So you’re a better libertarian than Rand Paul? The man you refer to as brilliant? What does that make you? Mega-brilliant?
I read the articles. I have not and would never claim that racial discrimination doesn’t exist. Non of these cases was an example of policy being to not allow black people to eat at these restaurants. Nobody put up a sign saying “Whites Only”. These appear to be isolated incidents and there was plenty of public outcry. Another case I saw regarding Denny’s said this:
*"In the latest lawsuit against Denny’s, an African American family in East St. Louis, Illinois sued the restaurant chain for racial discrimination and has been awarded $600,000 in damages by a federal jury.
Sandra Green says that when her family went out to eat at Denny’s Restaurant, a white waiter deliberately ignored them and used racial slurs when the family finally did get service. Denny’s later fired the waiter."*
This was the case of a racist employee embarrassing the company. I am not defending this in any way, shape or form. I have read many cases like this, and in nearly every case there is a public backlash. What would happen if a business chain’s policy is to exclude black people? What if a business put up a Whites Only sign? The outcry would be deafening.
You are right that racism still exists but it is on the way out. I don’t defend Property Rights because I condone racist behavior, I defend them so the government doesn’t confiscate your property through eminent domain. If you purchase your property, you should own it. You should be able to do what you like without permits and government harassment if you don’t harm anybody else.
And, also, I believe the same effects that proponents of Civil Rights support could be accomplished without sacrificing the principle of property ownership in the process. I think this could be accomplished. We cannot legislate away racism. In fact, government policies typically inflame racial tensions rather than ease them.
I see where you are coming from but I believe the principle of who owns private property is too important to violate even for so noble a goal as fighting discrimination.
No Child Left Behind took effect in 2002.
Do I understand this correctly; you want to reduce the federal deficit by sending $8,000 to every school-age child in the country?
For that matter, you seem to have argued that federal reimbursement of Medicare and Medicaid patients has destroyed the quality of health care, but you want federal reimbursement for all K-12 education?
Obviously, I’ve done nothing that merits being banned. I’m just sorry you feel so threatened by a contrary voice on this forum. I don’t just associate with people who agree with me. I put my views out there for a debate, not for people to reinforce what I already believe.
You really want to include the Depression years in that? I need a cite for this as I flatly disbelieve it.
If there’s no private enterprise involvement, who do you think is paying all these lobbyists?
Average life expectancy for a white male born 1929-1931 - 59.12 years
Average life expectancy for a white male born in 2004 - 75.7 years
Yeah, the quality of our health care has just gone to hell since 1930.
Here you demonstrate a stunningly poor understanding of how free markets work. Health Insurance companies are not free markets at all. They are a third party payer system. This is what a free market in medicine would look like:
I want to see a doctor so I shop around to see who is the best. I pay exclusively out of pocket for all basic tests and procedures. All these doctors are competing for my business so they offer competitive prices to seek me as a patient. This lowers the costs. Quality rises due to the competition among doctors. Go to a cosmetic dentist or a acupuncturist or alternative doctor and see how they treat you if you doubt what I say. Literally, nobody pays out of pocket for doctors anymore. The price is fixed, everybody is charged the maximum. There is no price competition among doctors. There are regulations, massive paperwork that adds to the cost and much more.
Insurance is supposed to measure risk. That is, if you have health insurance you should only need it if you have a heart attack or a stroke and need to stay in the hospital for a while or some other catastrophic health condition happens that is unexpected. For the rest, you should be paying out of pocket for your health care. There should be doctor choice, no HMOs, just freely fluctuating prices and private doctors competing for your business. This would lead to dramatically lowered prices and increased quality.
THAT is what a free market in medicine would look like. Incidentally, that was how medicine was in the 60s before the mandated HMOs, Medicare, the Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical lobby fucked things up for everyone. And it worked pretty well.
Teachers can’t be fired anymore. They are not responsible. There are good unions and there are corrupt and destructive unions. Check out these links and get back to me:
By the way, why not respond to my other points about education reform? There was a lot more than just teachers unions on my agenda.
Yes, it certainly is. There are quite a few people I respect that disagree with Libertarianism on some aspects. As long as some thought is put into the positions.
I do think that many people don’t really take the time to understand these positions. That is my experience. Although I am dwelling on the differences, I believe there are many positions that libertarians and liberals can agree on, like:
Ending the wars overseas and cutting the defense budget
Allowing Gay Marriage and repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (Ron Paul was one of the only Republicans to vote to repeal it)
Ending the War on Drugs
Ending Corporate Welfare and Agricultural Subsidies
Auditing the Federal Reserve
Allowing increased transparency and accountability on all levels of government.
Finding bipartisan ways to fix the budget and reduce the deficit
I’m sure there is more than that. I agree with liberals on quite a few things. I get frustrated when they excuse Obama for betraying them time and again however. That doesn’t mean we can’t work together to get some of these things accomplished.
Cosmetic dentistry, accupuncture, and alternative doctors (whatever that means) are examples of the quality of health care we could expect under a fully private system.
Seriously?
Depends on how you measure quality, I guess. Better magazines in the waiting room, soft music playing while I’m producing a urine sample, hotter nurses; it’s things like that that will make you stand out in a highly competitive market.
I think what I presented already was an “appropriate” debate topic. The difference between private property and government property, the media treatment of Rand Paul, libertarian ideology, Free Market vs corporate and government health care, etc. I’m glad I finally got to a topic you approve of. :rolleyes:
Question deleted
Yeah, thats why I said sometimes they get it right. Its certainly not the only qualification that I would champion for my cause. I would also argue that the Nobel commission has gotten significantly more politicized and less objective in the forty years or so since Hayek won. I mean, nobody can claim that Al Gore and Barack Obama deserve that prize. Come on.
Give me a break. I don’t support the John Birch Society, but I know they have been somewhat unfairly demonized over the years. Ron Paul is NOT a member. He spoke to them. He also sometimes speaks with Alex Jones, but he doesn’t endorse his positions on the issues. You cannot continue this guilt by association thing. Some members of the John Birch Society support Ron Paul. Some potheads support Ron Paul. Some College Students support Ron Paul. Some conspiracy theorists support Ron Paul. Some Christians support Ron Paul. Some Antiwar activists support Ron Paul. And, yes, even some racists support Ron Paul.
It is a fallacious argument to claim that Ron Paul supports the views of all these different groups of people. He cannot be held accountable for everything some supporter of his believes.
You are going to have to do better than calling him a “crackpot”. Go down the list, tell me every position that is batshit crazy that he holds.
I did. I am a couple pages behind. I am trying to answer every post if I can. Yes, it is possible to understand libertarian positions and still disagree with them. Of course I am partial to my own views.
No, but Al Gore and Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. The peace prize is, for better or worse, often awarded on achievements that are more or less current. Connecting raising awareness of global warming to the cause of peace is a little strained. Similarly, Obama’s Nobel was an award designed to use the force of his prize to urge his presidency to pursue peace. Both are strained explanations but it’s Oslo’s prize to give as they see fit.
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, like the literary and scientific prizes, is awarded years or even decades after the relevant work or body of work so that its significance can be properly put into context. The economics prize is extremely prestigious, and Hayek and Krugman were deserving winners.
And how did they get to where they are? If teachers unions have managed to negotiate provisions in their contracts that secure jobs for their members, don’t those contracts have to be honored? I don’t know who negotiates on behalf of the public (is it the school board?), but if they wanted the right to fire bad teachers, they should have put it in the contract. Probably would have had to give in on some other issue, like money.
I also find it somewhat against your libertarian ideals to break up the teachers unions. Who’s going to do this breaking up, the federal government? That means laws, regulations, enforcement, and a budget to pay for those things. What’s libertarian about that?
I picked that one item (and a few others, recently) for two reasons. One, you seem to be quite outnumbered and lagging behind the current posts already. There are plenty of plates spinning in this thread without adding more. Two, you are the OP, and your argument seems to be quite dogmatic and inflexible. To argue against it, I only need to find the weakest points to start making the first cracks. I would rather make one point simply and clearly than try to crush someone under the weight of a long, point-by-point treatise.
“An” appropriate debate topic? “An”? Then you go on to list at least 5 topics? Thanks for illustrating my point re: the OP’s clarity and focus.
:rolleyes:
The free market allows teachers to organize and collectively bargain with their employers.
Something must be done! (libertarianially, of course)
Well, you can have your opinion. By the way, Rand Paul, to me is nowhere close to being the model of libertarianism the way Ron Paul is. I think he has potential, but we will have to see how it goes. The focus of this thread is more on libertarian belief that influenced Rand and Ron Paul and the merits of that belief.
This statement is completely unbelievable. Where do you live? What possible indications do you have that there is that level of racism in this country?
The only place I could see it ever happening are in certain small, backwards pockets of the deep South. Even then I think they would get shit for it. Don’t you think we’ve made even a little bit of progress in fifty years? Don’t you see that the reason we had a civil rights bill in the first place was due to the public outcry?
The power one wields with the Federal Government is second to none. People are prone to corruption and so are business owners and State governments. Their ability to do harm is much less.
You still didn’t acknowledge the issue which is, you are saying people are backwards and dumb and we need a Federal Government to regulated personal behavior or else we will revert to the dark ages. I am saying that the government is just a reflection of the people. How do you think they will do a better job than the people themselves?