Conservative politics and assumption

[Naskra]

Conservative is an umbrella term for a lot of political ideas

That's your problem right there. You need a conservative approach to language, one in which words have less flexible meanings.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

Conservatives don't really believe most of those things you mentioned. Mainstream republicans probably do, but they're hardly conservative. And mainstream democrats also believe a lot of the things you posted.

Mainsteam democrats are the Republicans of the 1990s and 1980s and 1970s. It's where center-right people go when the Republican party primaries you out of existence with attacks from further from the right. I could list a number of moderate Republicans who left the Republican party only to retire or be an Independent or the Democratic party, and compare it to the number of Democrats who went Republican. It's not a good comparison, because it makes my point. The Democratic party is the GOP of yesterday, it's a big tent where moderates (US) liberals (US), and not-bat-crazy conservatives (US) go. And thus, it is center-right, since all of those definitions are US definitions. Compare a liberal in the United States to one in Europe and they won't be the same thing.

But this assertion: "Conservatives don't really believe most of those things you mentioned" is unsupported by the facts. If you're about to apply a no true scotsman fallacy here, I caution you against wasting your valuable time.

Enlighten me, what do "conservatives" really believe? What are their policy positions, if not the ones I quoted from a conservative website about conservative policy positions?

Should I quote the Republican party platform? Or are they not conservative?

And stop comparing the US to Norway. The US is not, nor will they ever be, Norway. Policies that work in Norway won't necessarily work in the US. How come all the other liberal european countries like france, greece and spain don't have booming economies like Norway then?

The US will never geographically be Norway, sure. But the onus is on you to explain why gun control works in one country and not in another. Australia was just like the United States when it came to guns, then they took the risk and banned them, and the country is different now.

The argument is on you, you must prove that the United States cannot change.

Since you've failed to do that, my points stand. The US can do whatever it wants, and it can beat any country anywhere on earth at anything it wanted to do, if we wanted to do it.

I believe the United States can do. You believe the United States can't do. That's intellectually lazy and a cop-out, especially since you haven't said why we can't do.

For there to be a conversation, something needs to happen after you say we can do X or we can't do X. We could bat rhetoric back and forth all day long and get nowhere.

To advance the conversation, you have to include the why. Without the why, you're just repeating rhetoric that can't be discussed because it's not a collection of points to argue.

 

[Tahuti]

My suggestion would be the Australian system or the UK system. One where even the police are largely not armed because the nation is that safe. Where they use highly trained gun-toting police units only when the rare instance of them being needed because someone actually was able to obtain a dangerous firearm and a lot of ammunition.

Gun control can be a policy tool used for Conservative ends: The Netherlands instituted gun control in 1912 to prevent a Socialist revolution. Imagine the Red Scare prompting Gun control mania among US Anti-Communists!

For the record, it's over-stating things to say that the UK has anything so clear or deliberate as "a system". What we've done is, over the course of a century, gradually banned different categories of weapon, tool or potentially-menacing implement when and as the tabloid press decided that we should.

I mean, this is a country that recently banned "zombie knives", a category of weapon which, according to the police guidelines on the subject, are of "varying lengths" and "no specific shape or style". It is deeply unwise to use as a model of anything.

You'd almost think the British police guidelines are written by a tabloid writer...

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

Haven't read everything yet but I generally I agree on your points Pizza. And it's an impressive bulk of musings you're sharing here. But I don't think I follow your generalisation of what conservatism is and all the specific stands in different matters.

Conservative means something different in the United States. It also can mean a lot of things.

Right now, in the United States (and those are important distinctions to make), fiscal conservatism mostly means attempting to reduce the size of the federal budget in terms of dollar amounts, and as a percentage of the GDP. So, on the one hand, saying (without citing reasons why) the United States is the greatest country on Earth, but also saying, the government and support systems in place that help everyone in society, those social safety nets and foundations to help those who aren't independently wealthy, those supports can be removed and the United States will be even better off. My question is, if the United States is so great, why do you want to remove the foundations? Why make those changes? What problem exists that calls for removal of those foundations and supports? If it's the budget deficit, why not put the tax rates back where they were under Clinton when the budget was balanced, and reduce the expenditures on overseas military adventures? Why must support structures for the impoverished be the first things to be slashed?

Right now, in the United States, social conservatives are opposing progress on transgender rights and gay rights, wish to re-establish gay marriage bans, and would like to overturn policies that protect minorities against unfair hiring and renting practices.

Right now, in the United States, nationalists believe that more border control is essential and that we need to deport more people. They fail to address worker or tourist visa expiry as the main cause of "illegal" residence in the country. They believe in establishing English as the national language, in a more official capacity, which addresses and resolves no actual problem. They seek to impose identification standards which disproportionately disenfranchise the poor, especially Democratic voters, because voter fraud which doesn't occur should be addressed with policies that remove hundreds of thousands of otherwise legal voters and put them behind a pay wall at a government office, where those IDs are not handed out for free and which often require the kinds of documentation that, for example, descendants of slaves or people who grew up in rural areas might not have, or may have lost, and which require even more pay walls to be bypassed in order to re-obtain.

I had a driver's license confiscated from me at a traffic stop once, due to insurance expiring due to an automatic payment not going through properly, and the police took my only government issued photo ID. It took me months and hundreds of dollars to obtain my records from my home state, and then I needed to pay fines and fees to get the license back. In the meantime, I would have been completely disenfranchised. Stuff like that happens in poor neighborhoods, but that's no problem for rich people. All of that is an easy solve when you're rich. And no one is trying to enact laws which make it more difficult for rich people to vote. No one is reducing polling hours or reducing the number of days polling stations are open or reducing staff in polling stations in areas where rich people vote. Nationalists, conservatives, Republicans, are responsible for such policies.

All of those policies are abhorrent to the principles of government by representatives of the people. They're morally wrong and utterly corrupt.

Not sure how close you've been following Norwegian politics during your stay here but I'm sure you've gathered that conservative ideologi isn't the same here as in the US.

No, it's like night and day. I have yet to run into anyone I would consider "conservative" by US standards. However I have heard of some laughingstock politicians who are trying to undo the progress that has been made here. Particularly the politician in charge of education who is extremely unpopular with the teachers at my wife's school.

Imagine PM Erna Solberg and her party Høyre (torys) forming a coalition government with US republicans. Would have been utterly inconceivable due to extreme differences over just about every aspect of politics. So can you apply all of your assumptions to Norwegian conservatives too? If not, does your premise still stand?

You'll have to tell me more about what policy positions conservatives (Norwegian definition) have, before I could begin to speculate.

I note that the one in charge of education policy who supported increasing the requirements for qualifications of teachers (addressing a problem that doesn't exist, since Norway's schools are much better than those in the US) but made that requirement effective immediately, which suddenly made teachers with 10 and 20 and 30 years experience unqualified for their current jobs, and which, if enforced, would cause like half of the teachers in Norway to be unable to teach, without addressing that problem in any way.

It reminds me of US conservatives in that they address problems that do not exist with solutions which do not solve anything and create problems that are a thousandfold worse than the idea that the teacher in the excellent school system could use another 6 months of a certain college course to be a better teacher.

That's bad governance. That's the policy position of the only conservative Norwegian politician I am aware of.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

I'll just talk about two of them, but boy you are on fire with your assumptions.

Opinion pieces by Forbes are not the same as government data. If I gave you a socialist screed written by a liberal and posted on MSNBC, and it cited only liberal think-tank data, you'd be within your rights to reject the source.

Look at the sources quoted in your Forbes article. Other conservative publications and bloggers. What sources do I bring to the table for you? Government sources.

Here's the general rule for this discussion: If all I do is quote liberals quoting liberals quoting liberal opinion pieces, and all you do is quote conservatives quoting conservatives quoting conservative opinion pieces, then we are talking past one another.

Eventually there has to be real data outside of the partisan blogs that can be referred to. And the summation of that article was that things needed to be addressed, namely, what to do with the surplus power, and how to store it better. Things which we're making advances on every day. And all of which misses the point: Renewable energy can work and does work. The systems don't have to be flawless to be superior.

Isn't that a wonderful thing that the consumers a subsiding big energy. I thought subsidies were bad for the government to do.

Renewable energy isn't cheap to begin with, and requires smart governance to maintain, yes. Subsidies help get the process started.

But also mentioned in the article is the massive fluctuations caused by renewable energy. The problem is that with wind and solar that when there is no sunshine and no wind, you get no power, so you need some sort of back up power so you don't have blackouts, then there is the opposite problem when you get too much power form those sources and because you have so much energy being produced you literally have to pay people to consume your power.

Most of those issues are resolved with improvements in power storage systems and increasing the capacity of those systems. Advancements are being made all the time.

I'll counter Forbes with Forbes.

Batteries. It's pretty simple. And they're getting cheaper all the time.

This isn't a political problem. If anyone of any political bearing wanted to make renewable energy sources work more efficiently, they all add batteries to the equation.

That's the simple, no-nonsense, no-partisanship solution to a very simple problem.

But this shows just how bad it can be when you only have to rely on renewable energy.

The reliance on fossil fuels has caused its fair share of economic disruptions as well, I assume you've heard of OPEC and oil prices.

Why hold renewable energy to one standard and ignore the problems caused by non-renewables which are the same types of problems?

Answer: Bias.

What happened in Tasmania was a farce because the dam level were massively mismanaged when electricity prices were higher, thus they produced more power so they could sell at a higher price, not making sure they properly managed the level so there would be enough for a rainy day, so to speak.

Thus the system failed due to mismanagement, not due to there being a flaw in hydroelectric power as a source of renewable energy.

Any system you can think of is not idiot-proof. When the vast majority of renewable energy systems function better, cleaner, and reliably, these examples do not represent a systemic problem.

You would have made your case if you could cite substantial or more severe problems occurring in countries which rely on renewable energy, and have that have been the case for all or most of those countries. Citing one example of a failed hydroelectric system out of thousands is not the approach you want to take here.

Anecdotal evidence is only useful sometimes, not when you want to demonstrate something systemic. Then you need statistics.

You didn't bring statistics, you brought me an anecdote.

My anecdote causes your anecdote to be a wash. Now bring me statistics and let's compare. How much do you want to wager your statistics don't prove your case, but instead, prove my points?

Will take some research on your part. I wish you the best of luck.

2. Embryonic stem cells.
I'll just leave you with this website. http://www.stemcellresearch.org/
You will notice that as of right now there are 73 successful treatment using adult stem cells and none using embryonic stem cells. Considering that both have been around for the same period, it should be time to stop the fantasy that embryonic stem cells will do any treatment. But apparently we're anti-sconce for pointing this out.

I'll leave you with this link:

http://stemcell.childrenshospital.org/about-stem-cells/history/

"1981 — Two scientists, Martin Evans of the University of Cambridge and Gail Martin of the University of California, San Francisco, conduct separate studies and derive pluripotent stem cells from the embryos of mice. These early cells are the first embryonic stem cells ever to be isolated."

Stem cell research begins in 1981. It started with embryonic stem cells.

"1989 — Research from scientists Mario Capecchi, Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies comes together, creating the first “knockout mice,” which are mice specially bred in the laboratory to be missing specific genes. These mice are created using embryonic stem cells and homologous recombination, a process in which similar strands of DNA switch genes. Since scientists bred the first knockout mice, there have been more than 500 different mouse models of human disease. In 2007, the Nobel Assembly recognized these three scientists for their research, which has proven to be invaluable in understanding how various human diseases, including diabetes and cancer, develop."

More embryonic stem cell research, producing results.

"Nov. 6, 1998 — A team at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, led by James Thomson and Jeffrey Jones, reports the creation of the first batch of human embryonic stem cells, which they derived from early embryos. After finding the cells were pluripotent, the team sees the potential the cells have for drug discovery and transplantation medicine."

The first batch of human embryonic stem cells. Now we can begin obtaining serious results for human beings. We've already developed treatments regarding bone marrow and blood, and there's no telling what we may find. But the results are real, so far.

A few years go by:

"Aug. 9, 2001 — President George W. Bush signs an order authorizing the use of federal funds for research on a limited number of existing human embryonic stem cell lines. (Click here for the President’s remarks.) Scientists fear several of these available lines are now too old for research."

At this point, research on human embryonic stem cells is all but halted.

"March 9, 2009 — President Barack Obama signs Executive Order 13505 to repeal some of the restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research funds placed by the previous administration. The order requires the National Institutes of Health to draft new guidelines for federal funding policies within 120 days."

"Dec. 2, 2009 — The NIH deems 13 lines of human embryonic stem cells, the first under the new administration’s guidelines, eligible for research funding. Eleven of these 13 lines were created at Boston Children’s Hospital. Any scientist wanting to conduct research on any of these cell lines can now apply for federal funding. Read more in this blog post."

So, in 2010, it becomes technically possible for scientists to develop treatments with embryonic stem cells again.

Meanwhile, the umbilical stem cell research which owes its existence to embryonic stem cell research continued unabated. So yes, if you ban one kind of research, and allow a different kind to continue, then one will produce more results than the other. Hard research can take years or decades to produce results.

Saying there are more treatments due to non-embryonic stem cell research ignores the fact that there would be zero stem cell research being done at all unless we had started with the embryos, and that embryonic stem cell research had been effectively halted by the government.

So it's a silly comparison to make, and quite an ignorant one, especially when the entire thrust of your argument is that they have both been "around for the same period". They have not. And it's because of conservative policy makers, directly.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

For the record, it's over-stating things to say that the UK has anything so clear or deliberate as "a system". What we've done is, over the course of a century, gradually banned different categories of weapon, tool or potentially-menacing implement when and as the tabloid press decided that we should.

I mean, this is a country that recently banned "zombie knives", a category of weapon which, according to the police guidelines on the subject, are of "varying lengths" and "no specific shape or style". It is deeply unwise to use as a model of anything.

Whether the end result is a result of one giant change or a series of incremental changes, the difference is clear.

I'm not a patient guy when it comes to gun deaths. The sooner we get to the end of that road, where the differences become stark, the better. That's why I advocate for the whole smash, rather than the piecemeal process.

Each one of those changes is nearly impossible to pass in a Republican congress. And the more complicated the system, the more loopholes and exceptions and riders can be added.

Just saying no, is legislation that could be passed all at once, and leaves little room for error. The current interpretation of the second amendment might cause a repeal. But a liberal court might uphold it. Both of those things are long shots.

I may have to settle for piecemeal progress instead. Whichever, as long as we end up at similar results.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

Also, @classical et al

If you link to articles behind a pay wall, we can't discuss them unless you quote them in their entirety. And as a general rule, of your opinion piece is behind a pay wall, it's not being written for the general audience as news or debate, but for the kool aid drinkers who want to have their opinions confirmed by someone repeating their own opinions at them. See the business model employed by conservatives such as Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, in order to charge their audience to hear their own opinions. Pay money to hear what you already believe.

Real news is written for an audience of people that doesn't necessarily agree with what is being written. If the business model precludes that as a likely possibility, your source of information is an echo chamber. If the source contains the word "Finance" or "investor" or "business" in the title, and it is an opinion article, you're going to find that it is generally a rich guy's blog, not a news source.

Examples-
"Business Insider"
"Investor's Business Daily"
Pretty much everything in the opinion section on Forbes magazine, the magazine of a Republican Flat Tax proponent, about business and minimum wages. You're basically literally asking the plutocrat if he would be more egalitarian and his answer is shockingly a no.

"Australian Financial Review" would be in that category.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Gun control can be a policy tool used for Conservative ends: The Netherlands instituted gun control in 1912 to prevent a Socialist revolution. Imagine the Red Scare prompting Gun control mania among US Anti-Communists!

Gun control didn't really become a major talking point in the US until the Black Panthers started aggressively asserting their right to bear arms in California.

 

[Brianstorm]

Depends on many factors. You could be a conservative in terms of federal government, but have no problem with states themselves being liberal if they so choose. Or you could want a strong federal government that focuses on defense. Or you could be a liberal who wants a strong defense but wants higher taxes so the government also takes care of more social issues.

Obviously this is US specific in regards to states.

 

[christos200]

Conservative politics are generally speaking a set of unsupported or already debunked assumptions, made into policy by those with power, often at odds with basic science, logic, or economics. These policies are supported through a combination of things, namely: (1) apathy (2) lack of empathy (3) self-centered focus (4) discrimination and cliquishness.

I would have to disagree with you. If anything, facts show that socialism and the so called in US liberalism (real liberals believe in free market) have failed while states which follow free market economic policies are more successful and tend to be stable democracies with low corruption.

States with high economic freedom do by far better economically than states with big government. One has to see Chile, to use an example. Due to high economic freedom, Chile has the highest nominal GDP per capita in Latin America, a stable democracy in a region where populists are the rule, has more than halved poverty rates and has low corruption. Compare Chile with socialist hellhole Venezuela. You can also compare South Korea, which also has free market economy, with North Korea. You can also see the failure of big government policies in southern EU states like Greece, which funded a overgrown public sector with loans and eventually bankrupted. Polities which high degree of economic freedom tend to do better than socialist ones and this is a fact. Not to say that free market reforms have lifted millions of peoples in India and China from poverty.

Economic freedom is also vital to political freedom. When the individual is dependent of the state for living, he is powerless before it. This is not the case when the individual does not need state assistance to make a living. There is a reason why dictatorships which enforced free market economic policies transformed into stable democracies (Chile, etch).

I would also argue that self-centered focus is not per se a bad thing. Socialists tend to view people as a mass while libertarians and conservatives as individual persons. In my opinion, the later view is more healthy and democratic than the former one. Conservatives and libertarians are not apathetic (mostly at least); they just believe that the big government socialist policies leftists support lead to economic downturn and have more negative consequences than positive for the people. As for discrimination, there are some far right racists but a large number of conservatives and some of the libertarians simply want a stop to illegal immigration because it breaks the law. I do not believe that it is racism to want the law to be enforced (there is a reason illegal immigration is called illegal).

However, regarding the role of religion and civil rights (right of gays to marry, etch), I tend to agree with you, being a libertarian conservative and not a social conservative.

Also one needs to keep in mind that conservatism is not a single coherent ideology. Social conservatives and libertarian conservatives have differences, as do moderate conservatives and nationalists ones. Also conservatives from different regions differ. US conservatism is not the same as European conservatism. There are conservative parties which are more statist and on the left in economics than social democratic parties. Some conservatives in EU states are more on the left in economics than Sanders.

 

[christos200]

As far as I see, Conservatism is the ideology of giving more to those that have most, on the premise that they somehow deserve it. That position has gotten less popular over the years, so they've had to mask in in different ways, usually by form of traditionalism and nationalism

How exactly it gives more to the rich? Do they subside them? Nope. Unlike socialism, it does not steal people of their income because its believes that rich people need to be punished for being successful. In fact, overtaxing the rich sends a message: do not make it to the top, do not strive to be successful because it is considered immoral and bad.

Also, a number of libertarians and conservatives (including Milton Friedman) support negative income tax, so the idea that those who support free market do not support any social welfare or do not care for those who live under poverty is false.


Link to video.

 

[choxorn]

I would have to disagree with you. If anything, facts show that socialism and the so called in US liberalism (real liberals believe in free market) have failed while states which follow free market economic policies are more successful and tend to be stable democracies with low corruption.

<citation needed>

States with high economic freedom do by far better economically than states with big government. One has to see Chile, to use an example. Due to high economic freedom, Chile has the highest nominal GDP per capita in Latin America, a stable democracy in a region where populists are the rule, has more than halved poverty rates and has low corruption. Compare Chile with socialist hellhole Venezuela.

Let me tell you a little story. Once upon a time, there was an Empire called Spain, that conquered all of Latin America (well, almost all of it, Portugal had a bit of it too and did pretty much the same thing Spain did) and enslaved all the native inhabitants (and brought some more slaves from Africa as well) to send gold and silver and other assorted goods back to their home in Europe, without anyone who actually lived in Latin America seeing any real benefits. After a few hundred years of this, the people living in Spain's colonial empire, tired of this mistreatment, declared independence and kicked them out. Brazil, Portugal's colony, did the same, as did a few of the assorted Caribbean islands owned by other European powers. And they all lived happily ever after!

Except not really, because having all their natural resources stolen for a few hundred years didn't leave them very well off, and then foreign (mostly American) industrial giants came in and started taking advantage of the nice new shiny Crude Oil that a few of the Latin American countries, like Venezuela, still had. Others just made a fortune growing bananas or cocoa beans or some other crop, but again, the actual people living and working in Latin America generally didn't see much of the money generated from this, all of it going to rich American or British businessmen and oil tycoons. During the late 1800's and early-mid 1900's, the US government would even frequently interfere with the affairs of those independent countries that were being taken advantage of by their commercial interests, which led to some pretty awful dictatorships propping up. This got worse when the Cold War started, and the US was willing to prop up any sort of awful regime as long as it opposed communism, even if it was one like Chile's Augusto Pinochet who spent decades using the weapons the US was selling him to terrorize and "disappear" his own citizens.

The reason why many populist dictators were able to gain support, like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, is that they promised an end to their countries being taken advantage of by giant foreign corporations who would exploit the region's natural resources for their own profit and give the people living there nothing to show for it. Now, sure, Chavez didn't do a lot for the average Venezuelan either, unless by "the average Venezuelan" you mean "Hugo Chavez's cronies," but it's not like populist dictators like him just spontaneously pop up in a vacuum.

As to why Venezuela is currently in the toilet, that's partly because of years of their government's corruption and mismanagement and partly because they became very over-reliant on oil exports, and OPEC decided to overproduce tons of oil, making the price go way down and making a huge chunk of Venezuela's economy become half as valuable.

You can also compare South Korea, which also has free market economy, with North Korea.

I'll take "South and North Korea have way more differences than just their economic systems" for $500, Alex.

You can also see the failure of big government policies in southern EU states like Greece, which funded a overgrown public sector with loans and eventually bankrupted.

Spain, Portugal, and Greece spent decades ruled by Fascist dictators, is it really surprising that they're not as wealthy as France or Belgium or Germany? Then the global economy crashed in 2008 and the wealthier EU states forced the poorer ones into tons of austerity measures that would only cause economic recovery for the rich. But who cares about poor people when the stock market is doing well, right?

Polities which high degree of economic freedom tend to do better than socialist ones and this is a fact. Not to say that free market reforms have lifted millions of peoples in India and China from poverty.

And into jobs with horrific working conditions.

Also, there were plenty of other political reforms in China, liberalizing the market a bit was hardly the only one that led to its current situation.

Economic freedom is also vital to political freedom. When the individual is dependent of the state for living, he is powerless before it. This is not the case when the individual does not need state assistance to make a living.

Right, because having to work 60 hours a week to be able to afford a cramped apartment and just enough food to survive doesn't make an individual powerless before the state or other powerful entities.

It's great if you can make a living without state assistance, but that would require that you make enough money from your employers to afford said living, and... oh wait but minimum wages guaranteeing that are state assistance and communist, right?

There is a reason why dictatorships which enforced free market economic policies transformed into stable democracies (Chile, etch).

Fun fact: Chile's current stable democracy had a center-left coalition leading it for the majority of the time since Pinochet's dictatorship ended. Its current president, Michelle Bachelet, is a socialist.

Whaaaaa? But I thought that the free market would lead to more freedom for the country! How can it be that Chile was an oppressive dictatorship with right-wing economics for decades and then became a free democracy with left-wing economics! How can that be?

Conservatives and libertarians are not apathetic (mostly at least); they just believe that the big government socialist policies leftists support lead to economic downturn and have more negative consequences than positive for the people.

That's funny, because as I recall, it was right-wing economics, not left-wing economics, that led to the global financial crash in 2008 that we're still feeling the aftershocks of. That doesn't seem to jive well with this theory of left-wing economics causing more downturns.

As for discrimination, there are some far right racists but a large number of conservatives and some of the libertarians simply want a stop to illegal immigration because it breaks the law. I do not believe that it is racism to want the law to be enforced (there is a reason illegal immigration is called illegal).

Well if you can make a magical force field that can keep illegal immigrants from entering the country, go ahead and build one, but walls and fences don't really do the job. And what would you do with the illegal immigrants that are already here? They work (often dangerous jobs for low pay that nobody else is willing to do), and, this may shock you, buy things and pay taxes on those things, which contributes to the economy a little bit.

How exactly it gives more to the rich? Do they subside them? Nope.

But there literally are tons of tax breaks and subsidies, for things like oil companies, which are, in effect, giving things to the rich so that they can continue destroying the environment and wrecking the planet.

Unlike socialism, it does not steal people of their income because its believes that rich people need to be punished for being successful. In fact, overtaxing the rich sends a message: do not make it to the top, do not strive to be successful because it is considered immoral and bad.

Most of the things a government does benefits everyone, rich or poor. The rich need the government to fund roads, and police forces, and electricity, and tons of other things, just as much as the poor do, and probably benefit more than the poor do from stable economic and political situations- if your country is going to hell with no strong government and constant rioting, you're going to have a lot of trouble making money or protecting the money you do have because the police don't have the manpower to stop someone from breaking into your house and stealing your stuff or the ability to investigate who did it and help you out with your monetary losses. And yeah, there are also welfare programs and food and healthcare assistance for the poor, because generally people think that it's not okay to let people starve to death or die from illnesses or injuries just because they don't have the money to afford food or water or medicine.

The reason why the tax burden tends to be higher on rich people is because there's a lot of things we need to be paying for to allow society to function and to make sure everyone gets the basic necessities of life, and the rich people are the ones who can actually pay for it. Someone making $10,000 a year can't spare 50% of their income to help pay for necessary government programs, they need that money to pay for food and rent. Someone making $10,000,000 a year can spare that income that would otherwise just be invested into a bank or buying them another beach house or a luxury car or a swimming pool made of solid gold.

 

[Oerdin]

Embryonic stem cells are banned from federal funding while adult ones are not thus why companies concentrate on the later as tgeir R&D effectively gets done on a public subsidy.

 

[W|M]

Fun fact: Chile's current stable democracy had a center-left coalition leading it for the majority of the time since Pinochet's dictatorship ended. Its current president, Michelle Bachelet, is a socialist.

Bachelet is not a socialist at all, and her government is heavily repressing Chilean protests.

Well if you can make a magical force field that can keep illegal immigrants from entering the country, go ahead and build one, but walls and fences don't really do the job. And what would you do with the illegal immigrants that are already here? They work (often dangerous jobs for low pay that nobody else is willing to do), and, this may shock you, buy things and pay taxes on those things, which contributes to the economy a little bit.

There's also the fact that free movement is a right, and restricting where people go because of some imaginary lines on a map is ridiculous.

Most of the things a government does benefits everyone, rich or poor. The rich need the government to fund roads, and police forces, and electricity, and tons of other things, just as much as the poor do, and probably benefit more than the poor do from stable economic and political situations- if your country is going to hell with no strong government and constant rioting, you're going to have a lot of trouble making money or protecting the money you do have because the police don't have the manpower to stop someone from breaking into your house and stealing your stuff or the ability to investigate who did it and help you out with your monetary losses

Poor people don't need the police at all, since the police has only one function, and that is to protect the interests of the rich. As for stealing things, the police has stolen things from me (no, they weren't illegal), and they constantly steal things from many other people, so saying that they prevent robberies or theft seems rather counter-intuitive. There's also the fact that police around the world are hugely discriminatory against people who don't fit the demographics of those in power (e.g. white people in the Americas), and when given guns, are brutally murderous.

 

[choxorn]

Bachelet is not a socialist at all, and her government is heavily repressing Chilean protests.

That's what I get for taking Wikipedia's word for something without actually checking more than the description saying she's from the Socialist Party.

Which is still more research than christos did, but I guess I still have much to learn about Latin American politics. And heavy repression, you say? Maybe Chile isn't quite as free as christos thinks it is.

The "Chile spent decades under a center-left coalition" part was more accurate, I hope.

There's also the fact that free movement is a right, and restricting where people go because of some imaginary lines on a map is ridiculous.

Well, yeah, that too, but so many conservatives refuse to budge an inch on the whole "restricting where people can live based on which side of an arbitrary line they were born" thing, I didn't think there was any point in arguing that.

Poor people don't need the police at all, since the police has only one function, and that is to protect the interests of the rich. As for stealing things, the police has stolen things from me (no, they weren't illegal), and they constantly steal things from many other people, so saying that they prevent robberies or theft seems rather counter-intuitive. There's also the fact that police around the world are hugely discriminatory against people who don't fit the demographics of those in power (e.g. white people in the Americas), and when given guns, are brutally murderous.

I guess your country's cops are even worse than my country's cops. At least here they won't constantly steal things from... oh wait, right, civil asset forfeiture is a thing. Well the brutally murderous... oh yeah, they kind of do that, too, and they carry guns all the time because America really loves guns and refuses to enact any sort of gun restriction even the conservativest of conservatives would agree is a good idea, like, say, universal background checks or keeping guns out of the hands of terrorism suspects or domestic abusers, so the cops kind of have to carry guns all the time for their own protection and they're very trigger happy, especially if you happen to have the wrong skin color. So yeah, I guess my country's cops are as bad as yours, they just aren't as blatant about it.

 

[christos200]

<citation needed>

Compare economies with high degree of economic freedom to the ones with low.

As to why Venezuela is currently in the toilet, that's partly because of years of their government's corruption and mismanagement and partly because they became very over-reliant on oil exports, and OPEC decided to overproduce tons of oil, making the price go way down and making a huge chunk of Venezuela's economy become half as valuable.

The reason why Venezuela is a hellhole is because of its statist socialist policies. Without them, Venezuela might still have been in bad shape due to the lowering oil price but it would not be the hellhole it is today.

I'll take "South and North Korea have way more differences than just their economic systems" for $500, Alex.

South Korea too was a dictatorship for most of its existence. Why it became a democracy and North Korea not? Why did South Korea succeed in the field of economic growth while North Korea failed despite the fact that initially the North had the better economy? Free markets.

Spain, Portugal, and Greece spent decades ruled by Fascist dictators, is it really surprising that they're not as wealthy as France or Belgium or Germany? Then the global economy crashed in 2008 and the wealthier EU states forced the poorer ones into tons of austerity measures that would only cause economic recovery for the rich. But who cares about poor people when the stock market is doing well, right?

Nonsense. Under the "fascists" (they were not fascists) dictators Greece had a rate of economic growth comparable to Japan and Germany. You know when this ended? When in 1981 the socialists came to power. Debt skyrocketed from 20% to 90% of GDP in less than 8 years. Factories closed because of the socialist legislation passed and the labor unions became all powerful corrupt organizations. As for austerity measures, they do not force the poor to pay for the rich; they force those who work in the private sector to fund through overtaxation an overgrown public sector. The problem with Greece is the lack of cut of public spending and real reform. The leftist government of Tsipras overtaxes the people not because the North says so, but in order to preserve his political clients in the public sector.

And into jobs with horrific working conditions.

I guess the Indians and Chinese before the economic reforms were living an excellent life and had decent jobs. Working conditions now might not be top tier but are better than before and more Indians and Chinese have a basic income. Something which they lacked before.

Also, there were plenty of other political reforms in China, liberalizing the market a bit was hardly the only one that led to its current situation.

Before Deng Xiaoping China was a hellhole in which millions of peoples died in utterly catastrophic centrally planned economic projects.

Right, because having to work 60 hours a week to be able to afford a cramped apartment and just enough food to survive doesn't make an individual powerless before the state or other powerful entities.

The individual still has more freedom: compare average US citizen with average USSR one in the 1980's or US citizen with North Koreans nowadays.

Fun fact: Chile's current stable democracy had a center-left coalition leading it for the majority of the time since Pinochet's dictatorship ended. Its current president, Michelle Bachelet, is a socialist.

Whaaaaa? But I thought that the free market would lead to more freedom for the country! How can it be that Chile was an oppressive dictatorship with right-wing economics for decades and then became a free democracy with left-wing economics! How can that be?

Firstly, the social democrats ruling Chile have retained most of Pinochet's reforms. If the leftists who opposed Pinochet think they are working, I guess they must be doing something right, eh?

Secondly, the fact that Chile could elect a left wing government when in nearby Venezuela its leader threatens to launch Erdogan like purges says a lot about how free markets lead to stable democracies while socialism leads to serfdom.

Well if you can make a magical force field that can keep illegal immigrants from entering the country, go ahead and build one, but walls and fences don't really do the job. And what would you do with the illegal immigrants that are already here? They work (often dangerous jobs for low pay that nobody else is willing to do), and, this may shock you, buy things and pay taxes on those things, which contributes to the economy a little bit.

So lets open the borders and allow everyone to enter in. Great solution.

Illegal immigrants should be deported. They are called illegal for a reason. In Greece our previous right wing government increased patrols in the border, arrested a large number of illegal immigrants with police raids, jailed them in camps and deported them. It worked and despite the Syrian Civil War, there was no large scale migration. When Syriza came to power, it opened the borders and closed the camps and that's how Greece flooded with illegal immigrants.

US could try something similar with the solution we followed: increase patrols, arrest illegals and place them in camps so they cannot leave and then deport them back to their countries. A simple solution. Although, due to the fact that the US has millions of illegal immigrants, it may be more reasonable for pure logistical reasons to legalize those who have lived in US for many years and have no criminal record and enforce deportation to those who have lived for only a few years, those who have criminal record and to newcomers.

But there literally are tons of tax breaks and subsidies, for things like oil companies, which are, in effect, giving things to the rich so that they can continue destroying the environment and wrecking the planet.

Tax breaks foster economic growth as they allow companies to have more money to invest in the economy.

Most of the things a government does benefits everyone, rich or poor. The rich need the government to fund roads, and police forces, and electricity, and tons of other things, just as much as the poor do, and probably benefit more than the poor do from stable economic and political situations- if your country is going to hell with no strong government and constant rioting, you're going to have a lot of trouble making money or protecting the money you do have because the police don't have the manpower to stop someone from breaking into your house and stealing your stuff or the ability to investigate who did it and help you out with your monetary losses.

For once, I agree with you. I am not anarchist nor most conservatives or libertarians are. I do not believe that most people when they talk about less government they mean abolishing the police.

And yeah, there are also welfare programs and food and healthcare assistance for the poor, because generally people think that it's not okay to let people starve to death or die from illnesses or injuries just because they don't have the money to afford food or water or medicine.

And have already stated in an above post that I support negative income tax as a form of welfare.

Someone making $10,000,000 a year can spare that income that would otherwise just be invested into a bank or buying them another beach house or a luxury car or a swimming pool made of solid gold.

Do not see why one should be prevented from enjoying life with his money. Rich people do not own anything to the poor ones (and the reverse is true too). All citizens must pay as much tax as absolutely necessary so that the state can function and no more. Taxation in order to enforce income distribution is common thievery.

I myself support a flat tax of 15% with negative income tax replacing government welfare programs.

This would, of course, require substantial cut of public spending but it can be enforced in Greece (there is an article of a Greek economics professor and another of a Greek politician on the exact numbers of expenditure that must be cut but they are in Greek).

 

[Cutlass]

I think a point that all of you are missing is that conservatives in the US utterly hate the concept of 'free' markets. They want those markets centrally planned every bit as much as any communist does. They just want them centrally planned under private ownership.

 

[W|M]

What do you mean centrally planned under private ownership? Although corporations are made up of top-down hierarchies, they operate out of many different places and in many different areas, so I don't see what's so centrally planned from them

That's what I get for taking Wikipedia's word for something without actually checking more than the description saying she's from the Socialist Party.

Which is still more research than christos did, but I guess I still have much to learn about Latin American politics. And heavy repression, you say? Maybe Chile isn't quite as free as christos thinks it is.

The "Chile spent decades under a center-left coalition" part was more accurate, I hope.

Parties which call themselves ''socialist'', ''workers'', etc., especially when in power, tend to be anything but. The ''pink tide'' that a lot of economists were praising in the 2000s was being praised because it was hiding neoliberal reforms behind red flags.

The ''decades under a centre-left coalition'' part is accurate, but that's also accurate in Brazil, and there has still been heavy repression of protests, neoliberal reforms, and the mass murder of poor people, especially black people in urban areas and Amerindian people in rural areas.

I guess your country's cops are even worse than my country's cops. At least here they won't constantly steal things from... oh wait, right, civil asset forfeiture is a thing. Well the brutally murderous... oh yeah, they kind of do that, too, and they carry guns all the time because America really loves guns and refuses to enact any sort of gun restriction even the conservativest of conservatives would agree is a good idea, like, say, universal background checks or keeping guns out of the hands of terrorism suspects or domestic abusers, so the cops kind of have to carry guns all the time for their own protection and they're very trigger happy, especially if you happen to have the wrong skin color. So yeah, I guess my country's cops are as bad as yours, they just aren't as blatant about it.

Cops carry guns because it's in the interests of the state to have them carry guns, and I'd say that having a lot of gun control while leaving guns in the hands of cops is worse than having no gun control at all, since it gives a disproportionate amount of power to cops. People advocating for more gun control mention things like school shootings and high amounts of gun violence as justification to restrict guns, but as Owen said, gun control in the US didn't really become an issue until the Black Panthers started using guns a lot, and to the people in power, gun control is much more about removing guns from the hands of potential political dissenters than it is about preventing gun deaths.

Compare economies with high degree of economic freedom to the ones with low.

Which would you rather live in, the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Cuba?

The reason why Venezuela is a hellhole is because of its statist socialist policies. Without them, Venezuela might still have been in bad shape due to the lowering oil price but it would not be the hellhole it is today.

The fact that Venezuela is affected by oil prices at all indicates that it isn't socialist.

I guess the Indians and Chinese before the economic reforms were living an excellent life and had decent jobs

They may not have been before, but they certainly aren't now.

Illegal immigrants should be deported. They are called illegal for a reason

''Gays should be executed, after all, homosexuality is illegal for a reason'' - Many parts of the world

In Greece our previous right wing government increased patrols in the border, arrested a large number of illegal immigrants with police raids, jailed them in camps and deported them. It worked and despite the Syrian Civil War, there was no large scale migration. When Syriza came to power, it opened the borders and closed the camps and that's how Greece flooded with illegal immigrants.

I don't know if you know this but there are such a thing as ''human rights'' and we might want to care about them.

Illegal immigrants are people, not cockroaches.

 

[christos200]

Those who enter a country illegally break the law. I view them the same as murderers, to use an example. Murderers too are people but since they break the law, the must be punished. In the same way, illegal immigrants are people but since they break the law they should be punished.

(Note: I am not saying that illegal immigrants are murderers, I am just making a comparison)

 

[W|M]

The only thing that illegal immigrants are guilty of is moving from one place to another, and that's a right that everyone should have, regardless of the arbitrary decisions of people in positions of power