You weren’t paying attention then…or, more likely, you weren’t a minority. It was on TV though…you know, water cannons, dogs, National Guard soldiers, etc etc.
And you are free to not be able to find a job at all in Europe as well…or, to having found one, to be stuck in it for life because your choices are limited to get another job.
See? I, too, can strawman and distort reality to make some quasi-point! It’s fun and doesn’t really add anything to the discussion at the same time! Woohoo!
-XT
I don’t think any of that stuff had to do with the tax rate. You can bring up McCarthy also, but I think most people thought themselves to be economically free then despite high taxes on the rich. Not George Harrison under a similar tax rate in England, though. Lower marginal taxes are a good thing for lots of reasons, but freedom isn’t really one of them.
More of a joke than a strawman, actually. And directed at those who think the difficulty maybe a few dozen at most people have in opening new banks outweighs that of people who can’t get decent healthcare for their children, or who feel unable to change jobs because of healthcare issues.
After all, both rich and poor have the same freedom to sleep under a bridge.
In the US you have the right to say “America is the freest bested country in the world.” Likewise, you also have the right to disagree. But if you do, others have the right (and oh boy do they use it!) to call you un-American and/or unpatriotic.
IOW, you’re free as a bird…as long as you toe the line.
I believe that those living at the time who were being crushed under those high tax rates (a carry over from WWII) definitely thought their freedom was being impinged…they simply felt that some sacrifices were necessary in order to forward truth, justice and the American way, etc etc.
As for my comments, the point was that it was more than simply tax rate that made us less free back then. Admittedly, I wasn’t even born in the 50’s, so I’m viewing this more from an intellectual rather than a personal perspective.
Life is full of trade-offs. But the reason our CEO’s make more has to do with the tax structure and certain legislation passed in the US that had the unintended consequence of modifying CEO compensation. It’s an apples to oranges comparison to look at US CEO’s total compensation and compare it to those of their Japanese or European counterparts. Also, as I said, there are trade-offs that make aspects of our system more attractive than their own (and vice versa).
As for healthcare, this is again one of those trade-offs…the European’s like their more comprehensive system, while in the US it hasn’t been a priority up until recently. Oh, no doubt a lot of people would have LIKED ‘free’ health care…they just didn’t want to pay for said ‘free’ health care. And I’m doubtful that they want to do so now, either. What they want is the concept of ‘free’ health care, without the realities of the taxes our European brethren and sistren have to pay to get it.
-XT
No, the reason our CEOs make more is that we don’t worry much about conflicts of interest. Most Fortune 500 CEOs sit on the boards of other Fortune 500 companies. While wearing their board-member hats, it behooves them to approve ridiculous compensation packages, because that drives up their own value when they’re wearing their CEO hats.
I agree that the American people have trouble facing realities. But I think you have it exactly backwards. Instead, it is the fearmongering of the people and corporations who oppose a more comprehensive system that tends overexaggerate the actual costs of such a health care system. Right now, Americans are so frightened of the monster under the bed – namely, the costs of so-called “free” health care – that they can’t even bring themselves to compare it with the costs of our current health care system to make a rational judgment. In spite of data showing how much more we actually spend on health care here in the U.S. than in many countries with more comprehensive systems, people run around scared that the gummint is going to take more of their money than the health care business racket currently does. Which is baloney.
As Obama pointed out (and I’m no big fan of his), if the government is so inefficient at running things, then why are the insurance companies so scared that their plans can’t compete? Surely, they are more efficient and save more money? Right? Perhaps not.
I did wonder about that myself, but didn’t have time to double check the cite.
That’s easy. Assuming Obama said this, the answer is that the government is the 800lb gorilla…even if it’s totally unresponsive and inefficient, it has so much money and pull that there is no way insurance companies could compete, especially if you factor in legislation that could make it impossible for such companies to compete.
That’s not necessarily how it would play out, but if I were an insurance company that would be one reason I’d be concerned, or ‘scared’ as you put it.
I don’t want to hijack this thread to another UHC type debate though. I think that there are trade-offs to UHC (or even to Obama’s more modest plans) that, up until recently the majority of the American people simply chose not to pay for (as I said, I have no doubts that a LOT of people would love to have something for nothing…it’s when you have to pay for it that people start to balk). I don’t think that health care, per se, makes on more or less free, however, which is the subject of this thread.
-XT
In your warped world, is there no such thing as a mutually beneficial, voluntary relationship? Is someone always raping someone else in any sort of exchange?
You’re setting up this absurd excluded middle where your options are “food provided to you by others by force” and “you act as a slave to the one who feeds you”… do you not recognize there’s a middle ground, like, oh, say, THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN CURRENTLY? Where people are able to acquire food through mutually beneficial agreements.
Sailor is referring, I think, to the ability of US police officers to seize large amounts of cash when they are discovered. The assumption is that large amounts of cash can only be related to some kind of criminal activity.
One famous example is Utada Hikaru’s mother, Fuji Keiko, who was found at an airport with a big sack of cash a while back. The sack of cash was seized and she was let go. I don’t know whether she constested the seizure, but I suspect she did. I would like to know how that situation was resolved.
The Simple and Clean chick?
Her mother is certainly simple. I’m not sure how clean she is though.
The world where the evil government restricts the freedom of people to exploit others, and offers enough support to keep people from starving. As opposed to the good old days you seem to prefer, where an employer could, for example demand that you provide sex if you wanted to keep on working. Or who would work you until you were dead or crippled without any recourse on your part.
Without the government intervention you decry as restricting freedom, a “mutually beneficial, voluntary relationship” is the exception; masters and slaves are the rule.
Cash, cars; anything, really.
No, it’s simply that Americans on the whole are self destructively opposed to anything labeled “socialism.” They aren’t “unwilling to pay”; they are paying more for less the way things are now. They don’t care, either because they have a fundamentalists faith in the innate inferiority of the government ( regardless of the facts ), or are willing to die rather than submit to the Evils of Socialism.
I don’t think you’re very well grounded in reality. What evidence do you have that I prefer a world where an employer could practically rape employees?
You have food on a regular basis, right? Was it provided to you by the government? Did you have to suck someone’s dick at Nabisco? Did they eat your children?
Or did it come from a routine economic transaction in which the buyer and seller agree on a fair price that suits both of them, without any coercion from either the provider or the government?
You’re wasting your time.
You’re debating with someone who once argued the CPSC was necessary to prevent lawnmower companies from plotting to loosen the blades on their mowers in an effort to kill their customers.
Villains. There are villains everywhere, lurking behind every corner, out to victimize us all. We’re doomed without the government to protect us.
Because that’s what you are arguing for.
No, because the government keeps the corporations and the wealthy under some control, even in America.
There WAS coercion from the government, on both sides. Neither side is allowed to use force, because of government coercion. They are forced to hold to standards of health and safety, by the government. They aren’t allowed to burn down their competitors, or tell me I buy from them alone or else, upon pain of punishment from the government. They aren’t allowed to take my money and then refuse to give me what I bought; I’m not allowed to buy their products with fake money - due to coercion from the government. And so on.
You can’t have free exchange, or any other freedom without coercion from the government. And without the protection of the government, the coercion will be mostly one way; the rich and the various non-government organization crushing the less wealthy and less organized. That’s why libertarianism is fundamentally anti-freedom.
I never said that.
You have a retarded view of libertarianism. What you mentioned about the government keeping people from defrauding each other, stealing, etc. is exactly the core principles of libertarianism. You are not even close to making sense at this point. You seem to think that libertarianism is complete anarchy. Maybe you should start reading about it.
Not only that, but it’s not even particularly relevant to what you said before. You seem to equate “government protecting you from coercion” with “everyone has a right for the government to provide them with certain goods and services”.
Given your complete mischaracterization of my position, and then essentially advocating a position compatable with libertarianism and then saying “libertarian is fundamentally anti-freedom” - a position that doesn’t even resemble positions you’ve taken previously in the thread, and I’m not sure you have any sort of consistent position at all.
No; it’s anarchy for the upper class and the corporations. It’s sociopathy as a political platform. It wants to ban coercion by the government, because that’s the most important weapon the common people have to defend themselves.
No; I’m equating it with the government ensuring that necessities are provided, by it or someone else. You and those like you are busy pretending that only coercion by the government counts as coercion.
You clearly have no idea what libertarianism is. The prevention of coercion/initiations of force between individuals is the primary purpose of government.
No, I just don’t buy their propaganda. Or their fondness for defining any form of coercion they like as not being coercion. Or trust or respect them in any way.