[Helmling]

Originally Posted by Dual Porpoise 

Crash, I think you are correct that it looks like we have one party with two flavors. Both Democrats and Republicans are corporately owned, but one is the Pro-Gun Pro Life Corporate Party, while the other is the Anti-Gun Pro-Choice Corporate Party. The only way to fix this is with campaign finance reform - as long as massive corporations can give huge amounts of money to both parties simultaneously, democracy is fundamentally flawed.

I quite agree.

Concentrated wealth on this scale is a threat to liberty the founders could have never foreseen. We must insulate our political process against it.

Let's go to completely publicly financed campaigns. Giving money to a candidate for office or to an office holder should be treated as what it is: bribery.

Ban political advertisements. Attempting to sway votes through advertising should be lumped in with libel as one of the few exceptions to the 1st Amendment.

Break up media conglomerates. Corporate consolidation of media outlets is a threat to the free press, and therefore a threat to democracy. Trust-bust Clear Channel and the lot of them.

Keep the Internet free. Resist corporate co-optation of the Internet. Blogs and websites resemble the free-wheeling, seat-of-the-pants presses of the early days of the Republic. We should preserve the space in which they thrive against the encroachment of capital.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is my quick plan to save our democracy. I'm thinking of founding a political party on that platform. Anybody wanna join?

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally Posted by Helmling 

You have said in the past that you would favor a completely "natural" business cycle and complete laissez faire economics.

I've said no such thing, so don't make up my side of the argument.

I've always said Capitalism has to have rules in order to work -otherwise it's not really Capitalism- and I have always been a proponent of businesses in the US having to play by the rules, not getting a free pass to skirt laws every time its profitable.


That means that if big business decides it wants to flood the country with illegal workforces that are easily exploited for profit, then it shouldn't be able to go to its crony big government and have borders left wide open, laws thrown by the wayside, and the wheels of cheap labor greased for them. And yet, that's what we get, because their partner in it has managed to convince the dullards in our society that the whole plot is a civil rights issue rather than what it is, a ploy for big business to get a never ending supply of cheap, 'underclass' labor.


I despise government bailouts of big business every bit as much as I despise the PRETENSE that government will EVER bail any common citizen out of his/her responsibilities in life. The first thing happens because money and power are exchanging hands by what are essentially partners, and the second is a dangled carrot to keep fools busy pulling levers for snakeoil, and never figuring out the first part.

You say that social programs and such, "will have to be paid for by the fruit of the nation's businesses," implying that holding back those businesses is criminal.

That's not the implication at all, in fact, it's almost the opposite. Often times I see people with your belief in a reliance on government, act as if government were its own independent producer.

But its not. It's not a producer at all, it is itself a massive consumer of what others produce. It's by its very nature in bed with the producers of the wealth it needs in order to continue itself. There's simply no real world incentive for government to really be the benevolent watchdog over its own source of funding as you seem to think there is, and every incentive in the world for it to protect even the shadiest of its largest benefactors.

To me, in a very real sense, people with your belief in a benevolent government nanny state with powers to dictate what is 'socially responsible' , believe the inmates can run the asylum.

Look, though, at those businesses. The irresponsibility of the populace is their bidding. This is the economy business wanted. Consumers as debt-slaves is the ultimate realization of their need for limitless growth.

Sure, but the other side of the equation that you perhaps haven't quite come to terms with, is it's exactly the economy government wants as well, and sorry, but especially Democrats. The party has tied its very existence into riding to the rescue of some impending doomsday, even if they have to drum up or make worse whatever disaster exists or not. Republicans are no saints either, but honestly, I don't see Republicans gaining much from a destitute, desperate, financially struggling population, the way I see Democrats chomping at the bit for just that.

Have you considered the possibility that by being enterprise's cheerleader, you're just as much a pawn as the debt-slaves?

We're all part of the problem, in as much as our financial destinies are all largely our own responsibility. I take full responsibility for my own actions, and what control I have over my own wellbeing and finances.

I'm not a cheerleader of unfettered enterprise, I'm a for business being held to high standards of responsibility- more than any individual, but also government staying the hell out of the way where it has no business screwing with private enterprise.

Am I a pawn of some evil plot hatched by enterprise? Maybe. We probably all are pawns to one extent or another, of schemes we're not aware of.

But what saddens me, is people who are pawns of schemes and plots that are as obvious as the nose on their face, yet they cheer on and even beg for their own throats being slashed, and look for the co-perpetrators to be their rescuers.

[Dual Porpoise]

Originally Posted by Helmling 

I quite agree.

Concentrated wealth on this scale is a threat to liberty the founders could have never foreseen. We must insulate our political process against it.
...
That, ladies and gentlemen, is my quick plan to save our democracy. I'm thinking of founding a political party on that platform. Anybody wanna join?

Why yes. The first thing to do is to make clear that money is not speech, and corporations are not people.

[Chongo]

Originally Posted by Dual Porpoise 

Why yes. The first thing to do is to make clear that money is not speech, and corporations are not people.

The SCOTUS has ruled that money=speech (Buckley v. Valeo)

[Dual Porpoise]

Originally Posted by Chongo 

The SCOTUS has ruled that money=speech (Buckley v. Valeo)

I know - they've ruled that corporations are people too - both need to be overturned.

[Helmling]

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE 

I've said no such thing, so don't make up my side of the argument.

I've always said Capitalism has to have rules in order to work -otherwise it's not really Capitalism- and I have always been a proponent of businesses in the US having to play by the rules, not getting a free pass to skirt laws every time its profitable.


That means that if big business decides it wants to flood the country with illegal workforces that are easily exploited for profit, then it shouldn't be able to go to its crony big government and have borders left wide open, laws thrown by the wayside, and the wheels of cheap labor greased for them. And yet, that's what we get, because their partner in it has managed to convince the dullards in our society that the whole plot is a civil rights issue rather than what it is, a ploy for big business to get a never ending supply of cheap, 'underclass' labor.


I despise government bailouts of big business every bit as much as I despise the PRETENSE that government will EVER bail any common citizen out of his/her responsibilities in life. The first thing happens because money and power are exchanging hands by what are essentially partners, and the second is a dangled carrot to keep fools busy pulling levers for snakeoil, and never figuring out the first part.



That's not the implication at all, in fact, it's almost the opposite. Often times I see people with your belief in a reliance on government, act as if government were its own independent producer.

But its not. It's not a producer at all, it is itself a massive consumer of what others produce. It's by its very nature in bed with the producers of the wealth it needs in order to continue itself. There's simply no real world incentive for government to really be the benevolent watchdog over its own source of funding as you seem to think there is, and every incentive in the world for it to protect even the shadiest of its largest benefactors.

To me, in a very real sense, people with your belief in a benevolent government nanny state with powers to dictate what is 'socially responsible' , believe the inmates can run the asylum.


Sure, but the other side of the equation that you perhaps haven't quite come to terms with, is it's exactly the economy government wants as well, and sorry, but especially Democrats. The party has tied its very existence into riding to the rescue of some impending doomsday, even if they have to drum up or make worse whatever disaster exists or not. Republicans are no saints either, but honestly, I don't see Republicans gaining much from a destitute, desperate, financially struggling population, the way I see Democrats chomping at the bit for just that.



We're all part of the problem, in as much as our financial destinies are all largely our own responsibility. I take full responsibility for my own actions, and what control I have over my own wellbeing and finances.

I'm not a cheerleader of unfettered enterprise, I'm a for business being held to high standards of responsibility- more than any individual, but also government staying the hell out of the way where it has no business screwing with private enterprise.

Am I a pawn of some evil plot hatched by enterprise? Maybe. We probably all are pawns to one extent or another, of schemes we're not aware of.

But what saddens me, is people who are pawns of schemes and plots that are as obvious as the nose on their face, yet they cheer on and even beg for their own throats being slashed, and look for the co-perpetrators to be their rescuers.

I'm sorry, Crash, I thought that was you. Somebody, when I asked if we should have complete laissez faire economics and return to the business cycle, had said emphatically "yes."

I could've sworn that was you. Sorry. I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth. I was just demonstrating a deplorably unreliable memory.