GrayBeard Wrote:

ETSUfan1 Wrote:

GrayBeard Wrote:

Fo Shizzle Wrote:I hear people say..."The terrorists are just after us because we are free." The fact is, they are after us because we are involving ourselves in the affairs of their countries..How would we like it another country decided to meddle in our affairs?...Lets just stop being so arrogant and thinking that we are the "worlds savior" and mind our own business...Then we wont need to worry about those that might want to come into our country to find and make a better life for themselves.

Wrong! They are after us for 2 reasons. 1st, we support Israel. 2nd, The USA is not an Islamic nation.

Either way, they are not after us because we are free.

Wrong on a technicallity. Because we have "Freedom to choose" not to be Muslim, they hate us.

Do you think that our tolerance of gays walking down the street holding hands just might upset your traditional Islamic fundmentalist? Or maybe the huge debate within the USA about gay marriages is possibly upsetting a cleric or two. Unlike them, we don't stone to death gays, we give them TV shows. Everything about our soiciety is hated by them and that includes our music, tv, religion, food, clothing, hair styles, etc.

In this thread it's mentioned that the terrorists hate us for our involvement in other countries yet in the Tibet thread it's hinted that we're not involved enough in their problem. How's a person suppled to make up his mind amid all the conflicitng thinking?

Certainly, we are at times guilty of trying to force our will on others... However... more often than not, we are simply living our choice to be free, and we are sometimes invited into other countries... We have a food problem, we have a medical problem, we have an insurgent problem, our economy sucks... In many of those cases, the CAUSE of the problem is their lack of freedom... which means that in order to TRULY solve the problem, they must adopt at least SOME of our characteristics.

the problem is, they'd like for us to give them help, aid, jobs, exports... but not expect them to help themselves or allow US exports.

People laugh at the amusement park in Dubai... but if there weren't demand for western style entertainment, they wouldn't build it. There aren't enough American tourists DYING to go to Dubai rather than Orlando (or Paris or Tokyo) to justify that expense

Dude, isn't Dubai hotter than hell? Like 120 degrees in the shade?

It's my understanding that Dubai's oil supply is near the end and tourism will be its source of future income. I could be wrong, I mean, how much press coverage does Dubai get?

smn1256 Wrote:Dude, isn't Dubai hotter than hell? Like 120 degrees in the shade?

It's my understanding that Dubai's oil supply is near the end and tourism will be its source of future income. I could be wrong, I mean, how much press coverage does Dubai get?

A lot. Dubai is freakin' awesome.


Three different land formations created in Dubai.


World's tallest hotel.


Indoor ski slope.

They have a lot of crazy, innovative engineering feats happening there. Really neat, if you ask me. But, I don't think their oil reserves are anywhere near gone; they are just planning for the future.

Hambone10 Wrote:

Bourgeois_Rage Wrote:

Hambone10 Wrote:

Fo Shizzle Wrote:[quote=smn1256]


Free men dont need gates,borders or boundries.

A great sounding ideal... but if you think about it, we don't have gates borders or boundaries to keep us in... it is to keep those who might try and TAKE our freedom out.

You don't need a passport to leave the US... you only need one to come back in.

He didn't say that the gates,borders or boundries were for keeping people in. I'm guessing Fo Shizzle would like free flow both ways back and forth across the border. Just saying.

Obviously... but I stand by the comment that free men STILL need gates, borders and boundaries... to protect their freedom from those who would take it. The entire purpose of things like NAFTA is to extend the "free" zone. When it becomes global, THEN we won't need borders... but until then, you do. We can eliminate borders, but what if Mexico doesn't? If no other reason, borders are set up for tax and benefit purposes. You want to eliminate ALL government and all public services (including waste, water and power)?? I don't think so.

Fo Shizzle Wrote:hear people say..."The terrorists are just after us because we are free." The fact is, they are after us because we are involving ourselves in the affairs of their countries..How would we like it another country decided to meddle in our affairs?...Lets just stop being so arrogant and thinking that we are the "worlds savior" and mind our own business...Then we wont need to worry about those that might want to come into our country to find and make a better life for themselves.

While that is certainly PART of it... I don't believe that when we create a great system of higher education that people in other countries want to avail themselves of... so they send their best and brightest here... and IF they return, they want a McDonalds in their home town, or satellite TV so they can watch shows that they enjoyed while they were in the US, is an example of US Imperialism. Blame capitalists if you want, but if there is no demand, there will be no supply.

Should we be sending nets, missionaries, doctors, food, medicine etc. to Africa?? Are we allowed to put "strings" on those donations, like you can't divert all of the food to the military that you are using to supress the very people we are trying to help?? If we send food to a country enduring a civil war, and allow the government to feed THEIR army, thus defeat the insurrection... would you be surprised if the "people" there don't like us very much?? Should we just let them kill each other?? I'm not saying you agree or disagree with those things... just that no good deed goes unpunished... the definition of meddling depends upon your perspective.

Not comparing it to anything, other than an example of our sticking our noses in... Were we wrong to enter WWI and WWII?? I suspect we could have let them divide Europe/Asia/Africa/Australia and left the Americas mostly alone... at least for a few decades. They attacked because we were already indirectly involved.

Idealistic arguments are fine... but they are abstract. They support no conclusion, and offer no solution... they are thus, to me, of very little value other than an opportunity to waste time.

Can't we all just get along?? Apparently not... so what do we do??

Idealism is virtuous....violence in not.

Can't we all get along?....NO...as long as the violence of goverment exists.

Hambone10 Wrote:

Fo Shizzle Wrote:

smn1256 Wrote:

Fo Shizzle Wrote:This is the sticking point for almost everyone brought up in a statist society(myself included)...The society I advocate could do the same thing using the power of the free market(those in search of profit) and private charity for the poor...without the immoral theft of our wages...The beautiful thing about a total free market paradigm is that you do not have to know all the details of how things would work...The market would handle all situations by responding to signals from the consumers....Im not delusional enough to believe this will ever happen...I just know it will work.

Interesting, but without the immoral theft of our wages how would we pay for our infrastructure? Would every road we drive on be a toll road? Will we be forced to pay-per-flush? Who would inspect our bridges and food supply? Would our military and NASA rely on charity? Who will be there when another Katrina hits us? Who would pay for our justice system?

Ok...You ask great questions. All can be answered by the free market....Unfortunately, We dont have enough leisure time to hash out all the answers on this forum....If you are really interested in this topic and have time to spare.....I suggest you go to the following website....freetalklive.com....scroll down to the 12/26/07 entry that has a great audiobook ...The Market For Liberty..by Morris and Linda Tannehill. It can be downloaded for mp3 or Itunes for free.
Im not trying to dodge your questions...and will be happy to parce them over a period of time...I simply cant do that in a short timeframe...What you are asking is the crux of Classical Liberialism,Objectivism and Libertarianism....Questions that I explored myself over a period of several years.

I will start with your question of who would inspect the food supply.
In a free market paradigm...This would be handled by independant organizations...like UL...that would inspect the various businesses throughout the human food chain....Grades would be given much like todays system. No one would be forced to submit to grading...But it is unlikely that you our I would consume food that was not properly inspected and graded...Thus...It would be in the businesses best intrest to contract with these inspectors to recieve their grade or rating.....You may ask...What if the inspectors just give them a good grade without really doing the inspection?...Well.. they may get away with that....but...If someone gets sick from the food that they were supposed to certify as wholesome...Then the consumers would stop eating products that they inspected and therefore eliminate that inspection agency and vendors market share due to market signals...Likely they would no longer exist in business.
In a free market...the consumer insures quality..not the government...and all without the theft of wages to do it.

But UNTIL those people go out of business, people die... and in honesty, poor people die first because they were willing to cut the cost corner to eat. When your father dies from uninspected food, is there any recourse? Who will help you determine if it was grown wrong, or transported wrong, or cooked wrong, or brought from the kitchen wrong? What about unsafe cars? They aren't only unsafe for the drivers, but for the innocent people on the roads with them as well. YOU might be willing to drive a liquid nitrogen car, but if/when it explodes and kills my daughter who was sitting at the light next to you, we're going to have a problem... oh wait... there won't BE any roads, or any lights.

Lets not even start TALKING about clean air/water etc. The dry cleaner by YOUR house is cheaper than the one by mine because he dumps his fluid into your backyard... which I don't care about... and you don't care that the cheap oil change guy is dumping HIS waste in mine... and even if we got them to stop, who would clean up the mess?? So... how do we solve our individual problems?? It's called a government.

Sure, its become incredibly inefficient and wasteful over the centuries, but don't act as if the elimination of government or the way we pay for it (taxes) is a solution of any kind.

While I generally support your ideals, a little touch of practicality would be nice.

Unions, in my mind... while they still serve a limited purpose, are as much a waste of personal resources and productivity as our government... but at ONE point, they were absolutely necessary before the government took over most of their function.

Funny, you mention MP3 downloads... If the government didn't defend the individual copyright laws of musicians, would many people write music if they couldn't get paid for doing so?? Where is the profit motive (free market) in saving the victims of Katrina? I'm not talking about the humanitarians in Houston who took care of the people who could get there... I'm talking about the people who had to cut holes in their rooftops to get out of their homes. Where is the profit in saving them if there is no deduction for charity?

I understand your fear of "state" unregulated society.....but.....Do you not think that the free market(those in seek of profit) are more capable of assuring the quality of products?....Ask yourself this question. If you open a business of ANY kind...Is it in your best intrest to do harm to your patons?

GrayBeard Wrote:

Fo Shizzle Wrote:I hear people say..."The terrorists are just after us because we are free." The fact is, they are after us because we are involving ourselves in the affairs of their countries..How would we like it another country decided to meddle in our affairs?...Lets just stop being so arrogant and thinking that we are the "worlds savior" and mind our own business...Then we wont need to worry about those that might want to come into our country to find and make a better life for themselves.

Wrong! They are after us for 2 reasons. 1st, we support Israel. 2nd, The USA is not an Islamic nation.

I totally agree with you on #1......But..What if we were a peaceful Islamic nation that supported the state of Israel?....Would they not still be after us?

Fo Shizzle Wrote:I understand your fear of "state" unregulated society.....but.....Do you not think that the free market(those in seek of profit) are more capable of assuring the quality of products?....Ask yourself this question. If you open a business of ANY kind...Is it in your best intrest to do harm to your patons?

The basic interest in opening any business is to make money. Some companies will comply without regulation to act in the best interest of its customers, but without regulation how do you stop companies like Enron and Worldcom from taking further advantage of their investors and employees?

The most important problem that you are neglecting with your free market solution is who is going to focus interest on specific tasks? Who is going to create a overlaying plan for creating the infrastructure? Who is going to hire companies to build roads, bridges, water mains, dams, pumping stations, public transportation, etc.? Surely you don't expect to have a town hall forum each time a road needs to be fixed to hire a company to do it.

Who is going to patrol the streets and protect society? Who is going to fight fires? Who is going to prevent companies from creating an unhealthy monopoly and cornering a market? Who is going to protect the environment?

You want the government out of every sector of life, but who is going to provide oversight and perform the basic necessities that we all take for granted. Are you suggesting that we all donate money to pay policemen, firefighters, and other civil servants as we see fit? Who is going to collect that money and organize it to give to civil servant groups?

Fo Shizzle Wrote:I understand your fear of "state" unregulated society.....but.....Do you not think that the free market(those in seek of profit) are more capable of assuring the quality of products?....Ask yourself this question. If you open a business of ANY kind...Is it in your best intrest to do harm to your patons?

I understand your concerns about governments... I share some of them... I believe that my fear of "profit at all costs" for corporations is greater than yours. No, I do not believe that GE will intentionally do harm to their patrons... nor would Sam the butcher in a small town where he's lived for a generation... However, I hold no delusions that Sam's corner fly-by-night in Houston who is actually HQ'd in the Islands will be around long enough to get caught. Would SOME bars dilute their drinks or pour ripple into the expensive bottle if it weren't for the TABC?? They did... that's why we HAVE a TABC.

Scams on Ebay, scams on email...

The reason government exists is NOT to protect us from 80% of the upstanding population... It's to protect us from the 20% of thieves.


In an ideal world, we wouldn't need any of that... but its THE EVIL THAT MEN DO that causes a need for government... and there are evil men in government... because in addition to the votes of the other 20% of evil men, they also get votes from those who believe their lies.

Hambone10 Wrote:I understand your concerns about governments... I share some of them... I believe that my fear of "profit at all costs" for corporations is greater than yours. No, I do not believe that GE will intentionally do harm to their patrons... nor would Sam the butcher in a small town where he's lived for a generation... However, I hold no delusions that Sam's corner fly-by-night in Houston who is actually HQ'd in the Islands will be around long enough to get caught. Would SOME bars dilute their drinks or pour ripple into the expensive bottle if it weren't for the TABC?? They did... that's why we HAVE a TABC.

Scams on Ebay, scams on email...

The reason government exists is NOT to protect us from 80% of the upstanding population... It's to protect us from the 50% of thieves.


In an ideal world, we wouldn't need any of that... but its THE EVIL THAT MEN DO that causes a need for government... and there are evil men in government... because in addition to the votes of the other 50% of evil men, they also get votes from the gullible who fall for their lies.

Fixed it for ya.

I'm trying to be optimistic, CB... but thanks...

I believe that somewhere between 60 and 80% of the population can generally agree on just about everything in this country... not the details, but the principles... and not the same people, but a rolling list... but for SOME reason, the 20-40% of those who insist on having THEIR way get the attention, and frequently keep things from happening... well... everything but those things that virtually NOBODY wants...

Like we can go to War in Iraq, but we can't do what it takes to win. We can hold talks on global warming, but we can't actually DO anything about it...

Fo Shizzle Wrote:......But..What if we were a peaceful Islamic nation that supported the state of Israel?....Would they not still be after us?

Yes they would. They blow up their own kind in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. Unless we become a little extreme they won't respect us.

Hambone10 Wrote:but for SOME reason, the 20-40% of those who insist on having THEIR way get the attention, and frequently keep things from happening... well... everything but those things that virtually NOBODY wants...

The people you refer to are probably much more driven than your average person or they have the celebrity to get the attention of the masses. How many people do you know that would finance and make a movie comparing Cuba's medical health system to ours and actually make Cuba's look better? Moore had the motivation and money to do that while most Americans probably would have had serious pause about laying out that kind of green to insult their own country.

perunapower Wrote:

Fo Shizzle Wrote:I understand your fear of "state" unregulated society.....but.....Do you not think that the free market(those in seek of profit) are more capable of assuring the quality of products?....Ask yourself this question. If you open a business of ANY kind...Is it in your best intrest to do harm to your patons?

The basic interest in opening any business is to make money. Some companies will comply without regulation to act in the best interest of its customers, but without regulation how do you stop companies like Enron and Worldcom from taking further advantage of their investors and employees?

The most important problem that you are neglecting with your free market solution is who is going to focus interest on specific tasks? Who is going to create a overlaying plan for creating the infrastructure? Who is going to hire companies to build roads, bridges, water mains, dams, pumping stations, public transportation, etc.? Surely you don't expect to have a town hall forum each time a road needs to be fixed to hire a company to do it.

Who is going to patrol the streets and protect society? Who is going to fight fires? Who is going to prevent companies from creating an unhealthy monopoly and cornering a market? Who is going to protect the environment?

You want the government out of every sector of life, but who is going to provide oversight and perform the basic necessities that we all take for granted. Are you suggesting that we all donate money to pay policemen, firefighters, and other civil servants as we see fit? Who is going to collect that money and organize it to give to civil servant groups?

All of your above examples can be handled by those seeking profit in the free market/without government....I understand that with a statist education(I include myself) that these concepts are hard to grasp....I suggest that you do as I have done...expand your knowlege of free market principles. If you have the inclination and time...I suggest the following websites for resource materials ...freetalklive.com....freedomainradio.com....lewrockwell.com....You can find plenty of links to other resources from these sites.

The beauty of a true free market society is that you do not have to know HOW it will work...All you need to know is those in seek of profit will figure out the details by responding to market signals.

Fo Shizzle Wrote:All of your above examples can be handled by those seeking profit in the free market/without government....I understand that with a statist education(I include myself) that these concepts are hard to grasp....I suggest that you do as I have done...expand your knowlege of free market principles.

Here's an example that I believe shows the pure idealism on which your philosophy is based.

There is a road in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the the city. This road is riddled with potholes and needs the lane markers repainted, normal wear and tear on a roadway. Also, the crime in the poor neighborhood soars because of the lack of police presence in the neighborhood. The richer neighborhoods band together and pitch in money to repair their roadways and pay policemen to patrol the richer neighborhoods. The poor neighborhoods have difficulty paying their mortgages, for food, and for gas to get to work, so there isn't any money left over for police patrol and roadway maintenance. How do the problems in the poorer neighborhoods get fixed? Are they supposed to rely on charity from the rich? (Good luck with that if they are.)

That doesn't even tackle the problem of organizing the funds to undertake such projects. As soon as you organize a body to oversee all of this you've created a type of government.

Quote:The beauty of a true free market society is that you do not have to know HOW it will work...All you need to know is those in seek of profit will figure out the details by responding to market signals.

I'm sorry, but if you can't come up with specific solutions to tasks that the government currently does other than to say, "Oh the free market will take care of it," then your theory is worthless.

How will it work? That is a legitimately posed question. Those in seek of profit will seek the highest bidder and because society isn't equally distributed with wealth, societal problems will not be equally resolved. A free market may work on a limited small scale environment, but it is another animal when you try to extrapolate that example to the whole of society.

We have 200 years of reasons why the free market systems can't be charged with running everything... and if you're a true history buff... thousands of years of it...

It's not that businesses are by their nature, BAD... but they are out for their singular purpose. To make money. They do so by maximizing income and maintaining costs. They want a lower cost to get more customers, so they must work on the areas they can more easily control... Costs. Taking care of their employees or the environment is only a tertiary concern.

We have WAY too much government right now, and they are making WAY too many decisions... but to advocate throwing the baby out with the bathwater makes one appear to be foolish.

Sure, for many government programs there should be/are/can be private alternatives for those who wish to avail themselves of that option... but the government program sets the minimum acceptable standard...

You can't ask consumers, many of whom do not have choices by virtue of education, information, finances or opportunity to drive costs down AND maintain quality levels.

I'm still waiting on a specific solution to address real world problems from the free marketeers.

The free market solution to illegal immigration is to end all immigration quotas. Capitalism & the free market both depend on the free flow of labor & capital across national boundaries (I'm pretty sure I stole that from Adam Smith but I'm not going to look it up). Illegal immigration is ended in one fell swoop (aside from those actually coming in to do us harm).

Since the immigrants are no longer illegal they aren't forced to work for substandard wages & in substandard conditions, thereby not depressing wages (of course there would be no minimum wage either so the effect on wages might be harder to estimate). Since there would be no welfare or other government entiltements, those who were unwilling to work would be more likely to return to their own countries.

My mistake, I worded my challenge poorly. I'm still waiting on free marketeers to come up with specific solutions to the tasks our government currently does (i.e. police, fire, infrastructure construction and maintenance, etc.). I was trying to echo my challenge from the longer post above, but I obviously failed to do so.

perunapower Wrote:My mistake, I worded my challenge poorly. I'm still waiting on free marketeers to come up with specific solutions to the tasks our government currently does (i.e. police, fire, infrastructure construction and maintenance, etc.). I was trying to echo my challenge from the longer post above, but I obviously failed to do so.

I'm not an actual free marketeer because I believe that the free markets only function properly when a government exists to protect private property & other rights (and that a government is the inevitable outcome of any attempt to provide such protection). Anarchy, even peaceful free marketeer anarchy, is an unstable equilibrium.

One thing I would like to point out, though, is that what you are rightly afraid would happen under the "free marketeer" system is already happening under the governmental system. As you point out in your examples, the poor areas are currently underserved by governmental services such as police protection & road maintenance. I'm sure that even in communists societies those with more resources were able to leverage those resources to get better service. Would it be worse under the free marketeer system? Possibly, but it's really hard to tell.