Sam Walton's 6 son's worth more than bottom 30% combined

OpportunityCost said:

You might have a point if government ever ceded power. They dont. They only take more. They have demonstrated this at every opportunity.

What is it they say about power and corruption?
By keeping government weak, you give them no opportunity to actually seize power. By giving them more and more you increase the likelihood that an opportunist will grab onto those levers of power and not relinquish them. History should teach you that if it teaches you nothing else.

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History tends to be anathema to many on the left. they forget about the 100 million people murdered by centralized governments while clamoring for more centralization here.

TurtleDude said:

History tends to be anathema to many on the left. they forget about the 100 million people murdered by centralized governments while clamoring for more centralization here.

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But THIS time it's different. It's not going to end with guillotines and mass graves, we swear.

Seems to me that the endless exchanges with some of these big government types are lessons in futility. It's not that anybody thinks that they will have an epiphany and abandon their idealism. They won't. It is rather their insistence that things will be different this time. That they have a new democratic socialist world order in mind and that they have learned from the carnage and human suffering inflicted by their counterparts in the days of yore.

IMHO, what they consistently fail understand is that many of their wishes will someday come true and history bears this out. However, it will not happen in the way they envision it. It cannot. They refuse to allow for the natural evolution of political and economic thought and philosophy. Instead, they demand that change advocate be enforced now in the manner they see fit, to the exclusion of all other scenarios which seek to benefit mankind. Every time this has been inflicted the results are nothing short of disastrous.

They are banking (sorry) that a majority of people will have dumbed down enough in their ignorance of history and objective reasoning which would allow them to seize power at the polls, but neither would they shy away from any other means if the opportunity arose. Cliche perhaps- but the road to hell is paved with good intentions and no, things are not different this time around.

TurtleDude said:

and your unnamed professor is someone I should find credible? I find his claim to be moronic

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No surprise there. It is essential for those on the far right to hate government, discredit government, disparage government, and generally act as public relations shock troops to poison the image of government in the minds of the American people. When somebody comes along and challenges their hollow cliches, that is taken as a threat to the over all effort. It then becomes essential to attack it as baseless, or in the case here of you using a term like "moronic" since you tend towards the insulting at those who differ in your ideology of extremism.

It is worth noting that you failed to actually speak to the point or even the premise behind the point and simply opted to engage in name calling.

Liberals love big government because many of them have failed to do well in a business environment. Its sort of like being an unpopular loser in a grade school and becoming pals with the class bully because all the popular kids think you are a jerk

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I know precious few liberals or progressives who go around touting BIG GOVERNMENT - whatever that may be. We do want a functioning government that works for all of the American people and can act as a protector of our rights and freedoms. We do want a functioning government which can act as a bulwark against corporatism and negative forces which would transform our nation into a new fascism modeled after the ALEC model now used by so many on the far right to influence state and local government. We do want a government that can help achieve a sustainable and workable society for all Americans and achieve the opening paragraph of the US Constitution.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Engaging in more name calling by painting this as some re-creation of elementary school dynamics is simply nonsensical and does nothing to advance intelligent debate or political discourse.

Centinel said:

But THIS time it's different. It's not going to end with guillotines and mass graves, we swear.

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true, more like firing squads and crematoriums

as I noted in another thread, the people most paranoid about fictional corporate control of their lives are most likely to be the sheep clamoring for the government to build more pens in which to house them. They seem to forget what ultimately happens to sheep in the pens

haymarket said:

I know precious few liberals or progressives who go around touting BIG GOVERNMENT - whatever that may be. We do want a functioning government that works for all of the American people and can act as a protector of our rights and freedoms. We do want a functioning government which can act as a bulwark against corporatism and negative forces which would transform our nation into a new fascism modeled after the ALEC model now used by so many on the far right to influence state and local government. We do want a government that can help achieve a sustainable and workable society for all Americans and achieve the opening paragraph of the US Constitution.

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So (and I ask this seriously, not baiting) are you against Obamacare, then? It's the biggest installment of corporatocracy in America's history.

Keridan said:

So (and I ask this seriously, not baiting) are you against Obamacare, then? It's the biggest installment of corporatocracy in America's history.

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I do not support the health care program as passed.

TurtleDude said:

as I noted in another thread, the people most paranoid about fictional corporate control of their lives are most likely to be the sheep clamoring for the government to build more pens in which to house them. They seem to forget what ultimately happens to sheep in the pens

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Turtle - that does not even make sense. Who is clamoring for the sheep pens to be built? And better yet, what the heck does that even mean in plain English?

Talk about your fallacy of false equivalence and really bad bad metaphors!!!!! :doh

haymarket said:

I do not support the health care program as passed.

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Fair enough. But I would argue that it is the result of big government. Even with a super majority (caucused with Dems, anyway) and a house majority and the WH, this is the compromise they came up with. Instead of saying we will wait till we can do it right, they pushed this putrid bill through in its current condition.

Keridan said:

Fair enough. But I would argue that it is the result of big government. Even with a super majority (caucused with Dems, anyway) and a house majority and the WH, this is the compromise they came up with. Instead of saying we will wait till we can do it right, they pushed this putrid bill through in its current condition.

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We agree on that it was a bad piece of legislation. It was one of the signals that the Obama administration does not have the stomach for the true fight and to do what it takes to win the true fight. This has been seen over and over and over again during the p ast three years and will be seen again and again in the future.

We disagree about the big government conclusion on your part.

haymarket said:

We agree on that it was a bad piece of legislation. It was one of the signals that the Obama administration does not have the stomach for the true fight and to do what it takes to win the true fight. This has been seen over and over and over again during the p ast three years and will be seen again and again in the future.

We disagree about the big government conclusion on your part.

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Again, fair enough. I suspect we will always disagree on the conclusion.