Because they were gutted by the Republicans. Who talked just like you about how terribly restrictive and unneeded those regulations were. They were wrong, just as you are wrong.
Here is the thing: The idea that the Republican Party “deregulated” the economy is complete bullshit. Its an urban legend. George W Bush massively expanded regulations nearly every year of his presidency. Now, obviously Bush was very cozy with corporate america, but so is Obama. And remember, Glass-Steagal was repealed under Clinton. Regulation or Deregulation had nothing to do with why we are in the midst of this crisis. There was obviously corporate misconduct, but my point is that regulation cannot compensate for bad economic and monetary policy.
Consider this excerpt from Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for The Boston Globe:
*"WE’VE HEARD IT again and again: The financial crisis was caused by the Bush administration’s reckless plunge into deregulation.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for example, blames the mess on “the Bush administration’s eight long years of failed deregulation policies.” Billionaire investor George Soros declares that “excessive deregulation is at the root of the current crisis.” Nouriel Roubini, the widely-quoted New York University economist, pins it on “these Bush hypocrites, who spewed for years the glory of unfettered Wild West laissez-faire jungle capitalism.” A New York Times editorial pronounces the American financial system “the victim of decades of Republican deregulatory and anti-tax policies.”
President Jimmy Carter attributes it to the “atrocious economic policies of the Bush administration,” particularly “deregulation and . . . a withdrawal of supervision of Wall Street.”
That’s also Barack Obama’s view. “The biggest problem in this whole process was the deregulation of the financial system,” Obama said last month. He called the present troubles “a final verdict on the failed economic policies of the last eight years . . . that essentially said that we should strip away regulations, consumer protections, let the market run wild, and prosperity would rain down on all of us.”
Deregulators run amok undoubtedly make a flamboyant culprit. But do they exist? Should we really be taking seriously the claim that the past eight years have been characterized by letting “the market run wild”?
Granted, there has been significant recent legislation easing financial restrictions. Most often mentioned is the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which, as The New York Times described it on Monday, “removed barriers between commercial and investment banks that had been instituted to reduce the risk of economic catastrophes.” Some argue that the law, which allowed traditional banks and investment firms to be affiliated under one holding company, helped bring on the credit meltdown. Even if true, how was that George W. Bush’s fault? The law was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1999, after being passed by lopsided majorities in both houses of Congress.
Gramm-Leach-Bliley’s lead sponsors were Republicans, but the 34 Democratic senators who voted for the bill surely weren’t scheming to “let the market run wild.” Ditto the 151 Democrats – among them future Speaker Nancy Pelosi – who voted for the measure in the House. Then-Treasury Secretary (and current Obama adviser) Larry Summers didn’t denounce the bill as “laissez-faire jungle capitalism” – he praised it for “promoting financial innovation, lower capital costs, and greater international competitiveness.” Clinton himself defends the law to this day.
Now, this is not to say that Bush hasn’t also been responsible for legislation having a decided impact on the country’s regulatory climate. On July 31, 2002, declaring that free markets must not be “a financial free-for-all guided only by greed,” he signed the Sarbanes-Oxley law, a sweeping overhaul of corporate fraud, securities, and accounting laws. Among its many tough provisions, the law created a new regulatory agency to oversee public accounting firms and auditors, and imposed an array of new requirements for financial reporting and corporate audits. Whatever else might be said about Sarbanes-Oxley, it was no invitation to an uninhibited capitalist bacchanal.
Like the alligators lurking in New York City sewers, Bush’s massive regulatory rollback is mostly urban legend. Far from throwing out the rulebook, the administration has expanded it: Since Bush became president, the Federal Register – the government’s annual compendium of proposed and finalized regulations – has run to more than 74,000 pages every year but one. During the Clinton years, by contrast, the Federal Register reached that length just once.
Similarly, the administration has broken every previous record for regulatory agency spending. According to researchers at Washington University and George Mason University, appropriations for federal regulatory functions have soared during the Bush years. Adjusting for inflation, the regulatory budget has grown from $25 billion in fiscal year 2000 to an estimated $43 billion in FY 2009 – a 70 percent increase. “In constant dollars,” writes James Freeman in the Wall Street Journal, “the Bush regulatory budget increases vastly exceed those of predecessors Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, and, yes, Lyndon Johnson.” Staffing has skyrocketed, too. Regulatory agencies employed 175,000 people in 2000. They employ nearly 264,000 today. (Some of that reflects the Transportation Security Administration’s takeover of airport security screening in 2003.)
Amid the stress and storm of the financial crisis, “deregulation” makes a convenient villain. But the facts tell a different story: The nation’s regulatory burden has grown heavier, not lighter, since Bush entered the White House. Too little government wasn’t what made the economy sick. Too much government isn’t going to make it better."
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A few more links dispelling the myth that Bush and the Republicans deregulated:
The issue at hand here is that Republicans (especially Reagan) spout rhetoric about how they defend the free market and favor small government and less regulation. There policies, without exception since Nixon, have been towards larger, more intrusive government, more regulation, and more militarism. These are the facts. The Democrats are attempting to link our problems to deregulation and “free” markets in order to make a case for the opposite: more government intervention, more regulation, more central economic planning. If Americans knew the truth, that these policies are exactly what lead to this crisis, they would never support more of the same. So this myth is very convenient for certain people. Its still complete bullshit, however.
So, Der Trihs, I just proved you wrong. Will you be a stand up guy and admit that you were mistaken? I don’t hold anything against you for believing this common misconception, but its important for us as a nation to do something different to solve this crisis. I’m sure you’ve heard the quote that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Well, I’m afraid Washington D.C. has turned into a mental institution in recent years.
If you would actually take the time to read some of the Austrian economic literature I have linked to, as well as some of the great historians who have done pioneering work on these subjects, you would be able to see that “regulation” is completely beside the point. Our problems come from a fraudulent system of money and a secretive banking system that creates moral hazard and is in itself a complete rejection of free market principles and encourages corporatism and a culture of cronyism is Washington.
So, in case you weren’t paying attention earlier, here are a few links to start you out:
First a documentary on our banking system in this country:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936#
www.mises.org (read through the literature section)
If you can learn a little about what I am talking about then come back and we can continue this discussion.
Well, its debatable. I tend to think that people do instinctively want to be free. Don’t you think that slaves early in our history yearned to be free? All they ever knew was slavery yet I bet they thought about what it would be like to be a full citizen and be able to own property and make money and live the good life. I am sure they did. Just because there has been relatively little freedom afforded by governments throughout history doesn’t make it any less of a desired condition among people of the world. What historically happens I think is that people always desire freedom for themselves but not necessarily for other people. Therefore through the selfish actions of individuals freedom is slowly eroded for everybody. I believe human beings can only achieve the heights of human potential in a society that grants freedom to all individuals.
That is ridiculous. We would have an army capable of defending us from any enemy. We just wouldn’t have one larger than the next fifteen countries put together. One of the primary functions of the federal government is to protect our national security. Therefore it would always need to keep and maintain a military up to the task of standing up to any threat we could possibly face. And you are neglecting the fact that our government would grow and evolve over time due to the process of Amending the Constitution. It would evolve to meet the changing needs of citizens and emerging threats, but only in a way compatible with maximum liberty afforded to the citizens.
Your examples, again, are completely ridiculous. Nobody is allowed to have an army except the federal government. And even with a much more limited government than we have, it would still be much much bigger than any single corporation or banking institution. In fact a smaller more efficient and streamlined federal government would easily be able to fulfill its obligations to prosecute fraud and other corporate crime. Who would stop them?
Central banking is not a cornerstone of commerce. If we had a Gold standard or competing currencies business would be fine and our economy would be more than fine. Think about this: what is the economy? All it is is individuals participating in the voluntarily exchange of goods and services with mutually beneficial outcomes. There need not be any central planning taking place. People acting in their own interest to better their lives is not something the government has to “encourage”. When we talk about central economic planning, the only reason that exists is to control the economy for the benefit of certain banks or special interests who don’t want to compete and play by the rules.
I want a currency that maintains its value. I want a government that operates on a balanced budget without out of control deficits. I want an economic system that rewards savings and discourages debt. I want an economy based on lower consumption and increased production rather than the opposite. If any of these ideas make sense to you, you must be against the Federal Reserve system and Keynesian economics. Believe me the economy would be just fine without a central bank that lines the pockets of bankers and erodes the standard of living of the most vulnerable members of society. I know you jumped on this thread a little late, but did you read any of the Austrian economic literature I have linked to? If not, then you should read up a bit so at least you can see where I am coming from.
I’m glad we agree. Obviously we would maintain a military force necessary to defend us against any possible threats.
No offense, but this comment is astoundingly ignorant. History is replete with examples of people living under Authoritarian governments who have had to educate themselves illegally and have “black market” schools were people would associate to learn to read and write and learn history and many other subjects that were not made available to them under their oppressive government. In our own history people were educated, extremely well I might add, without government involvement at all. In the 19th century children would be packed into humble one room rural classrooms and learn better than kids do today at multi million dollar public schools. Without government parents would teach the kids, private schools would teach kids, and all manor of charity schools and universities would teach kids. It has been this way throughout most of history. Do you honestly think that if all government schools vanished tomorrow there would be no opportunity for education of children? Maybe then the parents would actually pay attention to their kids and spend a little more time with them.
To back up my point, look at this test to pass the Eighth Grade from 1895. How many Americans do you think could pass this test today? This is how far our standards of education have fallen.
http://www.jordanmaxwell.com/articles/8th-2520grade-2520test.pdf
If the federal government didn’t educate kids, alternatives would spring up overnight (affordable private schools, home schooling, charitable free education, etc). First of all, I want to make it clear I am not advocating abolishing public schools. I am advocating eliminating the Department of Education. Even if the federal government pays for education, control should remain at the local level. And we should do everything possible to encourage alternatives. Maybe some day we can be confident that we can educate ourselves fine without the federal government, but that day is a long way off unfortunately.
Great, two things we agree on so far.
You are partially right. But make no mistake about it, we need manufacturing in the United States. We should be able to do somethings better than any other country. It doesn’t have to be about price alone, although with healthy competition we should have low prices as well. We should have a manufacturing revolution based on quality first. Think about it, German Engineering, Japanese electronics, Italian cooking, European sports cars, most other countries produce something that is the best of its kind in the world. People will purchase it even if it costs a bit more. What do we have? Walmart, McDonald’s and Burger King. Cheap shit. We should establish quality over quantity. We can still be competitive with the price though. But our trade deficit is killing us.
First of all, if my reforms were to be enacted we would see dramatically increased wealth and increased standard of living for most Americans. Due to freeing up medical care to market forces, prices would drop like a rock. So, increased disposable income plus much lower medical cost equals many fewer people who need help. Those who did could be taken care of locally. You know, there used to be many more charity hospitals than exist now. The government drove them out of business. I asked this of a previous poster, but given that Medicare and Medicaid are insolvent, how would you fix them apart from allowing people to opt out or phasing out these programs over time? I think I am actually looking at this thing rationally, many of you guys are seeing what you want to see. There is all this fear mongering about getting rid of Medicare, but think outside the box okay? Why not experiment with a society without Medicare and see if the world ends?
This is not the most crucial point. I feel that the United Nations is a very flawed organization that fails in its efforts to help poorer nations. I think it is important however to establish without a doubt that our elected leaders are under oath to uphold the Constitution and Bill of Rights, not profess allegiance to the United Nations. For example, we go to war against those that violate UN resolutions, circumventing the Congress. We should go to war only when the National Security of the United States is threatened and there is an official declaration of war. Membership to groups like the United Nations makes it unclear who exactly our government is serving. This is a more minor point however.
No, you are wrong here. A republic and a democracy are very different. We have democratic elections, true, but our system of government was explicitly a Republic. Most people think we live in a democracy, but this is false. A Repulic, like I said, is a government ruled by laws. The laws are enumerated in the Constitution. In every proposed legislation that is suggested, we are shown polls that say, for example, that 55% of Americans support this legislation as a reason to push it through. In a Republic this would be irrelevant. The question would be, is there explicit authorization for this bill in the Constitution? If not then the bill must be defeated because it violates the law. It doesn’t matter how many people favor the proposed legislation. The only way to change this is to amend the constitution. The founders actually hated democracy. Check out these links:
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2005/tle332-20050814-05.html
Also, a video you can watch on the subject:
Sure, this is why I have said over and over the process of Amending the Constitution is essential and the Founders envisioned the Constitution adapting slowly to changing circumstances. You cannot however, ignore the constitution entirely and expect us to maintain liberty. Obviously we amended the constitution to outlaw slavery, allow women to vote and many more. But somewhere along the line we decided not to amend the constitution and simply ignore it. That was when we lost our liberty to an illegal and illegitimate government. Would you support reforming government to its present constitutional size (as the Constitution, as written today, allows) and THEN amending it to allow functions you consider essential in this day and age? If we don’t we might as well get rid of the constitution entirely and write off this experiment in liberty to the dustbin of history.
It sounds like the OP should just move to Somalia as that is already one place where his libertarian dream is being put into reality. Of course, life expectancy in about 35, there is no education except for religious indoctrination which produces a large scale terrorist/Islamic movement, and virtually everyone but a top elite live in soul crushing poverty. If that’s what he wants then he should just move there and let the rest of us continue with a real government here in the US.
Wow, ALL my “ridiculous” beliefs are summed up in one sentence, huh? I suppose we should retroactively rescind Hayek’s Nobel Prize as well? How about having a book burning party were we make a bonfire out of Austrian literature, especially von Mises’ opus Human Action, and pretend the great classical economists never lived? Seriously though, I am not pretending that Roosevelt’s policies and Keynesian economics are one and the same, that is your assertion of what I was saying. I am saying that FDR’s policies were disastrous and lengthened the depression significantly. No, his policies were not “more beneficial than not”, they were a disaster all around.
My argument boils down to the fact the government intervention, propping up unsound business positions, inflating credit, keeping up wage rates, and expanding public works prolonged the necessary market correction and turned a relatively minor correction into a decade long catastrophe. And also, the Austrian economists have the only sensible theory as to what causes recessions and depressions in the first place. It is called the Theory of the Business Cycle. They show how massive bank credit expansion in the 20s caused an unsustainable boom that inevitably results in a bust. The following is a more clear explanation for the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle, first advanced in 1912, in Ludwig von Mises’s masterwork, The Theory of Money and Credit:
*"The theory begins by observing the profound effect that interest rates have on investment decisions. Left to the market, interest rates are determined by the supply of credit (a mirror of the savings rate) and the willingness to takes risks in the market (a mirror of the return on capital). What throws this out of whack is manipulation by the central bank.
When the Fed feeds artificial credit into the economy by lowering interest rates, it spurs investments in projects that don’t eventually pan out. In this economic boom, the high-tech and dot com manias resulted from a decade of sustained money growth via lower interest rates. When the Fed stepped on the brakes to prevent prices from rising, it prompted a sell-off, and hence a downturn.
What’s tricky to understand is what can’t be seen. Just because prices aren’t going up doesn’t mean the money supply is in check. Just because people in some sectors are getting rich doesn’t mean that the prosperity is on solid ground. Just because the stock market is going up doesn’t mean that the architecture of investment (to use Jim Grant’s phrase) is in good working order.
This theory is strongly supported by the data. The dot come runup coincided with a money supply runup, beginning in 1995. The money supply (the Fed’s MZM) slightly flattened in 1996 and the begin zooming again in 1997, peaking at a 15% increase in January of 1999. The rate of increase began to fall precipitously thereafter, triggering a much needed sell-off. The money supply as measured by MZM began at $3.2 trillion in 1997 and sits at $4.7 trillion today. Clearly, the judgments of investors and entrepreneurs were being distorted by massive injections of money and credit."*
This is why Austrian economists had no trouble predicting the Great Depression and had no trouble today in correctly predicting the current economic crisis. The Austrians have the only rational explanation for the cause of economic crises. If the cause is not understood, a reasonable solution can hardly be offered, right?
I’ve noticed your pretty good at making smart ass remarks, yet you fail miserably at reading comprehension. Why not tell me why the books and links I offered were wrong? You didn’t actually even look through them, did you?
I actually DID look at your link and saw nothing to contradict the Austrian explanation of the Great Depression. I only see more example of FDR’s failures. So, tell me what would have happened if we didn’t intervene at all and allowed the correction to occur and then went back to work. What would have happened? Obviously FDR’s polices weren’t very successful (that so many consider him one of our greatest presidents boggles the mind).
I’ve mentioned this earlier, but the Depression of 1920-21 was over very quickly without any intervention. Why was this? If it was so successful, why did we not use it as an example to follow in the thirties? Watch this video about the Depression of 1920:
How about you respond to the substance of the links I provided? I know its a bit harder than talking out of your ass with snarky comments, but you may actually learn something if you do.
I don’t think you outline “in detail” any serious mistakes I have made on this thread. I may have made minor errors or accidentally misspoke. Its possible. You claim the Austrians had a positive influence back in the day and I am an “embarrassment” to them? I think I very accurately articulated the Austrian position as far as the Theory of the business cycle, criticizing the Federal Reserve and a host of other positions.
So, lets cut the bullshit. You claim to at least respect the Austrians for their contributions to economics, yet claim my links are an “embarrassment” to them? The most common link I have provided is to mises.org, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, an organization designed to collect and preserve the original teachings of Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Hazlitt, and others and teach Austrian economics to new generations. So, just actually explain to me why the theories of Mises, and the others don’t make sense or don’t apply to modern economic problems?
And, to a more important point, why is it that Austrian economists were some of the only ones to correctly predict the economic crisis we are now facing? Why did the modern economic “thinkers” (who you defend) almost unanimously fail to see this crisis coming? I’ve posted this video before, but you didn’t respond, so here it is again,
Peter Schiff, Austrian economist, was right:
Ben Bernanke, moron Fed chairman, was wrong:
It seems that we should be looking to those who saw the problems with the economy BEFORE the crisis to find our way out. By the way, Ludwig von Mises saw the Great Depression coming a mile away in the 20s. Maybe I’m crazy, but I prefer to look to those with a track record of being right, not those whose predictions routinely fail to happen.
So, I challenge you to actually explain in some detail, why the Austrian theories are wrong and why modern Austrians like Peter Schiff and Ron Paul (who predicted the crisis) are wrong today.
Not even close. Somalia is so far away from a libertarian society. It is more like tribal warlordism. No country currently is a perfect example of libertarianism. Some countries are very good at protecting certain kinds of freedom and have very libertarian aspects to them. I’ll give you examples of countries that have libertarian “experiments” in certain aspects of society and how they are working out:
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The Netherlands: They have some of the most lenient laws about drugs and prostitution in the world. In fact, violence and addiction rates are lower than the average. This policy is working out very well, reducing the harms associated with illegal drugs and undercutting the criminality and gang violence from the black market that existed when drugs were illegal. It is a resounding success.
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Switzerland:
Foreign Policy: They have a non interventionist foreign policy and are neutral in outward disputes. Switzerland avoids alliances that might entail military, political, or direct economic action and had been neutral since the end of its expansion in 1515. Its policy of neutrality has been internationally recognised at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Only in 2002 did Switzerland become a full member of the United Nations but it was the first state to join it by referendum. Switzerland maintains diplomatic relations with almost all countries and historically has served as an intermediary between other states. They are the model by which we should base our foreign policy on. They have never had a major war in over 400 years. They are friends of all nations and enemies with none.
Gun Policy: Switzerland has one of the highest militia gun ownership rates in the world. The Swiss army is very small and is dependent upon militia trained and structured to rapidly respond to foreign aggression. Gun crime rates are so low that statistics aren’t even kept. Crime rates overall are MUCH lower than most other nations. Obviously their gun policy is working out very well.
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Liechtenstein: Although small, it has the highest gross domestic product per person in the world. They have a very free market oriented economy with very low regulation. From wikipedia: Despite or perhaps because of its limited natural resources, Liechtenstein is one of the few countries in the world with more registered companies than citizens; it has developed a prosperous, highly industrialized free-enterprise economy and boasts a financial service sector as well as a living standard which compares favorably with those of the urban areas of Liechtenstein’s large European neighbours. It has been a tremendous success.
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Estonia: A very free market oriented country with respect for personal liberty and considerable wealth. From wikipedia: A balanced budget, almost non-existent public debt, flat-rate income tax, free trade regime, fully convertible currency backed by currency board and a strong peg to the euro, competitive commercial banking sector,innovative e-Services and even mobile-based services are all hallmarks of Estonia’s free-market-based economy.
The central bank uses a currency board system and has independent reserves, which are big enough to buy back all the currency in circulation.
There are actually quite a few countries that are more libertarian than us (though non are perfect). A general rule that emerges when looking at these countries is that the more libertarian the society is, the healthier the economy, the higher the standard of living, and the greater the peace and happiness afforded its citizens. Other nations that are somewhat libertarian are: New Zealand, Ireland, and the Bahamas. Needless to say there is precedent for libertarian policy being a resounding success.
By the way, Oerdin, I know what you were trying to do with that comment. You think that any nation with no government in chaos and anarchy approximates a “libertarian” society? There is much more to libertarians than “no government”. It is a very specific type of government and economic system. I honestly don’t think you are that stupid as to really think Somalia represents a libertarian society, so I will just chalk it up to you trying to be clever and point to some shit third world nation in chaos to try to discredit my views. Well, its not going to work. Why not explain why libertarian ideology (however limited) works out so well for the countries I listed above. Some countries have superior respect for personal/civil liberties, some have a more economically free market system, and some have a more peaceful foreign policy. But in all areas, more liberty equals more success and more prosperity and greater happiness for their citizens.
So, before I let you get back to your oh so successful “real” government you love so much, why not actually make an effort to read the links I am posting and explain why my positions won’t work out. See, thats how real debate is supposed to work. I state my position with links to back it up, then you respond with substance and links of your own and vice versa. You have to put forth some actual effort.
jrodefeld, do my corrections of your mistakes change your views on health care or the FDA at all?
Slavery is a totally different scenario. Slaves saw other people on a daily basis - their owners and overseers - who were free.
Who says nobody is allowed to have an army except the federal government? It’s certainly not in the Constitution you hold so dear. In any case, that’s the point - without a strong central government, there’s nobody who can enforce the rules.
How much do you want to limit the government, exactly? Let’s say it shrinks to 10% of its present size under your proposals, and a balanced budget amendment is passed. The total federal budget would go from $3.5 trillion to something closer to $100 billion, based on 2009 revenues.
That’s about a third of Shell’s 2009 revenues, or half of Wal*Mart’s.
Yes, I read it. I also read it in college. It made just as little sense then as it does now. The Austrian theorists wrote about economies which functioned in a vacuum. They ignored the external effects of unregulated economic activity - pollution, nonsustainability, and so on - and political reality. Pure, unregulated market economies are no more viable than communism.
Central banking and Keynesian economics soften the blow of economic shocks. It’s all very well to say that recessions and depressions are necessary to the functioning of healthy economic systems, but without some government intervention people will starve to death long before the corrective cycle completes. In any case, your writers all ignore the fact that government spending was the only thing that got us out of the Great Depression - that is, the massive increase in spending necessitated by WWII.
Some degree of stability is necessary for an economy to function properly. That, of course, isn’t even taking into account the noneconomic factors which make a safety net a desirable thing (like compassion).
Perhaps you’d like to share some of these examples.
I’m not particularly opposed to abolishing the Department of Education. Most of the states do a pretty shitty job of educating their students already, so federal involvement doesn’t seem to be helping.
We already produce lots of things which are the best in the world. Military hardware, specialized medical equipment, supercomputers, and so on. However, just wishing for something doesn’t make it so.
A manufacturing revolution requires a revolutionary idea. Industrialization, automation, and so on. It would be nice if we had one, of course, but it doesn’t look like there’s one on the horizon (nanotechnology, perhaps?) and we won’t know it’s here until after the fact when one does arrive.
You sound like you’re running for office. “If my reforms are enacted…”
You have absolutely no idea what would happen if your reforms are enacted, and medical care is already freed up to market forces. What specific mechanism is going to push down the cost of medical care?
Opening up more medical school places can do that, but we can do that without implementing any of your other reforms. What else?
Which of our elected leaders has ever “professed allegiance” to the United Nations? This is a non-issue. I am, however, not against restricting the power to authorize the use of force to Congress (as it ought to have been all along).
That is nonsense. The founders were talking about direct democracy - an archaic usage. Every modern democracy is at least theoretically a constitutional republic. Even Britain, which has no formal written constitution.
Again, nonsense. We’ve never ignored the Constitution, nor have we given up on amending it. The 27th Amendment was passed in 1992.
What we have done is accepted - as the Founders did - that interpretation of the Constitution is the job of the judiciary. It’s only seven articles- a good loose framework for a system of government, but necessarily rather vague.
Which specific parts of the Constitution do you feel are currently being ignored?
What? It’s a cornerstone of Libertarian politics. It’s also pretty big with the Austrian School. How can you not be pushing for deregulation but support them both?
You take Der Trihs to task for claiming that Republicans worked to undo much of the regulations in the US. You’re right that it wasn’t Republicans that started it since it began in 1980 with Carter and Depository Institutions and Monetary Control Act. They certainly didn’t make it any better though. In fact they’ve been big supporters of deregulation and deregulation was a big part of Reagan’s administration.
Reagan certainly made it worse in 1982 with the Garn-St. Germain Depositiry Institutions Act. This one gave us our first deregulation crisis in the savings and loan scandals.
Reagan also appointed Greenspan to head the Federal Reserve in 1987, in line with the administration’s deregulation and free market policies.
Greenspan pushed hard for further deregulation and got his wish in 1999. Introduced by the Republican Party was a repeal of the Glass-Steagle Act. Advised by Greenspan, Clinton signed it into law. This is where everything became a mess. It allowed the banks to take on all sorts of risks and it played a large part in the 2008 Crash.
So yeah, you are correct in that W. didn’t cause it. And oddly Bush Sr. wasn’t too bad. Carter, Reagan, and Clinton/the Republican Congress are the ones to blame.
Still, you can’t spend 28 years deregulating banking and lending only to turn around and blame the now powerless investigators for the crash.
Not really. You’ll first need to explain how Canada, which kept stricter regulations over the last 30 years, would be better off if they hadn’t. Keep in mind that they have one of the most, if not the most, stable banking systems in the world right now. They also have “too large to fail” banks who operate under tighter regulation without this becoming a problem.
We should be moving towards returning to tighter regulation. Fortunately, we are. Last December McCain (R) and Cantwell (D) jointly introduced a proposal to reinstate the the Glass-Steagle Act. Obama’s “Volker Rule” calls for reimplementation of many parts of that Act. The EU is looking into legislation based on it.
Meanwhile Canada is trying not to be all smug, eh?
I exaggerated. But honestly the Libertarian ideal is not that much different from the glorious workers’ paradise of Communism.
Yes. You’ve never commented on what I said about the 19th century. It was the most libertarian the western world has ever been and it was a terrible time to be a employed. All of the changes that have altered this have been forced on businesses by the government. It’s why we don’t have 10 year olds pulling 70 hour work weeks for a dollar like we did in 1810.
No, I think it should do more. But I think it has done better than any private organization.
True. It’s about even with fifty years ago. There’s about 39.8 million Americans below the poverty line and in 1960 it was about 40 million. The low point was in the 70’s, with the 60’s and 80’s both being higher.
It is ridiculous the way you ignore history. This has never happened. Ever. Charities have never been able to provide for the poor and underprivleged as a whole. At best they can provide a sort of band-aid for the problem by helping limited numbers in a limited area.
70% of Americans donate to charities. So when you get rid of all government programs you’re going to have 30% of the country not doing a single thing to help out. There is absolutely no reason to think that these people are suddenly going to be motivated to give money to a cause.
Of those 70% who do donate to charities the average donation from each one is 3% of their income over the year, before taxes. Interestingly this number does not change if a person’s income changes. It’s still 3% of their income before taxes regardless of the actual dollar amount made.
http://www.grabstats.com/statcategorymain.asp?StatCatID=28
It’s those same 70% donating 3% of their income. All you are seeing is a shift in what they donate to. Ask your local food bank how it did when everyone was giving to Hati.
True to some degree. But you might want to find out how people who donated to Wyclef Jean’s charity feel about the missing $2 million. And some things simply cannot be accomplished without government aid. Take hospital ships. The largest private ones are not even half the size of the US Navy ships. Governments are capable of providing massive resources on a scale that simply cannot be matched in the private sector.
Because this doesn’t happen. 70% of the population gives 3% of their income. Taxation is not a factor. It also assumes that people aren’t going to use their new found wealth on themselves. So instead of increasing their budget to match the new income they keep it the same and donate the rest. Does that sound even remotely plausible to you?
It assumes that once people reach a certain standard of living they lose or greatly reduce the desire to see it improve. And we’re not talking millionaires here. We’re talking about John Doe and his middle class income happily remaning there and not trying to move up. This is where Communism fails too. People are selfish. They always have been. And until you manage to bring about a massive change in the fundamentals of human behavior they will remain that way.
Yeah it’s nice to believe people are all generous and happy like that, but it simply isn’t true.
In all honesty, I’d understand you better if you were. It’s one thing to look at a system and see the corruption and want it changed. It’s another thing to see only the corruption and come to the conclusion that it needs to be removed entirely regardless of any positives.
I already provided you a suggestion for this one. What about something like the Dutch system? You like the Netherlands. It has competing private insurance companies, consists largely of private hospitals, and you can choose your own doctor. Oh, and it costs 10% of their GDP compared to the 16% the we in the US are putting into ours. And it’s rated much higher.
Property rights are greater than the lives of others.
People should sacrifice (donate to charities) their property to benefit the lives of others.
It’s the definition of Isolationism.
Bolding mine. We’re not very good at that sort of thing I guess.
Nope. We do like to wave a big sabre around and there’s less and less need for it. I do think you’re playing fast and loose with the definition of “overseas empire” if you’re counting military bases in friendly countries though.
By the way you’ll be happy to know that in 2004 we started handing over a number of military bases to the Republic of Korea and are expected to finish this by 2016. We also reduced troop sized 2008 with no plans to increase it. Wartime operational control is on schedule to be handed over to the RoK in 2012.
Untrue about them being unconstitutional. While the last formal declaration of war was in WW2, Congress has authorized military action a number of times since then. And I’m curious to know how you see the Gulf War as a loss.
[ul]
[li]Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Resolution[/li][li]Multinational Force in Lebanon: S.J.R 159[/li][li]Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm): H.J.R. Res. 77[/li][li]2001 War in Afgahnistan (Operation Enduring Freedom): S.J. Res 23[/li][li]Iraq War (Operation Iraqi Freedom): H.J. Res 114[/li][/ul]
Hmm. A grey area. It’s morally and ethically suspect, I’ll grant you. And a bit cowardly politically speaking. But the practice is a lot older than you think.
The first proto-signing statement came from James Monroe in 1822. Note that the primary author of the US Constitution, James Madison, was very much alive and didn’t comment on the practice.
Here’s a good list of them, including a every statement since 1929 searchable by year.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/signingstatements.php
The justification for this is the combination of the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. It’s worth noting that James “Father of the Constitution” Madison favored an extremely broad interpretation of the Necessary and Proper Clause in the Federalist Papers. (#44 if you’re looking for it)
You don’t comment on such things as tying the drinking age and speed limit to federal money, something explicitly found to be constitutional which had the de facto effect of setting national standards for those things. This should be massively unconstitutional for you, right?
And I asked before, but do you really feel the States are as seperate from each other as the countries of Europe? Do you really feel unconnected to events occuring in another state? Have you never lived in a different state or gone to school there? Do you only have family in one state?
Do you feel that things such as FEMA and the FBI are unconstitutional?
Half right. More people are dropping from the Republican Party. The Democratic Party is stable. The number of independents is growing.
Notice that the percentage of people identifying as Democratic did not change by more than a single percentage point from 2000-2008. Meanwhile the jump in independents jumps at the same time Republican affiliation drops.
My apologies for thinking you had Teabagger beliefs. But you should know that of your 10 points in the original post, 7 of them are identical to items on the Tea Party Patriots’ Contract From America.
The three that are not are #3 with it’s call to a gold standard, #4 and the reduced military, and #10 with it’s definition of the government.
#3 with a call to return to the gold standard and the purchase of gold is a big talking point for Glenn Beck. Not the least because he because is a paid spokesman for Goldline International.
#10 is a Tea Party thing. They aren’t the first or only ones to use it, but they do rally around it for some reason. It’s wordplay without a practical distincition.
#4 is the only non-Tea Party item on your list.
Since you are 90% in agreement with them as well as your defense of the Tea Party and it’s intelligent and informed members I simply assumed you were sympathetic to them at the very least.
Heh. Before 2008 anyway. They were hit pretty hard economically. Now they have a climbing unemployment rate and it seems that due to a lack of protection for workers wages are dropping fast.
From here: http://www.estonianfreepress.com/2010/04/are-estonian-employers-using-the-financial-crisis/
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that you corrected my “mistakes”. I think you are taking about our differences in opinion on the worthiness of the FDA. You tend to think that the FDA is an indispensable institution that ensures our safety. What you fail to understand is there is an agenda behind the FDA process. Obviously, I want prescription drugs to be safe and I want food products to be free of harmful chemicals. Yet, by those two criteria, they are, and have been failing miserably. You think it would be crazy to have life without an FDA, yet I am thinking that that is the only solution. There are lifesaving treatments and drugs that won’t get approved due to the politics at the FDA. And look at all the prescription drugs that ARE approved by the FDA that are later recalled due to massive health problems they cause. I am not reassured when seeking medical treatment that a certain drug or procedure has been “government approved”. Literally lives are at stake here. People shouldn’t need to wait on a lengthy FDA approval process to seek life saving treatments that have been proven to work and are available in other countries!
In an interview with Dr David Graham, who exposed the Vioxx scandal and is a former drug safety researcher at the FDA, he exposes the corruption and crimes that go on at the FDA and why the institution is not going to be able to protect Americans from harmful drugs in the future:
*"DR. GRAHAM: Since November, when I appeared before the Senate Finance Committee and announced to the world that the FDA was incapable of protecting America from unsafe drugs or from another Vioxx, very little has changed on the surface and substantively nothing has changed. The structural problems that exist within the FDA, where the people who approve the drugs are also the ones who oversee the post marketing regulation of the drug, remain unchanged. The people who approve a drug when they see that there is a safety problem with it are very reluctant to do anything about it because it will reflect badly on them. They continue to let the damage occur. America is just as at risk now, as it was in November, as it was two years ago, and as it was five years ago.
…
As currently configured, the FDA is not able to adequately protect the American public. It’s more interested in protecting the interests of industry. It views industry as its client, and the client is someone whose interest you represent. Unfortunately, that is the way the FDA is currently structured. Within the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research about 80 percent of the resources are geared towards the approval of new drugs and 20 percent is for everything else. Drug safety is about five percent. The “gorilla in the living room” is new drugs and approval. Congress has not only created that structure, they have also worsened that structure through the PDUFA, the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, by which drug companies pay money to the FDA so they will review and approve its drug. So you have that conflict as well."*
Here is a few more links about problems with the FDA:
http://www.michaud.house.gov/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=69
http://www.boston.com/news/health/blog/2008/03/drugs_that_were.html
And think carefully about the debate this following link describes:
Why on earth should a government agency be deciding for everyone whether pain medications should be legal or not, or what dose should be available and so forth? This should not be a debate the government should be having. Its a debate a person should have with their doctor. Many different drugs can be very dangerous, but people respond differently depending on age, health, and genetic factors. Some people develop liver problems after taking Vicoden and Percocet for long periods of time. Why should we ban (or think about banning) a drug because a small number of people develop problems from it?
Check out this John Stossel special on the FDA:
Do you acknowledge any of this? Does any of this information cause you to rethink your defense of the FDA? Why can’t we allow people to have freedom of choice in what people put in their bodies? Why can’t we stop this silly notion of the nanny state, where we expect the government to protect us from everything?
My personal opinion on health care is that people take WAY too many prescription drugs and eat too much processed food with chemical additives. If I had to advise Americans on health care I would suggest people go Vegetarian and eat organic, lay off the drugs and take vitamins and herbal supplements. Thats what I do. But some people need drugs for certain conditions and I believe it sets a bad precedent to assume that the government should tell me what treatments I can seek if I get sick. In todays age of the internet and easy access to information people should be able to research any drug before they put it in their body. And they should be able to trust the advice of their family doctor. Your doctor shouldn’t be pressured to prescribe certain drugs or intimidated away from suggesting other treatments by the Federal Government and pharmaceutical companies as they are today.
This is why I am so skeptical of government health care without first dealing with the Insurance companies and pharmaceutical lobby and the corruption at the FDA. I am convinced that in coming years we will see MORE deaths from treatable medical conditions, bad drugs and medical malpractice and incompetence. Not to mention deaths related to delayed care due to the inevitable waiting lists and rationing that WILL occur under the new system. This is not a small matter when peoples lives are on the line.
You don’t have to agree with me entirely, but surely you can see where I am coming from. Does this make sense to you at all?
Whether or not liberty is something that humans instinctually desire is not really important. It is the most important ideal that everyone from Martin Luther King Jr. to Ghandi to Jefferson held as an ideal worth fighting for and a cornerstone of all just an moral societies.
Look, we need a government strong enough to enforce the rules and protect every bodies rights but no stronger. Anybody (whether government or corporations or religious institutions) should not be allowed to initiate force on any sovereign individual and violate their rights. So the government is the protector of liberty. I have said this so many times on this thread but people still keep missing the point. We certainly don’t need an insolvent government that operates on a 3.8 trillion dollar budget to protect liberty. For example, how can the government protect the people against fraud when they themselves participate in fraud? How can the government lecture wall street about greed and corruption when the government is corrupt? If government’s job is to protect the people from assaults on their liberties we should focus on reforming Washington.
And no, nobody is allowed to have a private “army”. An army is by definition aggressive and trained to participate in war. Now, they can have large private security forces. But the goal must be to provide security rather than to be aggressive. War is one area that should NEVER be for profit (which it has unfortunately become in recent years).
As far as how much I want to limit the government, I want there to be no income tax, I want a stable dollar tied to gold or other commodity, I want a rule in place that we must balance the budget, and we, as a general rule, should not borrow money from foreigners. This would necessitate a much smaller government. But it is a government we can afford. We cannot afford the government we have. We couldn’t even afford a government half as big for many years into the future. I want no overseas military bases, no more war, close down the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Education, and end entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security (over time).
Government spending and World War II did not get us out of the Great Depression. That is a myth. I have already posted many links explaining how Keynesian stimulus prolonged the correction and caused great suffering. We didn’t actually get out of the Depression and have a real recovery until after World War 2 was over. You have to give up on these fallacies. You talk about how Central banks and Keynesian economics “soften the blow of economic shocks”? This is completely false. They cause the conditions that inevitably lead to an economic “shock” in the first place. Then they don’t allow the relatively short correction to take place in a year or so, but prolong the agony. If the government didn’t intervene in the 30s and we followed the successful model that we pursued in response to the Depression of 1920-21, The Great Depression would have lasted no more than three years and it wouldn’t have been “Great”. Which of the following statements do you not agree with:
**The reason for recessions and depressions is a chronically unbalanced and unsustainable economy that results in the market attempting to re balance itself and restore equilibrium. **
We should allow the correction to take place as soon as possible, with liquidation of all debt and malinvestment and then go back to work and allow free enterprise to spark a vigorous recovery.
This is pretty much Economics 101 here. How can you dispute these two things? There are laws of economics the governments can’t suspend. The law of gravity works everywhere and when an economy is unbalanced it will correct itself eventually. Just as when you throw a ball up in the air it will come down every time. Keynesian economics does everything to prevent the inevitable correction from occurring. But it WILL occur. The longer they prevent it the more harm is done, the more debt is accumulated and the greater the correction. So, Keynesian economics actually hurts the most vulnerable members of society.
You know, the concept of a safety net is not relevant to the economic system we have. You could have a safety net under an Austrian economic system. The only difference would be that the commitments made by the government would have to actually be funded. The government would have to come clean with people. If the people want Medicare and Social Welfare they better be willing to pay significantly higher taxes to receive them. The costs would be open and transparent not hidden behind the insidious and immoral tax of inflation.
Sure. Here you go:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10157
http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/1700s/charitysch.html
http://www.fredhyde.org/Building_schools.php
You said that “History makes it pretty obvious that if the government doesn’t educate children nobody else will.” Do you want to take back this comment? I can certainly provide tons of evidence past and present of charity schools, and low cost private schools that are educating students much better than any government schools.
This link does a very poor job of discrediting the validity of the point of showing this exam. I believe if you compare this exam with any modern middle school or high school exam you would see that this one is superior. People were actually taught the rules of grammer! You can’t seriously dispute that standards of education have dropped significantly in the last century. There is a lot more evidence for this decline in education standards than this one exam. But don’t you think that it shows a glimpse into an era when proper vocabulary and speaking ability as well as practical applications of arithmetic were valued more than they are today?
You’ll have to do better than this link to discredit the larger point raised by this historical school exam.
Okay, so we agree. States do a better job at education, but public school education is shit regardless. Private schools, charity schools, and home schooling students do quite well however.
You are right. The government can create an atmosphere where creativity and entrepreneurship can flourish, however. We should lower regulation on small business, cut taxes, and eliminate NAFTA trade agreements.
Medical care is not subject to a market pricing structure. The reason why the Free Market lowers prices is due to competition and consumers shopping around and comparing prices. In medicine there is always a third payer (government or insurance companies), therefore nobody cares what the price is. Everybody gets changed the maximum. That is why basic blood work costs more than a thousand dollars. Its ridiculous. More people should be paying out of pocket for medical expenses and we should get the government AND the insurance companies out of running medicine. When people are paying out of pocket doctors and medical clinics are competing for your business. This lowers prices. The free market lowers prices until everybody can afford things that used to be the domain of the super rich. Cell phones, powerful computers, plasma tvs, are all cheap enough that nearly everybody can afford them. The same concept would work in medical care. You would be hysterical that we would “hurt the poor” by getting rid of Medicare and removing government involvement but after a few years prices will be so low that even the poor can afford basic care out of pocket. The poor would be better served in the long run if we did this.
We agree that this is a minor point. In the long run however, their are many globalists in our government who don’t care that much about national sovereignty and would like to see a system of world government sometime in the future. That is why it is critical to establish our independence and sovereignty now. We really don’t need to be in the United Nations.
Yeah, “theoretically”. Not in practice. If we really are a constitutional republic we should thinking nothing of polling or the “will of the people” and instead talk about the constitutionality of certain proposed legislation. The only oath our elected leaders take is to defend the Constitution. We should make sure they uphold that oath.
Nonsense? Do you think the federal government we have today in any way represents the vision of Jefferson and Madison and the rest of the founders? You can’t honestly believe that. Obama’s “Health Reform” bill is unconstitutional, most wars we have been involved in over the last eighty years have been unconstitutional, the Department of Education is unconstitutional, the Patriot Act is unconstitutional, executive orders and signing statements by the Executive branch are unconstitutional, and the Federal Reserve system is unconstitutional. Maybe a few classes of United States and Constitutional History would do you well.
At what point does a “large private security force” become an army?
How do you propose we fund even your limited conception of government without income taxes?
Your links are wrong, and your statements are a perfect example of the fallacy of the excluded middle.
The reason for recessions and depressions is a chronically imbalanced economy; I’ll give you that much.
People are willing to pay significantly higher taxes for Medicare and social welfare. That’s why we have them.
Of course I don’t. Evidence of charity schools is not evidence that all children received equal access to education. Indeed, the fact that individual schools are so well remembered suggests that for most children education was rudimentary.
Considering the guy whose page you linked to is a white supremacist I’d say the bar was set pretty low. I leave it to you to determine whether your misspelling of grammar is evidence that modern schools have failed or not.
You want to lower regulation, but effectively increase regulation by eliminating free trade agreements. This is an awfully contradictory position.
You don’t have to capitalize “free market”. It’s not a proper noun.
That aside, exactly how low do you think the cost of medical care would go? $100 per hour? $50? $25? $10? Could you have a broken arm set for less than you could get your lawn mowed?
How many people do you think will pay $100,000 to put themselves through ten years of secondary education for $25 an hour?
Who are these globalists? What evidence do you have that they don’t care about national sovereignty?
Our elected leaders swear to faithfully execute their offices- which our explicity laid out in the Constitution- and to defend the Constitution.
Regardless of the will of the people, unconstitutional legislation is repealed sooner or later by the judiciary. Polling and the will of the people are the engine which creates legislation.
The federal government we have today reflects the Constitution they created, regardless of whether it represents their vision.
Contemplating the Founders’ vision is an exercise in futility. We’re not mind readers. In any case, the Constitution is the founding document which proved acceptable to the sum total of the voters of the Constitutional Convention.
The vision of any one (or ten) men is immaterial; the Constitution was approved by the entire convention, and hence any wording which doesn’t appear in the final version is irrelevant. The Federalist Papers (or any other writings of the founders) were not ratified by any elected body.
On what grounds do you claim Obama’s health care reform or the Department of Education are unconstitutional?
As far as executive orders, the Constitution specifically contemplates that the President is the head of the executive branch. If he’s not allowed to issue directives to his subordinates, how exactly is he supposed to do anything?
When it becomes aggressive. Why would any corporation desire a private army unless they plan to make money off of war? Corporations like Blackwater shouldn’t be allowed. I would support an amendment to the Constitution stipulating that only the Federal government can maintain a military. Then it would be explicit. Would you be okay with this?
We didn’t have an income tax until 1913 and we funded government just fine. Excise taxes, sales taxes, import duties and the like would be sufficient. Even today the Income tax funds only 40% of the budget. Do you have any idea how much wealthier we would be as a nation if everybody was allowed to keep all the money they earn? People would spend more, the economy would be healthier and the government would get more tax revenues. There is a precedent for this working out just fine.
See, now you should elaborate on why my links are wrong. You agree that the reason we have recessions and depressions is an unbalanced economy and the market’s effort to re balance itself. Then why would you be supporting Keynesian philosophy that tries to prevent the correction from occurring? Why not allow the correction as fast as possible and get it over with? That is the central question.
Yeah, but the taxes people are paying are not sufficient to cover the costs. Without the Federal Reserve system of monetizing the debt, and borrowing money from foreigners, taxes would have to be much higher than they are currently.
Yeah because we know that education is so outstanding now. Nobody can guarantee “equal access” to education. But it is universally understood, in this country and around the world, that private schools and charity schools educate children much more effectively than government run schools. Those are the facts. Contrary to what you said, history shows that people care about the education of young people and will volunteer and make every effort to provide decent education through scholarships, charity schools, and home schooling. Value in education is a cultural thing. Cultures that value education WILL provide it to young people even if the government doesn’t.
First of all, what evidence do you have that Jordan Maxwell is a white supremacist? I have never heard that and I am sure it is not true. You really lose credibility when you throw around these labels without proof. As far as misspelling grammar, well I made a typo. I think given how much I have written on this thread, my typos or other grammatical errors have been quite low.
So, you need to provide evidence that Jordan Maxwell is a white supremacist or take back your accusation. What he IS is what you could call a conspiracy researcher or one who studies occult symbolism. I don’t listen to him that much and I am not involved in conspiracy culture at all, but I did see some interesting links on his website, one of which was this test from 1895.
NAFTA is not free trade it is managed trade for the benefit of favored corporations. We don’t need these treaties to allow free trade, we simply need government to get out of the way. There is no contradiction.
How about this. Your side always favors regulation because you don’t want the mega corporations to get away with murder, figuratively speaking. Fine. What if we only eliminated those regulations that hurt small business and kept only regulation on those businesses who are much larger, the banks, the oil companies, etc. Would you be in favor of this?
I can’t say how low medical care would go. It would certainly have to be low enough that a majority could afford it. You know, technological advancement is supposed to be able to lower costs. Competition leads to lower prices. Don’t you think this would reign in medical costs over time? People would still need insurance, but only for medical emergencies and catastrophic, unforeseen things like a heart attack, stroke, or accident. In this market, we could allow much more competition among insurance companies and put the consumer back in control.
So, low cost catastrophic medical insurance, and free market, competition based standard care. What would be wrong with this system?
Since about the fifties we have seen a globalist agenda at work. I don’t want to get into conspiracy theories but the banks are global, the corporations are global, and the United Nations are global. We have obviously seen a concentration of power gravitate towards global, or at least non-nation oriented structures and organizations. And our politicians demonstrate time and time again that they don’t care about the Constitution. Agencies of power include The Club of Rome, The IMF, The Council of Foreign Relations, The Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg Group.
National sovereignty is maintained only if we have protected borders, allegiance to our Constitution and Bill of Rights and patriotic leaders who represent our interests first, rather than those of off shore bankers and corporate interests. I don’t think I need to go into this in too much detail, there is plenty of information out there.
Thats not true. The last defenders of the Constitution are the people. The judiciary has been bought off and tainted by activist judges who will interpret the Constitution so broadly as to render it meaningless. You clearly have a lot to learn about constitutional law if you think polling and the will of the people are the criteria for sound legislation. If a proposed legislation is not expressly authorized in the Constitution, then it is illegal, period. This is what a Republic is all about.
First, I’m talking about the abuse of executive orders and signing statements.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/us/politics/09signing.html?_r=2&hp
It is critical to understand what the Constitution meant to the founders and understand the intention of how our system of government was supposed to function. No, we don’t have to be mind readers. There is plenty of evidence and writing to ascertain the intentions of the founders.
As far as the constitutionality of health care reform:
The Federal Government we have today reflects the fact that our politicians and political parties have abandoned the Constitution and rule of law in favor of political expediency and corporatism.
I will. You made at least a couple of mistakes: you confused the FDA and the DEA, which are different agencies, and you do seem to have only a partial understanding of what the FDA does. It does not do you any good if you refuse to admit a basic error. It invalidates a couple of your points but not all of them.
You’re strawmanning here. I didn’t say it would be “crazy.” I haven’t defended the FDA either. It’s very flawed, which prevents it from fully doing its intended job. I explained part of what that job is because your understanding of it was incorrect. I do think it’s necessary to have an agency do what the FDA is supposed to do, however.
I think I understand that agenda better than you do, and I think I’m more aware of the agency’s many flaws than you are.
And I’m asking you how you think the free market is going to achieve that on its own, particularly without a lot of people dying. You’ve seen what’s going on in China these days and I hope I don’t need to tell you that the same kind of things went on here before the FDA was created. It’s badly flawed, but even if you abolish the FDA itself, I do think you need an agency that does what the FDA is supposed to do.
So what is your solution? How does getting rid of a flawed safety agency increase safety unless it’s replaced by a better one - which you seem to oppose based on libertarian principles?
Name some.
True. But the primary problem here is that the FDA is too influenced by the companies it’s supposed to regulate. Do you think these companies would behave more responsibly if they didn’t have to deal with regulation? History says the answer is no.
Historically I think the FDA has usually been faster at approving drugs than similar agencies in other countries. I believe that’s changed in the last few years, post-Vioxx and similar fiascoes. And the FDA approval process is not that long. The testing process is long. It takes a long time and a lot of money to develop a drug and test it properly. Usually a small fraction of that time is spent waiting for the FDA to make a decision on it. And people who are sick can still get the drug through trials, or through special exemptions if there are no approved options for their diseases.
Now, one reason the testing process is long is because companies are trying to make sure they meet the FDA’s criteria. If the FDA wasn’t there, I presume testing would be faster, but then again you’d also have more products that don’t work.
In any case if you think the FDA is a failure because it has let too many worthless or dangerous drugs onto the market - which I won’t dispute - then you can’t also argue that makes companies do too much work before approving their drugs.
I’m going to assume you’ve worded this poorly, because it sounds like you think the patient and doctor should be the ones deciding whether or not the drug is legal, which would be ridiculous. The patient and the doctor should be the ones who decide whether or not the drug is appropriate for the patient’s condition based on the doctor’s experience and the patient’s needs. The problem for you is that this pretty much describes the current state of affairs. The FDA does not prescribe or mandate drugs. To the degree the decision is not made by doctors and patients alone, the problem isn’t the FDA- it’s a lack of regulation on the drug industry, primarily on its advertising practices and on the enormous amounts of money it is able to spend monitoring the prescribing habits of doctors, and wining and dining and essentially bribing them to get them to prescribe their drugs.
No kidding. That’s why there’s a testing process that is supposed to take this into account.
Well, to quote an Internet sage, “many different drugs can be very dangerous.” The idea is that if a drug causes bad side effects in a relatively small number of people (a few dozen, a few hundred, a few thousand) in a study, it would probably cause more of them if millions or people were using it. That seems pretty important to me. Like someone once said, “Literally lives are at stake here.”
I don’t think you understood my “defense” properly in the first place. I’m not defending the FDA in particular, I’m defending regulation in general, and I corrected some points where you appear to either have misunderstood what the FDA does or just confused it with other agencies. When it comes to drugs, the FDA handles marketing: it will approve or deny a company’s request to market a drug for a particular illness. Doctors still prescribe the drug, and they can prescribe how they choose. If a drug is approved to treat cancer but the doctor thinks it will work against arthritis, they can prescribe it for arthritis.
They have a great deal of freedom. If you want to treat your cancer with vitamin C tablets or ground up weeds, the FDA will not stop you. However, if you are a drug company and you want to advertise on TV and in magazines that you’ve made a drug you that can treat cancer, that’s where the FDA gets involved. If your drug is rejected and you sell it anyway and it poisons people, you’re not going to have to deal with the FDA- you’ll deal with the FTC and the Justice Department, who will probably have a word with you about negligence and fraud.
People deserve freedom of choice. The problem is if you don’t have good information, freedom of choice doesn’t do you much good.
:rolleyes: Rather than throwing around buzzwords and crap about “the nanny state” and implying people are weaklings because they don’t want to be poisoned, let’s address the meat of the issue here.
I think most people agree about that. But it doesn’t have much to do with the FDA issues you’ve been talking about.
It doesn’t tell you what treatments you can seek. And in any case what “bad precedent” does it set?
I agree, and that’s a nice idea. The problem is not just finding information on Google, though- it’s knowing the information is reliable and making sense of it. I don’t think watching TV commercials and checking the Internet is enough to do in comparison with companies that run the studies of the drugs and sometimes hide the results when they are not favorable.
I don’t see the government intimidating anyone here.
I can understand that. There’s been some talk of reforming the FDA but I haven’t seen any steps taken. But I’m not sure what you want to see happen, since you’re so opposed to the “nanny state” tactic of requiring that drugs work before they’re sold.
Bumping this once to see if jrodefeld wants to deal with any of these issues. How is drug or food safety going to be ensured without a regulatory agency? Why does having such an agency set ‘a bad precedent?’ Which lifesaving drugs have not been approved because of FDA politics?
Quick drive by:
Progressives: The government is here to make the lives of the citizens better and more secure.
Conservatives: The government is here to punish those that do wrong or make bad decisions.
Independents: What’s the electoral college?
Sorry. I never noticed that you responded again.
To a point, yes. The problem is that a weak central government would have no power to enforce said amendment.
You have a fundamental misperception of how the economy works. It doesn’t matter if the people spend more or if the government spends for them; economic growth doesn’t care where its impetus comes from.
If anything, government spending is arguably preferable to private spending; government spending buys roads and social services (made in the US!), while private spending buys hamburgers and action figures (made in China).
Because you keep misrepresenting Keynesianism. The point is not to prevent correction; it’s to moderate the rate of correction.
That’s an inherent danger of democracy (or constitutional republicanism, as you insist it should be called). Voters think in the short term, and in the short term cutting taxes or increasing spending makes voters happy.
I do think an amendment requiring a balanced federal budget (or, more practicably, a budget balanced overall over the course of fixed 4 year periods, or somesuch) is probably a good idea, because our current borrowing is not sustainable over the long term.
Of course private schools educate children more effectively; they’re selective. Government schools have to educate the dumb and the disabled; require private schools to start accepting low-achieving students at comparable rates to state schools and see how effective they are then.
Read the end of the test you linked to. “New World O[r]der” is code for the secret Jewish rulers of the world.
Imposing punitive excise taxes is hardly “government getting out of the way”.
It’s not just mega corporations I don’t want getting away with murder; it’s any company. In general, though, small businesses are already subject to less regulation than large ones. See the recent healthcare bill, for example, which exempts businesses employing 10 people or less from its relevant provisions and offers a generous tax break to employers of less than 50 people.
Technological advancement sometimes lowers costs. A Ford Model T cost $550 in 1915, or about $12,000 in present-day dollars. Guess what $12,000 will buy you today? A new car roughly on a par with the Model T (ie., at the lower end of the market).
You said it yourself: you have no idea how low medical care would go. Let’s say we break up the existing system, have everyone pay for their own medical care out of pocket, and wait for costs to drop. They do - about 50%.
That still means the average emergency room visit costs $1000.
If you’re painting those organizations as shadowy evil cabals, you’re getting into conspiracy theories already.
Those groups all basically focus on promoting democracy and capitalism worldwide. I suppose you could call them “globalist”, but you seem to be using it as a pejorative term.
The Constitution* itself *defines treaties as the supreme law of the land (along with the Constitution, of course).
You’d better go into more detail than that.
Now I have to assume you’re being deliberately obtuse.
Read the Constitution. It doesn’t expressly authorize much of anything, and the founders themselves passed all sorts of laws which at face value expressly contradict the Constitution. Try the Alien and Sedition Acts, for example.
The point about polling and the will of the people is that without them there’s no legislation at all. If Congressman X doesn’t know what his constituents are unhappy about then he has no reason to introduce and legislation at all. The point is not that polling and the will of the people supersede the Constitution; it’s that you can’t legislate at all without it.
Let’s suppose Congress wants to build an Air Force base in Manhattan. How is it, you think, that they’re supposed to know whether to go ahead and do it? The Constitution expressly authorizes Congress to provide for the common defence, after all.
Obama has issued 5 signing statements according to that link, of which one is directly in line with his Constitutional mandate to conduct foreign relations, and three appear to relate to budgetary minutiae. The only one I see that could be interpreted as abuse of the power is the one emphasizing the administration’s right to discipline whistleblowers.
Why is it critical?
There is plenty of evidence and writing to ascertain the intentions of some of the founders. There’s little or none in regard to most. It’s not useful at all to know what two or three members of the Constitutional Congress intended, because every member present had a vote.
There are plenty of threads where you can discuss the constitutionality of health care reform. In any case, you’ll have to do better than linking to other people’s worthless opinions.
The Federal Government we have today reflects the Constitution itself. The party system isn’t in there, of course, but that’s a natural development in any adversarial system.
The founders didn’t want political parties, but they went ahead and formed their own anyway.
Drive-by;
There’s something ironic about a person who argues that the government should adhere rigidly to the precise wording of the Constitution, citing eminent domain as an abuse of power.
I heard a good analogy about this a while ago. It’s like someone looking up at a dam holding back a huge resovoir of water, and saying “Well, hey, the dam’s leaky. To stop the water getting through like this, we’d better get rid of it”.