(06-25-2014 06:07 AM)Old Dominion Wrote: (06-24-2014 09:43 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: (06-24-2014 09:07 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: (06-24-2014 09:05 PM)Old Dominion Wrote: Can we all put party affiliation aside, just for this one moment, and all agree POLITICIANS ARE ALL DOUCHBAGS!!!
Why for just one night?
But kindly explain something. You think all politicians are douchebags, but you consistently support policies that give more power to politicians and bureaucrats. How can that be?
Interesting contradiction. I question the motives of most politicians basically because of the way it's all rigged. Term limits would take much of the profit motive out of congress and make for more altruistic politicians (I hope). I don't really trust big$$ any more than the politicians and think the public needs protection from market forces that are compelled to destroy the nation in the name of profit.
But where are we going to get these more altruistic politicians (and bureaucrats too)? What system has ever existed with altruistic politicians? Or bureaucrats? Name one society ever where politicians and bureaucrats successfully protected the population from market forces. I can name many systems where government got ever increasing power under the guise of protecting people from market forces--and in every case that government was worse than the market had been.
That's the problem I have with all solutions from the left side of the aisle. There is this implicit assumption that all private industry is evil, and we must be protected from it, so to protect us from those robber barons we give power to government, which is run by altruistic people interested only in the good of humanity. Politicians and bureaucrats must be angels in order for that to work, and we're finding angels in short supply. Always have, always will. So those leftist "solutions" never work.
Greed is not the result of capitalism. Greed is a basic human characteristic. It exists in capitalism. It exists in communism. It exists in socialism. It exists in fascism. It exists in anarchy. The difference between capitalism and the others is that those market forces you rail against are actually stronger than any human force, and they tend to harness that greed for the good of all. The others all have as an implicit assumption that greed goes away, and when it doesn't, they invariably fail. Capitalism is not based on greed, but it is the only system that can work in the presence of greed.
And make no mistake, everybody is greedy. It's easy to look at the $100 million CEO and say he's greedy. But the burger flipper wanting a minimum wage of $15/hour for doing $5/hour worth of work is also greedy. You're not going to eliminate greed, so you'd better find a system that greed doesn't destroy.
And as for your regulators. Bernie Madoff ripped off millions. He's the poster child for greed run amok. But every single thing he did was reviewed and passed for years by those regulators you are counting on to protect you. Same for Skilling and Lay and the other Enron folks. Every accounting treatment that Enron used was reviewed and passed on by the SEC. Bill Clinton's SEC, by the way. And I'm a fan of Bill's, wish he were still president, but he was no angel either, just better than what followed. Obviously, some regulation is needed. But somebody needs to regulate the regulators, and that piece is missing in our current system.
Bottom line on the left. Your "solutions" might work if you could find a bunch of angels to implement them. But you can't. So they don't.
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Vote Thad Cochran he will support President Obama's Agenda
