Which Mormon Candidate for President?

Huntsman is no threat to Romney either in Utah or anywhere else in 2012. He has no following in today’s Republican party. If he runs in 2012 (which I still doubt), his reasoning must go something like this.

1. Republicans almost always nominate the heir apparent–somebody who can plausibly claim that he has paid his dues and now it is his turn. Only Romney, Huckabee, and Palin can make a plausible case for being the heir apparent.

2. Nevertheless, 2012 would be a good opportunity to pay some dues without any risk of actually getting the nomination and being beaten by Obama (which will happen if the economy improves noticably).

3. As a plausible heir apparent, 2012 is Romney’s year to claim it is “his turn.” If he isn’t elected president this time, it becomes somebody else’s turn. With Romney out of the way, Huntsman can make a play for the Mormon vote in 2016.

4. If the Republicans nominate a Tea Party candidate in 2012, he or she will likely loose so badly in the general election that party leaders will be desperately seeking an anti-Tea Party candidate in 2016. Huntsman, having paid his dues in 2012, would fit the bill nicely. (He would also have a decent chance at winning the general election, unless Hillary changes her mind and runs.)

Great points in #1. I agree with your logic and think that is what will happen.

That being said, I don’t like Romney. While all politicians pander by definition, Romney seems worse than most. He will say anything at anytime to try to position himself.

While I am terrified of Palin, at least you know where she stands. She has staked out her position, and you either love it or hate it. She’s not changing with the wind like Romney.

Why should I or anyone else for that matter elect a President based on their religion?

I’m curious why more sensible conservatives don’t deride this kind of thinking:

Both of them are statists (AKA, neither believe in freedom and liberty).

I mean, what a bunch of bullcrap. Hey, you sensible, responsible conservatives…whoever of you are left on the right, if you even exist, don’t let this kind of ridiculous thinking overwhelm true conservatism. Stand up for intelligence, please. I beg you guys.

I squirm at the last line and the notion of a”mormon vote.”

Like most of the saints where I live, who are registered Democrats, I won’t vote for either of them.

There is no such thing as “the Mormon vote”.

Both of the candidates look like representatives of the plutocratic party to me.

Of course these days its hard to find any other party represented in high office.

I was living in DC about twenty years ago and forget what piece of legislation was put through but afterword an effigy if Orin Hatch was burning out on Wisconsin Ave. That’s a little drastic.

I will bet that they were upset with orrin hatch’s flag burning ammendment.

mike, name a viable politician for president that isn’t worth millions.

Which Mormon candidate would I vote for?

Three words: Cleon Effing Skousen.

That being said, I don’t like Romney. While all politicians pander by definition, Romney seems worse than most. He will say anything at anytime to try to position himself.

Paris is worth a mass.

I wonder if the “Romney is a flip-flopper” charge is something that’s been overplayed. The base of each party values ideological purity; to them, you can’t go very far at all before they start shrieking “sellout!” Keep in mind that Romney was operating as a Republican governor of Massachusetts. You’re just not going to get the same package there as you might with the mayor of La Verkin.

As for “gun-toting,” I figure if it was good enough for Martin Luther King, it’s good enough for the rest of us.

Although (guilty admission here — please nobody run me out of conservatism) I am presently without personal artillery. And I only earned the Boy Scout Rifle & Shotgun merit badge pretty much by sheer random volume of fire sent down-range; ultimately enough shots landed reasonably near enough the target, consecutively, to let me squeak through qualification.

I would say in jocular fashion that Mitt proved the old Klingon proverb about “never trust a man that smiles too much”.

by the way, Jon, i see over at wikipedia, that the classical liberal position likes foreign interventions.

” Classical liberals extended protection of the country to protection of overseas markets through armed intervention.”

Jon,

That still doesn’t dismiss or justify your comments that someone like Mitt Romney or Jon Huntsman are against liberty and freedom. Shall I quote you again?

Nope, Romney is not for freedom.

I mean, how stupid could you be, Jon?

John Locke on liberty:

THE natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior
power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of
man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule. The liberty of
man, in society, is to be under no other legislative power, but that
established, by consent, in the commonwealth; nor under the dominion of
any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall
enact, according to the trust put in it.

Richard Henry Lee on liberty:

Liberty, in its genuine sense, is security to enjoy the effects of our honest industry and labors, in a free and mild government.

Christ on freedom:

And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute? He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers? Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free. Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee.

Ludwig von Mises on freedom:

Freedom enables a man not only to do the good things but also to do the wrong things. But no moral value can be ascribed to an action, however good, that has been performed under the pressure of an omnipotent government.

Jon,

No matter how many dead guys you quote, it still doesn’t answer how exactly someone like Mitt Romney is not for freedom. That’s where the stupidity of your point lies, Jon. Mr. Romney would quote those very same quotes. A liberal would quote those very same quotes. You don’t own the rights to those quotes, or the interpretation thereof, Jon. You wrote that neither Huntsman nor Romney believe in freedom and liberty. You have yet to defend your charge. Quoting dead guys does not defend your charge against Romney and Huntsman.

Well, there’s nothing I can write that would make Dan see any differently. I thought I would write what some other people wrote so he could see that I’m not the only one to think like this. Well, there’s nothing anybody could write that would make Dan think any differently. But if you, MH, would like me to write something to make the quotes seem more understandable I will. I will concentrate on Romney. I’ve forgotten exactly what I didn’t like about Huntsman but I believe his beliefs are pretty similar to Romney’s beliefs.

Here’s the glaringly obvious one that goes along with the quotes above.

The health care mandate Romney imposed on the residents of Massachusetts.

See http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/03/22/mitt_romney_health_care_hypocrisy

@MH,

I’m a classical liberal with heavy leanings towards anarcho-capitalism. Although I would be happy minarchy. It’s hard to find a politician that doesn’t believe they can exercise unrighteous dominion over others. I do think that some come close, like Jeff Flake here in AZ, although he has some flaws too. We don’t need perfect leaders but we definitely need much better ones than the caliber of politicians we have now days. Unfortunately the people of the United States don’t want or don’t understand what freedom and liberty is. Until then we will not get freedom and liberty. We live in a dystopia similar to “Brave New World” and becoming more like “Nineteen Eighty-Four”.

See: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/2011_a_brave_new_dystopia_20101227/

Jon,

Well, there’s nothing I can write that would make Dan see any differently. I thought I would write what some other people wrote so he could see that I’m not the only one to think like this.

Really, those dead guys thought Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman were against liberty and freedom?

Jon, the other quotes, I can use too to defend liberal positions. But you finally got to the evidence you have that both Romney and Huntsman are dastardly evil types who wish to destroy freedom and liberty foreverrrrrrrr!!! uh, or something.

Actually your points don’t reach that conclusion. But you come from such an extremist position that EVERYTHING not of your own opinion ends up being destructive to freedom and liberty…whatever those mean. Let me ask you something, Jon. If I am not free, why can I call you stupid?

@Dan,

Read “Brave New World” and you will see. And if you don’t understand then there is nothing I can say or write that would help you.

There is nothing wrong with wanting freedom and liberty.

Barry Goldwater –

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/may98/goldwaterspeech.htm

Jon,

I know the principles and many times when it looks like it’s the businesses that are bad it is actually the government regulations that caused or causes the bad outcomes.

Never does a business do wrong. See, it wasn’t BP’s fault for the oil spill in the Gulf last year. It was the government’s fault for letting BP get away with not adhering to proper safety regulations and policies. It wasn’t Lehman Brothers’ fault for nearly destroying the entire economy. It was the government’s fault for not….well, not sure exactly how the government really had a hand in the whole collapse of the housing market…oh wait, yeah, they loosened regulations and suddenly businesses took advantage of that and ran away with it. You are correct about one thing, Jon, the wicked need a hard master. There are none more wicked than the greedy bastards on Wall Street. Surely you see the need to be a “hard master” to such wicked and perverse people….

Government monopolies are bad since they typically use violence to create the monopolies.

Ah, there’s so much bliss in ignorance….the innocence…Jon must have never, ever, read any actual history of actual reality and seen just how often private monopolies used violence to get their way. Hey Jon, read up Standard Oil when you get a chance. Or wait, I get it, Standard Oil was somehow a government created monopoly. There are no bad privately created monopolies.

A true free market, natural law, monopoly doesn’t use the threat of violence and typically produces higher quality for lower prices than government monopolies.

yes, oh yes it does. and it typically produces lower quality for higher prices. Seriously Jon, where the hell did you learn your economics!

I’ve read that the oil monopolies or trusts actually produced much cheaper oil for the masses but the government broke them up anyways. The unfettered free market can create competition when it is needed.

That statement alone probably best describes how little Jon actually knows of the history of oil in this country. Do you know why Standard Oil sold oil for so cheap, Jon? It’s because they cheated by teaming up with freight monopolies to stifle competition. The reason Standard Oil was broken up was because it stifled private competition. That’s what private monopolies do, Jon. They are savage beasts, because that’s what they feel they need to do in order to survive. Microsoft is a private corporation that used to be a monopoly. It was savage to anyone who dared to compete with it. The unfettered free market is no match for a private monopoly. Because of one simple reason. There is no one who has power over that monopoly. We’re lucky in this country to have only experienced one true super powerful private monopoly: Standard Oil. We’re lucky that we were able to break it up. Ironically, by breaking it up into today’s American oil companies, we were able to produce a far better service than if we had left Standard Oil to its own work.

Would an anarcho-capatilist society be perfect? No, but it would be better than heavy regulations.

No they wouldn’t, because the sharks in the water would eat the rest of the fish until no one was left.

We can see from the example of Somalia how they have become more anarchic but are faring much better than their neighbors (of course, they would probably be doing even better if the US government didn’t provide arms, etc to hamper Somalia’s progress).

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Your best example of the kind of world you want to see is Somalia? HAHAHA! No thanks. I’ll take Huxley’s dystopian future over Somalia’s reality any day of the week. Give me tyranny over Somalia’s anarchy any day of the week. How utterly ridiculous.

Oh, and NO Somalia is NOT faring much better than their neighbors. Do you even know anything about the world around you, Jon?

Yes, anarcho-capatilism takes the most righteous of a people over any other form of governance but it also helps create a more righteous people

Wait, you just said that Somalia represents the typical anarcho-capitalist society. How are they a righteous people? Don’t you see that Somalia thrives in the business of private pirateering? i.e. they steal from others!

remember that economic sanctions against another country is war

Now that’s just silly.

Let’s say you and Dan are a couple of merchants — a wholesaler and a retailer. You have a falling out with Dan, and decide not to do business with him anymore.

If that’s “war,” then I’m a ham sandwich.

And that’s just what economic sanctions are: One country decides not to do business with another. That’s freedom (assuming the country makes its decisions by something reasonably resembling the free consent of the governed). That even holds true, when the sanctioning country persuades its friends to join in the sanctions.

“War” is a loud nasty thing involving explosives and flying metal, in which people are prone to getting actually killed. Once you start using that word “war” out of its actual, precise meaning, then the exact thing happens that Orwell warned about when we start getting fuzzy with language: People start using words deceptively, and pretty soon you have wars on drugs and wars on poverty, where the language of “war” tends to persuade people to forego the restraints on government that ought properly to apply in those less deadly contexts.

Call war war; call something else, the appropriate something else. Similarly, I’ll agree with Dan that unless you’re actually physically goose-stepping around with a red armband on your sleeve, you’re not a Nazi. Though I would note that in my considerable experience, the traffic in Godwin’s Law violations going from left to right has exceeded the traffic going the other way by about the ratio of westbound traffic through the Santa Ana Canyon to eastbound at eight in the morning. It’s not even close.

Romney’s a warmonger if he wants to implement sanctions. The other country has every right to fight for free trade if some other country does economic sanctions on it. Sanctions are the same thing as a blockade, it’s war.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27c/096.html

Make no mistake about it: Economic sanctions are acts of aggression. Sanctions increase poverty and misery among the very poorest inhabitants of targeted nations, and they breed tremendous resentment against those imposing them. But they rarely hurt the political and economic elites responsible for angering American leaders in the first place.

-Ron Paul

Economic sanctions used to be considered acts of war because by design they kill civilians. Yet today countries routinely impose economic sanctions with no protest from their citizens, Christian or otherwise. Economic sanctions by the United States against Iraq by the previous administration, not to mention the war itself by the current administration, is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. For the most part, organized religion does not only meekly acquiesce in the killing; some Christian denominations cheer the killing of pagan men, women, and children in foreign countries because they believe it will hasten the second coming of Christ.

-Stan Warford

Thomas,

Dan, you really ought to read some of the updated scholarship on Standard Oil.

Dude, you completely misread my comment. I read, not long ago, Ron Chernow’s fantastic biography of John Rockefeller. He went into very good detail of what occurred. My comment was simply to rebut the silly argument made by Jon that a private monopoly somehow didn’t do evil stuff. In the case of Standard Oil, it destroyed its competition through unfair deceptive practices with the rail companies. So don’t get me wrong on this. My feelings toward John Rockefeller and Standard Oil are mixed. I don’t like that he stifled competition, and essentially cheated, but I love that he brought quite a lot of order to a very chaotic economy. I don’t feel bad at all that his company got trust-busted. I generally hold little sympathy when the rich get slapped around a little. And in any case, as Chernow notes, the new smaller companies in the wake of Standard Oil have done quite well for themselves (they are of course today’s American oil companies).

I generally hold little sympathy when the rich get slapped around a little.

And that’s where we probably have our greatest difference.

I don’t care how rich someone is — if he hasn’t done something that violates a just, duly constituted law, he ought not be slapped, any more than anyone else should. Maybe I just don’t like slapping.

Being rich certainly has its share of moral traps — but not every rich person falls into them, any more than every [fill in name of violence-prone social group here] person falls into the moral traps that he’s exposed to. Anatole France had that cute sarcastic line about how the law, in its magnificent equality, forbids the rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges and beg for bread. Funny, but I want the law to have that magnificent equality. I don’t want the rules to stop applying depending on who you are. Because then the guy in charge of deciding when the rules do and don’t apply, can do anything he wants — something much more morally and physically dangerous, to him and the rest of us, then just being rich.

Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.

Good counsel. Leviticus isn’t all toasted sheep and don’t-kiss-your-aunt.

Thomas,

You don’t seem to get it. The rich don’t get rich through righteous means. At some point in their lives, in order to attain those worldly riches, they had to do something they ought not to have done. In the case of John Rockefeller, he cheated. That he then gets a slap on the wrist for it, I’ll take (though he deserved far worse). To get ahead of someone else in a cutthroat environment, you have to do something bad. You think Mark Zuckerberg was an angel as he set up Facebook?

By the way, do you watch Undercover Boss on Fox? Do you notice how much these CEOs are bumbling idiots in their own freaking companies? And somehow they are worth more than those employees they highlight? I have little if any sympathy for the plight of someone getting paid a million dollars a year or more.

In any case, that’s all I’ll say on this tangent. I apologize to Mormon Heretic for taking far too much time away from the real topic here….the lives of millionaires wanting to rule our world… 🙂

Thomas,

A monopolist is kept from charging monopoly prices not by actual competition, but by latent competition — by the knowledge that if he charges too much, there’s a guy down the street who can make a perfectly decent profit charging a market price.

Not if you rush in there to buy him out. That was common practice by Standard Oil, and well, the rail companies too. Did you see There Will Be Blood? That focused on this topic quite well, as well. If you’re a monopoly and you’re scared the local guy can do better than you in that emerging market, you’re just going to go in there and threaten him until he finally caves and sells you his company. That’s what an effective monopoly does. Only when the government finally gets representatives who will break up the monopoly will that monopoly finally lose its power.

Only when the government finally gets representatives who will break up the monopoly will that monopoly finally lose its power.

Because public officials can always be trusted to be completely even-handed and public-spirited in deciding who to make examples of.

To whatever extent J.D. Rockefeller could have exercised monopoly power in Edwardian times, there’s simply nobody remotely rich enough, relative to the size of the available (globalized!) economy, to throw that much weight around. If the upstart really does have a viable business plan, and really can undercut a would-be monopolist, John D. Rockefeller IX is going to walk up to the guy’s door with his buyout money — and find himself waiting behind a fair-sized queue of American, Chinese, Indian, Saudi, Russian, and British venture capitalists, ready to outbid him right up to the point where the buyout stops making economic sense.

@Thomas,

It is the same as a blockade. Just because they do it with a velvet glove there is still an iron fist under that glove and it will crush you if you decide to trade with others in that country. This is the same concept found in the book that I keep referring to “Brave New World” (can you tell I just finished reading it?), that just because things appear to be free doesn’t mean that they are.

@MH,

I should have given you the short answer since on blogs there’s not enough space to go into the great analysis needed. So here’s the short answer.

I don’t believe it is right to use violence or the threat thereof to provide services to others. This includes fire service, medical service, road service, police service, military service, etc. Would it work? I don’t know, but from the examples I’ve seen and from the theory I really like it. The other part is that the anarcho-capitalists are the only group that are true to principles. All other political groups don’t stay to any principle. Like the first sentence of this paragraph is just the principle that Christ taught us in the second great commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. How can you steal from or threaten your neighbors so that you can become enriched from them? I don’t see how one can.

Regardless if anarcho-capitalism would work or not it is important to understand what the principles are and know if you are deviating from them. That’s why I have respect for minarchists, because they know the principles but then say they just don’t believe it is possible and only deviate slightly from the principles (of course, not all are like that).

Jon,

Would it work? I don’t know, but from the examples I’ve seen and from the theory I really like it.

you mean like Somalia?

The other part is that the anarcho-capitalists are the only group that are true to principles.

I’m true to principles and I’m no anarcho-capitalist idiot. I’m true to the principle that anarcho-capitalism is among the dumbest ideas ever thought up by man.

Regardless if anarcho-capitalism would work or not

if your example is Somalia, then, no, it doesn’t work.

Um, don’t create a straw man, Thomas. I never called the “rich universally evil.

Run tape:

The rich don’t get rich through righteous means. At some point in their lives, in order to attain those worldly riches, they had to do something they ought not to have done.

I don’t see any qualifier in there.

You can increase their taxes.

1. And this will accomplish — what?

Even Paul Krugman acknowledges (grudgingly) that the vast majority in the increase in economic inequality over the past several decades has been in pre-tax income, not after-tax income. In other words, the rich have not gotten richer primarily because of “tax cuts for the rich” or some such. (In fact, the overall tax burden has remained fairly constant over that time, and the share paid by the rich has actually increased.)

If you’re saying that taxing the rich more will mitigate the effects of stupidity on the part of rich people — sorry, don’t see it. All you do is move the stupid from the private side of the economy to the public side. I’m inclined to think stupid gets punished more, and faster, on the private side (or at least it used to, before the Age of Bailouts). Stupid business decisions can drive a company into bankruptcy. Stupid governmental decisions create their own constituencies, who will inevitably say the reason a stupid government initiative hasn’t succeeded, is that we just haven’t spent enough money on it. And so instead of getting put out of their misery like stupid business initiatives, stupid public initiatives wind up absorbing even more capital to waste.

Anyway, I think government by the consent of the governed is a good enough idea that I don’t like the whole notion of increasing “their” taxes. If we decide we need more money to fund the general welfare, we can tax ourselves. It may be fair, and even consistent with consensual government, to require that a tax increase be borne most heavily by those most able to pay — but when it boils down to a naked “I want more government services. You pay for it all,” then — if the proposed taxpayer doesn’t freely get on board — you are getting perilously far from governing with your target’s consent.

And consensual government isn’t just a moral issue — it’s a practical one. When politics gets too adversarial — which is the very essence of traditional leftism, dividing world between the People and their enemies, who are to be expropriated with or without their consent — then funny thing, you tend to lose the voluntary cooperation of the targeted class. And it’s grossly inefficient to try to govern without extensive voluntary cooperation.

By “adversarial politics,” I’m not referring to strongly-worded or even nasty personal argument.

I’m talking about the fundamental view of government’s purpose. I believe it’s to provide public goods, and that’s pretty much it. The traditional leftist position also includes forcibly “spreading the wealth around,” taking from one to give to another. With a healthy dollop (in practice) going to the nomenklatura, of course.

As spicy as Fox News may be (and it’s far less so than the leftist conventional wisdom would have it — or than the failed radio hosts over on MSNBC), I do not see the commentators calling for people to forcibly take anything from anyone else. Their argument is essentially for government to act as referee and provide public goods, leaving people to interact and prosper as well they can. That is fundamentally different from a worldview that aims for power for the specific purpose of seizing wealth from a targeted class. The former has a plausible claim on governing as the legitimate representative of the whole country. The latter does not.

Now, you may take the position that leaving people to interact independently will lead to intolerable results — to unacceptable inequalities — and that all things considered, it is ultimately better to have government step in explicitly on the side of one tribe of the people against another. Fair enough. But understand that that kind of government is inherently adversarial, and has no legitimate claim on the obedience of the people government is expressly employed against.

So yes, conservatives’ tactics and argument can be adversarial confrontational. (Pretty much all argument is, no?) But the underlying position is not adversarial, except in defense against coercion.

There will always be stupid CEOs. Cut the value of their income. If the market won’t do it, the government should.

Why?

Seriously, why? Whether a CEO is overpaid, is ultimately the business of the shareholders. It’s their money that’s being wasted.

What you’re saying, is that either the shareholders are too stupid to do anything about having their money wasted, or (and there’s actually something to this) there are structural features of the corporate form that make it difficult for shareholders to effectively set executive compensation at market prices. But the “solution” you propose — having a third party, government, come in and tax the overpaid CEO — doesn’t help the shareholders. They don’t get the money. The government does. How does that solve the problem of shareholders getting hosed by their CEOs? The hoseage just gets diverted from one undeserving party to another.

Did you support the war in Iraq?

Tell me where you’re going with that, if it has to do the matter at hand.

Thomas,

The traditional leftist position also includes forcibly “spreading the wealth around,” taking from one to give to another.

No, the traditional conservative view of the leftist position also includes forcibly spreading the wealth around, taking from one to give to another. It’s still not actual reality. No matter how often you say it, Thomas.

I’m talking about the fundamental view of government’s purpose. I believe it’s to provide public goods, and that’s pretty much it.

So do liberals, Thomas. Kinda hurts your argument when you’re arguing against straw men. The difference is in what is considered a public good.

I do not see the commentators calling for people to forcibly take anything from anyone else.

Straw man. No liberal argues for that.

Their argument is essentially for government to act as referee and provide public goods, leaving people to interact and prosper as well they can.

Same as the liberal position. The difference, once again, is in what are public goods.

That is fundamentally different from a worldview that aims for power for the specific purpose of seizing wealth from a targeted class.

Straw man. No liberal argues for that.

Now, you may take the position that leaving people to interact independently will lead to intolerable results — to unacceptable inequalities — and that all things considered, it is ultimately better to have government step in explicitly on the side of one tribe of the people against another.

Nope, that would be a misrepresentation and misinterpretation of what I would like to see happen.

But the underlying position is not adversarial, except in defense against coercion.

You mean like forcing people to not be able to declare bankruptcies, like coercing people’s activities in their own bedrooms. Riiiiight, Thomas, that’s not the conservative position.

Seriously, why? Whether a CEO is overpaid, is ultimately the business of the shareholders. It’s their money that’s being wasted.

No, Thomas, it is the business of the employees on whose backs the CEO is paid far beyond what he is actually worth. The system is gamed by the rich so that they actually forcibly take money from the poor and redistribute it amongst themselves at the top. If the typical American worker works harder now for more hours than what he has worked in the past, then why is he getting paid less when accounting for inflation than what he got paid before Ronald Reagan came to office? Since Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts for the rich (under the silly economic myth of “trickle down economics”), the wealthy of this country have massively increased their wealth while forcing the workers underneath them to work longer hours and harder labor. Something is wrong with that picture. Capitalism, in and of itself, is not a very good system for the whole of society. It works very well for the top 1%. It works poorly for everyone else.

What you’re saying, is that either the shareholders are too stupid to do anything about having their money wasted, or (and there’s actually something to this) there are structural features of the corporate form that make it difficult for shareholders to effectively set executive compensation at market prices.

the latter.

But the “solution” you propose — having a third party, government, come in and tax the overpaid CEO — doesn’t help the shareholders.

Screw the shareholders, Thomas. I’m talking about the workers. I don’t give a damn what the shareholders make. They are part of the unfair system; they make money they didn’t earn.

Did you support the war in Iraq?

Tell me where you’re going with that, if it has to do the matter at hand.

Well you noted:

If we decide we need more money to fund the general welfare, we can tax ourselves.

So I was curious if you supported the war in Iraq, and whether or not you demanded that the government tax you so that you wouldn’t shift the burden of that expense to someone else who may not even have a say in that decision. If you supported the war in Iraq and did not demand Bush increase your own taxes, then you would be taking a hypocritical position vis a vis the issue of taxing ourselves rather than “taking from others.”

So I was curious if you supported the war in Iraq, and whether or not you demanded that the government tax you so that you wouldn’t shift the burden of that expense to someone else who may not even have a say in that decision. If you supported the war in Iraq and did not demand Bush increase your own taxes, then you would be taking a hypocritical position vis a vis the issue of taxing ourselves rather than “taking from others.”

Wars are public goods, silly.

Thomas,

Wars are public goods, silly.

So is health care. So are unemployment benefits. So are food stamps.

Dan, denying that redistributionism is a significant force in left-liberal thought, while pretending that restricting private bedroom conduct has any significant constituency in modern conservatism, really does not increase your credibility.

if there is any actual truth to “redistributionism” then you would have a point. But alas, it is a straw man. A nice catch phrase but not one based in actual reality. The literal interpretation of redistribution of wealth, or as you also refer to it as taking money from someone and giving it to another, literally implies exactly that, the Robin Hood effect. Actually taking money from the rich and actually giving it to someone else. Liberalism does not argue for that. Liberalism argues that in the best interest of the whole of society, not just the wealthy, food stamps are a public good just like roads are. Those who literally cannot buy food can now buy food. Liberalism argues that in the best interest of the whole of society, not just the wealthy, that unemployment benefits are provided for those who lose their jobs, not so they sit at home fat and lazy, but so that they aren’t actually thrown out of their home because they can no longer pay; that they don’t starve because their one source of income has now dissipated. Liberalism argues that for the benefit of the whole society, not just the wealthy, medical help is provided for those who cannot pay for it themselves. We would not be a just, nor a merciful, nor a Christian society if any of our citizens die of starvation, or if they die because they could not get medical help. And spare me the extreme examples. We’re talking about real examples of people dying of pneumonia when a visit to the doctor would have saved their lives. There are real examples of Americans like this, and frankly, I don’t see the rich doing as much to save those kinds of people as would the ability of the government itself, whether at the local level or at the federal level. Before Social Security, exactly how well did the rich do at providing some kind of charitable safety net for all seniors? Not just their own rich grandparents.

Frankly I don’t know why conservatives give such deference to the rich and the wealthy. You guys do realize that when they die, they can’t take their wealth with them, right?

Thomas,

because we calculate that the private sector would underproduce those goods, leaving us all worse off.

What a beautiful description of private health care. See, Thomas, capitalism does a wonderful job at taking care of those who can pay, but it’s one crappy system for those who cannot. We as a society have decided to call fire service a “public good” because of this very reason you highlight here. But just think about it, Thomas. What’s the real difference, for a society, between fire service and health service? And I’m talking about non-elective health service (in other words, no plastic surgery, laser treatment, or any of the more optional services). What’s the difference between rushing someone to a hospital to save them from pneumonia and having a fire truck rush to stop your home from burning down? There’s no difference, Thomas. And you stated so beautifully and so more articulate than I could that the private sector underproduces on certain goods that leaves us worse off. This is spot on when describing the very social justice things liberals push for. The betterment of society that would never have the opportunity to better themselves under the unfair capitalistic system that is gamed for the rich.

So government does, the costs are spread across the whole society, and everybody’s better off.

Well said, good sir. Redistribute the wealth. Just using your own ridiculous catch phrases.

Frankly, I don’t know why liberals give such deference to criminals and terrorists.

WTF does that have to do with the price of tea in China, dude? It’s got nothing. You’ve got nothing. You’ve got another straw man. He’s empty, dude. He’s full of straw!

Straw men (as long as we’re talking about those) aside, you will not find many conservatives talking about abolishing the entire social safety net (which in some ways could be seen as a public good).

Are you freaking kidding me? Have you forgotten 2005? Do you know who represents conservatism today? Do you know the Republican Senators who are pining for the opportunity to defund Social Security? I don’t use straw men, Thomas. I don’t need to. I get plenty of fodder from conservative leaders.

The problem is that liberalism typically extrapolates from the basic desirability of a basic social safety net, to a rationale for literally limitless government growth.

Straw man. No liberal desires a limitless government growth. That’s just your boogeyman.

Is there any principle in liberalism that would limit the growth of government’s involvement in society, in levels of taxation, and so forth?

yeah, cut back on military spending. Clinton did that. Obama doesn’t have the political capital or support to do that, but I’ll take whatever Robert Gates can give us.

As for John Edwards, I smelled right through his BS rhetoric in 2004. Never liked the guy. I voted for him as VP, but only because Dick Cheney is Darth Vader, and I am inexorably opposed to Sith Lords.

I just have to say, I was a bit disappointed in reading the wikipedia on public goods. It noted the example of a doctor, by saying this:

For example, if one individual visits a doctor there is one less doctor’s visit for everyone else, and it is possible to exclude others from visiting the doctor. This makes doctor visits a rivaled and excludable private good.

Once again, let’s compare with a fireman, who is also a limited resource. If there are 2 firemen in one town and there are three fires, it sure seems like one fire will not have a fireman. Doesn’t that make either the fireman an “excludable private good” or the whole argument about what defines a public good wrong?

@FireTag,

I think this is what you were trying to say (Friedman had a good way with words):

@Dan,

And the government does what it does best, took a smart fellow and had him create a destructive force that ended up being responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands and then gave another generation of people a fear of nukes coming down on them. Of course, you won’t disagree with that, you’re anti-war, that’s what I like about you.

Do you know the Republican Senators who are pining for the opportunity to defund Social Security? I don’t use straw men, Thomas. I don’t need to. I get plenty of fodder from conservative leaders.

I seem to recall those senators proposing to replace Social Security with something that isn’t a Ponzi scheme, not to abolish social insurance entirely. But for some reason I didn’t see that in your post. I know you wouldn’t intentionally omit a relevant fact, so there must have been a typo in posting.

What’s the real difference, for a society, between fire service and health service?

Fire in a city is a common hazard: If your house catches on fire, it’s not just you that is in danger; the fire could spread and burn down the whole city.

A private person’s incentives with regard to firefighting may not match up with the city’s as a whole. You could pay for a private fire company to agree that if your house catches fire, they’ll come put it out. (Private fire companies were common in the past, and worked pretty well; “The Gangs of New York” isn’t a documentary.) However, you only have the incentive to pay for the hazard to your own house — not to the potential danger to your neighbors. You might discover that it costs less just to pay for fire insurance (to get reimbursed for damage if your house burns down) than for private fire protection. And so private arrangements would underproduce the public good of protection of the city — as opposed to an individual building — against fire.

Health care has only some similarity to this. The main public good involved in health care would be preventing the spread of infectious disease. So it might make sense to have public provision made for identifying, quarantining, and treating cases of infectious disease.

But infectious disease accounts for a tiny fraction of health care costs. The vast, vast majority of health care spending, is on old people in the last years of their lives — typically, on treatment of chronic, non-infectious conditions, and typically with treatments that weren’t even around a few decades ago.

(Treatment for heart disease used to be basically “take some nitroglycerin and wait for your widowmaker.” Bypass surgery, stents, etc., are a bit more expensive. There is solid information that the majority of increased health care costs have less to do with insurance company “greed,” and more simply with the increased standard of innovative, expensive treatments.)

The point is that it’s hard to see how public provision of heroic treatment for non-infectious conditions, is a public good. It benefits the specific people treated, but there’s little direct, tangible benefit to society as a whole. (Whether more intangible benefits, like “allowing us to feel morally sound” are properly classed as public goods, is another discussion.)

Thomas,

I seem to recall those senators proposing to replace Social Security with something that isn’t a Ponzi scheme, not to abolish social insurance entirely.

It seems you are distracted by their bells and whistles, because for them to replace Social Security without defunding current beneficiaries, they’re going to have to get $2 trillion or so from somewhere else to start the funding of the new, privatized plan. I mean, com’on dude, you’re calling it a ponzi scheme. Exactly how do you switch from a ponzi scheme to something else uninterrupted? You infuse your new plan with new money. They have no plan, Thomas. It’s all bells and whistles. You’re smarter than this.

It’s a comparison. Read the exchange very carefully.

It’s a comparison of a real man and a straw man. One is real, the other is not. So again, what does it have to do with the price of tea in China? Absolutely nothing.

Fire in a city is a common hazard: If your house catches on fire, it’s not just you that is in danger; the fire could spread and burn down the whole city.

The flu in a city is a common hazard: If you have it, it’s not just you that is in danger; the flu could spread and infect the whole city.

Too easy, Thomas.

Health care has only some similarity to this. The main public good involved in health care would be preventing the spread of infectious disease. So it might make sense to have public provision made for identifying, quarantining, and treating cases of infectious disease.

Thank you! As to the rest regarding health care, I have no problem with how you phrase it. I seek a universal coverage for basic health needs, just like fire protection. Fire protection is just simply there to protect you and your neighbors from the danger of a fire. A basic standard ought to be had for all Americans for some level of health care services. A yearly check up. Flu care. Pneumonia. Vaccinations. Those kinds of things. I have no problem increasing the costs to include some aspects of taking care of the elderly. The things that are not essential to the survival of life should not be costs incurred by the whole of society, but by the individual himself.

Firetag,

Which demonstrates more than anything I can say why no conservative can trust a “Good Democrat” with power.

no, it demonstrates that conservatives tend not to judge liberals by what liberals actually believe, but by the boogeymen conservatives keep having nightmares about. They don’t actually exist in actual reality, but they’re so afraid of them, they have to create that straw man to pummel just so they can feel better about themselves.

I mean, consider the simpleton phrase: Democrats = party of government.

That’s such a ridiculous statement. It implies that Republicans = party of no government. Unless of course you qualify what you mean. Surely Republicans/conservatives, as you guys have noted over and over, are the party of limited government. Under the simpleton phrase “party of government” the Republican position would also fit under it. Whether limited or full, it matters not under the simpleton phrase “party of government.” That phrase in its utter simplicity implies that 1% is equal to 100%. If you are for 1% party of government, you are therefore a party of government.

John Huntsman is a doofus. I’ve never voted for him and I never will. Romney, boy I wish he were president today.

Firetag,

The people clearly saw a lot of liberals as something other than selfless. They judged the democratic party, and a surprisingly high number of Republicans as well, on doing harm, whatever the politicians professed to believe.

Because the tea party represents “the people?” Frankly I didn’t think the Democratic party ran on a platform of selflessness. Care to point to me where they have? What kind of harm do you think they judged Democrats and Republicans for doing? And what was so different from 2008 to 2010? Take into account that the Republican party had had terrible approval numbers for the last six or so years. Why would the American people judge the Republicans so harshly in 2006 and 2008? What made the American people change their opinion so quickly in 2010? Was it really because Democrats overplayed their hand? Or maybe, just maybe, enough liberals were so pissed off at the weakness of Congressional Democrats for constantly caving in to Republicans that they said, “the hell with it, we’re staying home in November.” Mid-term elections tend to have fewer voters, and in this case in 2010, there were far fewer of the voters who voted for Obama in 2008 (and those who coattailed behind Obama on the Democratic party). Maybe if Obama were running in 2010, vote count would have been higher and a different result would have happened. Certainly in 2012, there will be more voters, and more Democratic voters going to the polls. In 2012, Democrats will either regain some seats or lose only a few of them.

The narrative you’re running under is not reflective of reality, Firetag. The “kingmen” do not exist in today’s times. Frankly, I’m not too sure exactly what defined the kingmen of the Book of Mormon. I mean, here is basically all we have of who they were, from Alma 51:

5And it came to pass that those who were desirous that Pahoran should be dethroned from the judgment-seat were called king-men, for they were desirous that the law should be altered in a manner to overthrow the free government and to establish a king over the land.

I know of nobody in America who wishes to overthrow the free government and to establish a king over the land. Not even the most insanely crazy right winger. To accuse Democrats and liberals of being equal or frankly anywhere close to the kingmen of the Book of Mormon is just ridiculous, Firetag. Why would you make such a comparison when the facts just not even don’t match, but are not even in the same ballpark? Hell, they’re not even in the same city! Why would you do it, FIretag? Why make a comparison that doesn’t match? I will tell you why. Because you want to discredit liberalism. You want to associate the liberal position with that of those who want to remove a free government toward those who prefer kings. And in American society, who wants kings? Only the old redcoats of days long gone.

The king men, like the Pharisees in Judea, probably started out with the best of intention.

Do you see how you corrupt the scripture you yourself use as backup? There’s no indication from the scripture that the kingmen started out with either the best intention or the worst intention. We have no evidence to their reasoning, or their motives. Mormon does not provide it in his analysis. Why change the interpretation of the scripture to something that doesn’t exist?

Firetag,

You go ahead and keep thinking, Dan, that there are so many very liberal people in the United States that their disaffection from the Democrats accounts for the loss of 63 house seats and the loss of several HUNDRED state legislative seats, and several governorships. Keep believing that right up until the 2012 elections when the Dems have to defend 13 more Senate seats than the Republicans do.

No doubt Democrats were going to lose seats in 2010. It is the natural course of mid-term elections after a wave in one direction (2006 and 2008 were toward Democrats). There were not many more battleground Congressional seats available for pickup after 2008. The rest were well protected, gerrymandered seats. It was inevitable that Democrats were going to lose seats in 2010. No one is arguing that. The argument comes as to the size. It was not, however, a question over whether Democrats were kingmen or something ridiculous like that.

No, extreme right wingers in the West today tend to be anarchist in nature, and anarchists aren’t very good at organizing power coups, are they?

That depends on what is an extreme right winger. Is Sarah Palin an extreme right winger? She’s not moderate, I’ll tell you that.

They were the aristocracy of their society, not the commoners, and they wanted to change the laws to give more power to themselves.

So in your silly analogy there must not be any rich among the conservatives of today. David Koch must be a left-winger. Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes are not conservative, right? Because you are perfectly describing these individuals.

Pardon me if I don’t trust what your associates might do if you could figure out a way that wasn’t a “fact of life”.

Are you actually reading a threat to violence and revolution from such a mild comment? Really? Dude, you’re that paranoid in real life?

You’ve already said it would be better not to have to put up with stupid voters in 88, specifically:

And no, that is NOT what I said at all. Way to misread me, Firetag. I described actual reality without analyzing what could be done about it. You can’t change the fact that people are stupid, whether you have an authoritarian system or a fully open democratic system. There will always be stupid people who prefer to be ruled by fear. You’re a great example of that. You read something in my comment that did not actually exist there. You’re afraid. You let fear rule you.

Whether you call the new leader President, Consul, Emperor, Chairman, or Supreme Cheese, when the man at the top starts chafing at the checks and balances imposed on him by the people, he’s set himself against the very concept of free men, because he’s decided he can manage life so much better than their collective judgment. One man, one vote, one time just doesn’t cut it.

That’s bullcrap baloney. The only time you ought to be concerned about something like this is if that person you are talking about tries to continue ruling beyond his proscribed allotted time. No president of this country has dared even come close to that sacrilegious, treasonous moment. Every four years we get to decide who runs the country for those four years. If we don’t like that system, then we ought to have a Constitutional Referendum to change it. Good luck changing it.

I wonder how come all of our experts in government didn’t see — even a month ago — the political earthquake now occurring in the Middle East?

I don’t know about you, but I was waiting for something like this to happen, and I’m going to guess that few actual political theorists were surprised by these events. But then again, I studied international politics, particularly the issues of revolutions and nationalism. I’ve always wondered at what point Arabs would revolt against American supported oppressive regimes. After the inception of Al-Jazeera, I knew the moment wouldn’t be too far into the future. So speak only for yourself dude. Not everyone is a conservative hermit who has little clue as to what’s going on around the world around them.

@Firetag,

We aren’t going to change Dan. He’s pretty hard core left and “He ought to be ridiculed. He ought not to be taken seriously.” (That came from Dan).

He’s read my last post on how are government is becoming more authoritarian but nothing will change what he believes. He believes the government is inherently good and cannot do any wrong (at least when the democrats are in power, never mind now that they are they muffle the anti-war protesters). I repeat the post here.

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. . . . [There is also an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and . . . degeneracy of manners and of morals. . . . No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. . . .

[It should be well understood] that the powers proposed to be surrendered [by the Third Congress] to the Executive were those which the Constitution has most jealously appropriated to the Legislature. . . .

The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war . . . the power of raising armies . . . the power of creating offices. – James Madison

“The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.” ~James Madison

“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” ~James Madison

“It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.” ~James Madison

“The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.” ~James Madison

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (See They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45
by Milton Sanford Mayer)

“This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.” ~Plato

“A highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single; and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great gang.” ~Benjamin Franklin

“Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.” ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” ~George Orwell

“The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.” ~George Washington

“We’re not leaving Afghanistan prematurely. In fact, we’re not ever leaving at all.” – Robert Gates

“You have to recognize that I don’t think you win this war. I think you keep fighting. You have to stay after it. This is the kind of fight we’re in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids’ lives.” – David Petraeus

(See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/29/bob-woodward-robert-gates_n_743409.html)

Obama has the power to assassinate Americans without due process:

Instead, in Barack Obama’s America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens — and a death penalty imposed — is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone’s guilt as a Terrorist….And the punishment is thus decreed: this American citizen will now be murdered by the CIA because Barack Obama has ordered that it be done. What kind of person could possibly justify this or think that this is a legitimate government power?…Just to get a sense for how extreme this behavior is, consider — as the NYT reported — that not even George Bush targeted American citizens for this type of extra-judicial killing… Even more strikingly, Antonin Scalia, in the 2004 case of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, wrote an Opinion (joined by Justice Stevens) arguing that it was unconstitutional for the U.S. Government merely to imprison (let alone kill) American citizens as “enemy combatants”; instead, they argued, the Constitution required that Americans be charged with crimes (such as treason) and be given a trial before being punished….Yet now, Barack Obama is claiming the right not merely to imprison, but to assassinate far from any battlefield, American citizens with no due process of any kind….And what about all the progressives who screamed for years about the Bush administration’s tyrannical treatment of Jose Padilla? Bush merely imprisoned Padilla for years without a trial. If that’s a vicious, tyrannical assault on the Constitution — and it was — what should they be saying about the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s assassination of American citizens without any due process? – Glenn Greenwald

5. Does the Constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants?

No. I reject the Bush Administration’s claim that the President has plenary authority under the Constitution to detain U.S. citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants. – Barack Obama

Jon,

We aren’t going to change Dan. He’s pretty hard core left and “He ought to be ridiculed. He ought not to be taken seriously.” (That came from Dan).

If being moderate is the new hard core left, then yeah, I’m there.

He believes the government is inherently good and cannot do any wrong

Show me where I convey that belief.

Firetag,

And certainly not because of her intellect — the hate started BEFORE anyone had time to form an opinion about her intellect.

Ah, historical revisionism. You think I didn’t pay attention to August and September 2008? No one spoke ill of her until she opened her mouth. She herself put herself in the position to be ridiculed by saying the most stupid things imaginable by a vice president nominee. Dude, just accept that she is utterly awful. That’s real life, Firetag.

Palin was hated because she threatened liberal power bases, not because of any extremism on her part.

You think she threatens liberals? Haha! Don’t you get it? Liberals want Sarah Palin to run! They beg her to run. She’s NO THREAT to liberalism. She’s a threat to real conservatism, because she’s that extreme.