are dozens and dozens of places Sanders should want to go right now.
 
RedLeader said:
Nothing at all about Kosovo threatened the safety of America. It was not our defensive war. Other parts of Europe, well maybe they faced some threat (and ya, the EU pressed the US into this). But the stuff going on in Iraq/Syria right now could be argued as an active threat the neighbours of those countries (or EU nations), yet this isn't sufficient for Sanders in 2016. And if we went to Kosovo on humanitarian grounds, then there are dozens and dozens of places Sanders should want to go right now.
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We'd have to get an answer from Sanders obviously, no idea why he voted as he did though I suspect him being against Iraq had more to do with Bush lying than anything. Glossing over the bill it gives the president the right to aid NATO countries with air strikes. Doesn't say we have to. For the present he's also said we should support our allies but he personally thinks we should limit our involvement. I don't see a contradiction in any of this.

He's not a perfect candidate he's just the best candidate from a field of nothing but garbage.
 
RedLeader said:
Why did the anti-war Sanders vote for this conflict?
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Genocide and ethnic cleansing had been occurring on an embarrassingly large scale. And, being in a part of eastern Europe that is practically central Europe, it was becoming too visible (unlike Rwanda for example) for the world's powers not to act.

Ten years later Kofi Annan was still apologizing for the UN's impartiality that led to (though was not primarily responsible for - that was down to the warring factions) the biggest mass murder on European soil since WW2.

Don't shoot the messenger. You simply said you wanted the blanks filled in. The blanks were largely between civilians ribs, behind concentration camp wire.
 
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