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(03-13-2019 09:19 AM)BroncoEngineer05 Wrote:  The remaining 80% is the exhausted-middle who just want things done in a manner that's beneficial to all of us without a care of which side comes up with the idea.

The more people who get their news from Twitter arguments and social media memes, the more that 80% is going to get whittled down.

My concern is the recent rise in populist "my way or the highway" hardliners who gain massive followings. On the one side, conservatives toss aside their limited government principles to rally behind uber-nationalist Trump and the toxic alt-right. On the other side, we're seeing the likes of tax-to-the-stone-age Bernie and now 'AOC' becoming media-driven rock stars.

There's really no viable third party. The Greens are even more socialist than the socialists, and the Libertarians get into too much law-of-the-jungle (although the LP's 2016 ticket of Johnson/Weld was fairly moderate by libertarian standards).

Now that doesn't mean even the "fringes" don't have valid ideas especially in the cases of social/civil liberties. Sometimes an idea that may seem radical or unprecedented, regardless of ideology, is the most valid and reasonable. But what 'made America great' (ahem) are leaders who didn't sway too far from the center and showed the ability to compromise and reach across the aisle, both domestically and internationally, and try representing all Americans instead of their own ilk or pushing identity politics. In other words, the adults in the room.

The best form of governance is that of a healthy mix of free-market capitalism blended with government protections, safety nets, and public services. You can't tax people back to the stone age, but you can't have taxes so low that important government services are jeopardized. You can't have so many regulations that it stifles business growth, but not have so few that it's a free-for-all prone to abuse. Those sorts of things... Stray too far off the path, you'll get Pinochet's Chile, or Putin's Russia, or Maduro's Venezuela.

If 2020 winds up being something like Trump vs. Sanders, it'll be landmark election, and not necessarily in a good way. I'll truly miss the days of McCain, both Clintons, Kasich, Obama, Flake, Romney, Biden, etc., even though each of them may have glaring faults of their own.

Good post MB.

Social media is and has changed how people get their news. The scary part is that people choose only those views they believe and the algorithms FB and etc use limit what you see. Hard to see the big picture when you are viewing only a sliver of reality.

(03-14-2019 08:09 AM)Aimless1 Wrote:  Good post MB.

Social media is and has changed how people get their news. The scary part is that people choose only those views they believe and the algorithms FB and etc use limit what you see. Hard to see the big picture when you are viewing only a sliver of reality.

Agree!

What makes it worse is when extremist partisans attempt to impede our ability to get "the big picture" and be exposed to contrasting opinion. Too many seriously want to make a difference of opinion illegal.

Reasonable people disagree everyday, but are adult enough to work through differences rather than silencing their opposition.

I like that Tip O'Neil and Ronald Reagan had enough respect for each other - despite their significant ideological differences - to have lunch together every St. Patrick's Day. There is an Irish Bar in Alexandria, Virginia, that encased a table they ate at in plexiglas and surrounded it with pictures of them having a beer & burger together.

Cool and comforting considering the childish division and jack-boot absolutism we see now from BOTH political parties.

(03-13-2019 10:23 PM)Rasser Wrote:  

(03-13-2019 09:19 PM)BroncoPhilly Wrote:  

(03-13-2019 09:40 AM)HaymondAtThe4 Wrote:  

(03-13-2019 09:19 AM)BroncoEngineer05 Wrote:  

(03-13-2019 08:51 AM)broncofan1 Wrote:  No party holds the high ground on morality or 'rule following'. Only ideologues believe otherwise.

I gotta think the true breakdown of party alliance is something along the lines of:
10% - Far right Republicans who think all Democrats are evil.
10% - Far left Democrats who think all Republicans are evil.

The remaining 80% is the exhausted-middle who just want things done in a manner that's beneficial to all of us without a care of which side comes up with the idea.

But we can't not acknowledge the moral differences between the parties in the interest of making peace. Republicans by and large believe that climate change is either not real or not caused by humans. Democrats don't do enough to address it, but at least they agree it's real and a problem. We can't afford to sit in the middle of that and say "Well some people say humans are causing warming, some say we're not. They both probably have valid points." This is a problem because it rules out the type of bold aggressive action the UN says is necessary to avoid or at least minimize climate disaster. I'm not saying anyone here is doing that, but I think sometimes people equate the far left and the far right in the US as similarly bad. And sometimes people stop there and fail to actually examine the policies and how they correspond with the issues.

Democrats by and large are intellectually challenged. Take your point on global warming, there is NO CONSENSUS among scientists that global climate change is caused largely by mankind. None. The only scientists who say it is are those who have skin in the game, ie those who receive funding from organizations for promoting that theory. It is POLITICS and not science that is driving that theory, nothing more.

I recognize the limitations within your side-most of you have only a passing acquaintance with science and mathematics, you're easily duped when it comes to things like that. I'm not one to proclaim my own education credentials to support my arguments, but I have a BS, MS and PhD in electrical engineering. My IQ as measured by Stanford-Binet scale has been placed at anywhere from 150-165 at various times that I took that test. I belonged to MENSA for a few years until I got tired of paying dues, that I couldn't even get a tax write-off for. In a nutshell, I've forgotten more about science and mathematics than most of you ever knew in the first place. So I'm not going to quibble about whether mankind is the major factor in global climate change with a bunch of self-important, deluded, scientifically challenged, mongoloid Leftists who couldn't balance a chemical equation or follow a mathematical proof if their lives depended on it. You're out of your depth, face it.

As I've noted, the folks in my own family who are the biggest leftists are the least educated and the most easily impressed by the demagogues on the Progressive side. As Hillary Clinton once noted, 'Most Democrats are not very smart.'. I couldn't have said it better myself. You can all eat my crusty shorts, I salute you with my middle finger!

In case you didn't grasp that last comment I'll leave a pic for you:

That’s true, you’re really impressive. But you still throw like a girl.

Philly sounds just like his boy.

White, male, straight, Christian, pro-life, Republican here.

How in the world do I have 2000 some posts already? :o

(03-13-2019 08:40 AM)HaymondAtThe4 Wrote:  I'm a socialist.

"Like".....:)

(03-31-2019 12:34 PM)ess Wrote:  

(03-13-2019 08:40 AM)HaymondAtThe4 Wrote:  I'm a socialist.

"Like".....:)

Just an extremely dumb video lol. Socialism to me is mostly about who owns the means of production. I believe they should be owned by workers. I believe that workers should govern their collectively owned firms democratically, either directly or via elected representatives. I also believe that the state's aim should be to maximize the well-being of its people, which is why I support policies like Medicare for All, free public university tuition, and the public school system.

Wealth and GPA are so drastically different that explaining why that analogy doesn't work would be a waste of text and an insult to anyone who might read it, though obviously not as great an insult as posting the video in the first place. So I'll just say that the effort to conflate the two just shows how much un-seriousness and bad faith there is in these kinds of argument. Campus Reform isn't trying to solve problems here, they're trying to distract and obscure, and all in the service of protecting the right of the wealthiest among us (a small minority btw) to own everything and to pay the rest of us as little as possible to work it for their profit.

(04-01-2019 11:30 AM)HaymondAtThe4 Wrote:  Socialism to me is mostly about who owns the means of production. I believe they should be owned by workers.

In your worldview/favored political system, where does the "means of production" come from?

(04-01-2019 04:59 PM)ess Wrote:  

(04-01-2019 11:30 AM)HaymondAtThe4 Wrote:  Socialism to me is mostly about who owns the means of production. I believe they should be owned by workers.

In your worldview/favored political system, where does the "means of production" come from?

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Societies have always transformed natural resources into stuff humans can use. The means of production are the supplies that are necessary to turn natural resources into useful stuff. I'd say they either come from nature (land, raw materials) or they are produced by society (machinery, technology, trucks, etc.) Not sure if this answers your question, but would be happy to clarify if not. Where do you think the "means of production" come from?

(04-01-2019 07:18 PM)HaymondAtThe4 Wrote:  The means of production are the supplies that are necessary to turn natural resources into useful stuff.

Societies have always transformed natural resources into stuff humans can use.

How exactly does that happen?

Can you give me some specific examples?

(04-01-2019 07:53 PM)ess Wrote:  

(04-01-2019 07:18 PM)HaymondAtThe4 Wrote:  The means of production are the supplies that are necessary to turn natural resources into useful stuff.

Societies have always transformed natural resources into stuff humans can use.

How exactly does that happen?

Can you give me some specific examples?

Sure! Throughout history this has happened in a ton of different ways. A lot of Native American societies held and worked farmland communally. Thinking more in terms of a craft, a person might, especially before the rise of industrial factory production, own a shoe-making operation. They would purchase the materials necessary to make shoes, then they, often with the help of apprentices, would combine those materials to create a shoe (or two even!)

Or that type of operation could look like Nike's, where the company is owned by shareholders and then does basically the same thing, but on a global scale, often searching the globe to find the workers who will sell them their labor for the lowest possible price.

Another modern example is the Mondragon Corporation in Spain, which is a federation of worker cooperatives that is the 10th largest Spanish company. The company is jointly owned and democratically controlled by its workers. They make watches in much the same way that Nike makes shoes, except that their workers also own and manage the company, which is something I would like to see a lot more of in the US economy. But it is a thing, and it seems to be growing! (Link is to a Federation of Worker Co-Ops and provides a helpful definition and a partial list of US Co-Operatives.)

(04-01-2019 09:03 PM)HaymondAtThe4 Wrote:  

(04-01-2019 07:53 PM)ess Wrote:  

(04-01-2019 07:18 PM)HaymondAtThe4 Wrote:  The means of production are the supplies that are necessary to turn natural resources into useful stuff.

Societies have always transformed natural resources into stuff humans can use.

How exactly does that happen?

Can you give me some specific examples?

Sure! Throughout history this has happened in a ton of different ways. A lot of Native American societies held and worked farmland communally. Thinking more in terms of a craft, a person might, especially before the rise of industrial factory production, own a shoe-making operation. They would purchase the materials necessary to make shoes, then they, often with the help of apprentices, would combine those materials to create a shoe (or two even!)

Or that type of operation could look like Nike's, where the company is owned by shareholders and then does basically the same thing, but on a global scale, often searching the globe to find the workers who will sell them their labor for the lowest possible price.

Another modern example is the Mondragon Corporation in Spain, which is a federation of worker cooperatives that is the 10th largest Spanish company. The company is jointly owned and democratically controlled by its workers. They make watches in much the same way that Nike makes shoes, except that their workers also own and manage the company, which is something I would like to see a lot more of in the US economy. But it is a thing, and it seems to be growing! (Link is to a Federation of Worker Co-Ops and provides a helpful definition and a partial list of US Co-Operatives.)

So let the Coop Workers secure start up capital and
keep the govt from being the guarantor.

(04-01-2019 09:03 PM)HaymondAtThe4 Wrote:  Sure! Throughout history this has happened in a ton of different ways. A lot of Native American societies held and worked farmland communally. Thinking more in terms of a craft, a person might, especially before the rise of industrial factory production, own a shoe-making operation. They would purchase the materials necessary to make shoes, then they, often with the help of apprentices, would combine those materials to create a shoe (or two even!)

Or that type of operation could look like Nike's, where the company is owned by shareholders and then does basically the same thing, but on a global scale, often searching the globe to find the workers who will sell them their labor for the lowest possible price.

Another modern example is the Mondragon Corporation in Spain, which is a federation of worker cooperatives that is the 10th largest Spanish company. The company is jointly owned and democratically controlled by its workers. They make watches in much the same way that Nike makes shoes, except that their workers also own and manage the company, which is something I would like to see a lot more of in the US economy. But it is a thing, and it seems to be growing! (Link is to a Federation of Worker Co-Ops and provides a helpful definition and a partial list of US Co-Operatives.)

Maybe some clarification is in order.

You and I seem to be comparing apples to oranges.

In fact

As you describe what you are "for"

You seem to be offering examples of BOTH apples and oranges (enforced government redistribution of wealth and resources AND private businesses that have <freely> chosen your preferred business model)

Quote:As a political ideology, state socialism is one of the major dividing lines in the broader socialist movement. It is often contrasted non-state or anti-state forms of socialism, such as those that advocate direct self-management, adhocracy and direct cooperative ownership and management of the means of production.

Which type of "socialist" (either/or, both/and) are you?

I thought you were just asking me how societies turn natural resources into stuff people can use. If you're asking about what I'd like to see, it's not mass state ownership of the factories, although I'm not opposed to the public sector growing into something similar to what Scandinavian countries have.

I want the co-operative sector of the economy to grow a lot. I'd like for the state to use incentives like cheap loans and tax breaks to help the co-op sector grow. There are a lot of business owners aging into retirement age right now, and I'd like to see a lot of those businesses be turned over to their workers and run co-operatively. I also like the policy that Warren proposed a while ago that's modeled after German co-determinism and says that something like 50% of companies of a certain size's (really big) boards need to be worker representatives. I think if this were the reality, big companies would make decisions that were better for their workers and their communities. I think they'd be a lot less likely to outsource and otherwise cater to the whims of Wall Street.

I would also like to see the state guarantee a baseline standard of living that includes food, shelter, education (through college), healthcare, and probably a few more things.

(04-02-2019 01:23 PM)HaymondAtThe4 Wrote:  I thought you were just asking me how societies turn natural resources into stuff people can use.

You defined yourself as a "socialist" on this board. I was/am simply trying to understand what you meant.

So

I asked (you) where the "means of production" comes from in your worldview/favored political system..

Your answer....."society".

That wasn't helpful (to me)

So I asked for an example.

And you said "Nike"

I (still) don't understand how "society" produced Nike.

How did that happen?

Where do you draw the line between Phil Knight and "society"?

Quote:I would also like to see the state guarantee a baseline standard of living that includes food, shelter, education (through college), healthcare, and probably a few more things.

“The State cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it"...William Graham Sumner

This brings us back to the video that you found "extremely dumb" and "insulting".

You responded that "wealth and GPA are drastically different".

I agree.

100%.

Though....I suspect my definition of "wealth" differs from yours.

A clear and obvious analogy can (easily) be drawn between money/capital/private property and GPA.

These young budding "socialists" (suddenly) placed value on that which they considered "theirs".

Nobody willing to "walk the walk"....

Again, I thought you were just asking how societies turn natural resources into stuff humans use. It wasn't clear to me you were asking how that would happen in my ideal system. As far as how society produced Nike. Society had a demand for shoes. As far as I understand it, Knight had a plan for making a certain type of shoe, he eventually secured funding and credit from investors and banks (the banks btw are lending out money that their customers, which is us). Then he hired workers to turn stuff into shoes and more workers to sell those shoes. Therefore, the people who turn shoes into a product that can be bought at sold is a lot more than just Phil Knight. In our current system, he and the rest of the people who own the company keep the surplus value (profit). I don't think that's right. I think the workers have a right to share that surplus value, and I think they have the power to get it if they could unite enough to strive for it.

And the analogy is broken because you can't eat GPA. You can't exchange it for shoes, or a house, or a business, or healthcare. You also can't inherit it, and the system by which it is awarded is a lot more fair than the system by which wealth is distributed and accrued. It's perfectly reasonable to say "I think the way wealth is accrued and distributed is unjust and should change, but I think the way GPA is accrued and distributed is relatively just and should remain mostly the same." There's nothing inconsistent there and the implication that the only thing causing those students to make that argument is their self-interest is just soooooooo dumb and is being made in such bad faith. And I didn't mean it was insulting like offensive. I meant it was insulting like sharing it implies the people seeing the video don't have the critical thinking skills of a 9 year old and are therefore capable of being persuaded by the video's insanely bad comparison.

You don't think its "right" for entrepreneur's to profit from their own ingenuity, hard work, and investment??

Yikes...

Quote:As far as I understand it, Knight had a plan for making a certain type of shoe, he eventually secured funding and credit from investors and banks (the banks btw are lending out money that their customers, which is us). Then he hired workers to turn stuff into shoes and more workers to sell those shoes.

You're leaving out a few things. Intellectual capital. Physical capital. Compliance. Payroll. General and administrative. Marketing. Legal. Etc.

Quote:Therefore, the people who turn shoes into a product that can be bought at sold is a lot more than just Phil Knight.

No doubt.

What role did the "workers" (your term...as if the person most responsible for this 106 billion dollar market cap company is/was not a "worker") play in securing/producing any of this?

Quote:In our current system, he and the rest of the people who own the company keep the surplus value (profit). I don't think that's right. I think the workers have a right to share that surplus value, and I think they have the power to get it if they could unite enough to strive for it.

Fair enough.

From your perspective, what gives the "workers" this "right"?

Is/was it earned?

If Nike goes bankrupt, who is most at risk?

The owners?

The "workers" (again, said as if people who own companies don't "work")?

In your preferred system, with bankruptcy, would the workers then be legally obligated to pay off the company's debts?

Quote:And the analogy is broken because you can't eat GPA. You can't exchange it for shoes, or a house, or a business, or healthcare.

The analogy is not broken. Not close.

Though a GPA cannot be exchanged for shoes, etc. It is OF VALUE to each student.

It may and often affects job prospects, graduate school prospects, etc.

Which then COULD affect one's ability to purchase shoes, houses, healthcare, etc.

Each student clearly knows this, given the across the board refusal to share what they felt was rightfully theirs (one or more actually saying "no, I worked hard for that").

Quote:You also can't inherit it, and the system by which it is awarded is a lot more fair than the system by which wealth is distributed and accrued.

Money that is inherited (at some point) had to be earned.

Just as money given away by the government (at some point) had to be earned.

In neither example does the recipient "earn" what is received.

Why do you (seem to suggest) that one "system" (government confiscation with redistribution) is fair/just, but the other (inheritance) isn't?

One action freely gives what was earned to the recipient.

The other does it under the threat of force.

Quote:It's perfectly reasonable to say "I think the way wealth is accrued and distributed is unjust and should change, but I think the way GPA is accrued and distributed is relatively just and should remain mostly the same."

Reasonable to you.

But....saying it doesn't make it so.

You frequently use terms like "fair", "just", "unjust", and "moral" .

Would you care to define ANY of them?

Furthermore.

You have ABSOLUTELY no idea how any of those kids (or any kids) acquire their GPAs.

Was one working 40 yours a week while attending school?

Was another privately tutored for 20 hours a week....paid for by his/her parents?

Does one student carry a 20 hour class load?

And another carry a 3 hour class load?

Is one sleeping with a professor?

Did another cheat?

Was one student born a genius?

While another average? Below average?

Were bribes made to get one or more of those kids into school?

You have no idea about anyone's personal situation.

And therefore cannot render a meaningful opinion about what is fair or just or moral for any individual.

The main impediment to perfect equality is individual personhood. That is what the Left most wants to destroy. Collectivism is a program for turning people into cogs.....Alice Smith

Quote:From your perspective, what gives the "workers" this "right"?

Is/was it earned?

I'm just gonna let Dolly Parton field this one.