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Welfare state vs the night-watchmen state-which do you support?

Welfare state vs the night-watchmen state-which do you support?

  • Im a right leaning American, Welfare state.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Im a left leaning American, Welfare state.

    Votes: 16 48.5%
  • Im not American, Welfare state.

    Votes: 4 12.1%
  • Im a right leaning American, Night-watchmen state.

    Votes: 13 39.4%
  • Im a left leaning American, Night-watchmen state.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Im not American, Night-watchmen state.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    33
If holds that it's not right for one person to violate the person or property of his neighbor, then one cannot support anything more than a night watchman state. Everything the state does beyond acting as a night watchman is just more violation of the person or property of the citizen.

yes - if one lives in an alternate reality where real people in a real country with real problems and real needs do not exist - then it is a simple black and white choice.
 
yes - if one lives in an alternate reality where real people in a real country with real problems and real needs do not exist - then it is a simple black and white choice.

Those real people are the ones whose person and property you advocate for the government to violate. How caring of you.
 
Those real people are the ones whose person and property you advocate for the government to violate. How caring of you.

You do too. We have long ago established that reality.
 
You do too. We have long ago established that reality.

No, I don't advocate that the government initiate aggression against the person and property of anyone. Try again.
 
You really are incapable of posting any poll without conditioning that it is limited to declaring a partisan alliance. So, once again, I will not participate or vote in it.
 
If what you're referring to is absolute proof that socialized democracy is a failure, then explain why we don't see the same in even more socialized nations like Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, and most of western Europe.

What you're pointing to isn't proof of the 'failure' of socialized democracy - what you're pointing to is proof that we aren't implementing it as well as those other nations.

Everyone of those nations would do better if they adopted more free market policies and diminished the welfare state. They are all (at different times) going to end up like greece. Eventually the ponzi scheme collapses.
 
Just living in California doesn't mean that one lives among a bunch of liberals - there's some very conservative areas in California. And my point stands - you didn't come by your claims by using any particular empirical measure.

Check out the definition of confirmation bias - it's enlightening, and applies very well to politics (and religion, and almost every other area of dispute between human beings).

Where are these "very conservative" areas? Even those that lean that way are still half democrat. And still surrounded by the same liberal fail, besides Ive lived all over the state. Its liberal as hell.
 
I rarely if ever watch videos - for me, information is gathered much more quickly by reading...what I see in videos is simply too slow. Besides, videos can be so easily made to deceive (as O'Keefe did when he made egregiously-edited videos to attack ACORN).

Give me text - that's the world I deal with.

Keynes vs hayek.
Keynes vs. Hayek, Oversimplified - Reason.com
VISIONS AND FRAMEWORKS IN MACROECONOMICS
Keynes vs. Hayek: The Rise of the Chicago School of Economics | EconEdLink
Keynes and Hayek: Prophets for today | The Economist
The Keynes-Hayek showdown
 
More reading can be found at the provided links. Please read them and using the provided definitions vote.


Welfare state vs the night-watchmen state-which do you support?

I mostly agree with the definition of a welfare state except that it says fair distribution of wealth, I would not say fair because what is fair. I personally would say (as is the norm in my country) a fairer distribution of wealth. But as a whole I would support the welfare state compared to the other option 100% of the time.
 
Problem is, you're stuck in the mindset that taxation other than for things you personally support must therefore be bad. And as always, I point out that if that 'wealth redistribution' (which keeps so many people from being homeless, keeps so many children fed and healthier than they would be otherwise, and which DOES keep down the crime rate) was so bad for the nation as a whole, then NONE of the first-world democracies would be socialized democracies.

If you're going to maintain that taxation to support the social safety net is such a bad thing, then you've GOT to explain away the success of the first world democracies - ALL of which are socialized democracies, ALL of which have the very kinds of taxation and social safety nets you decry. Explain their sustaied success first.

Your flaw is in assuming that because they are associated that one is causative of the other. Just not so.
 
I mostly agree with the definition of a welfare state except that it says fair distribution of wealth, I would not say fair because what is fair. I personally would say (as is the norm in my country) a fairer distribution of wealth. But as a whole I would support the welfare state compared to the other option 100% of the time.

I agree. Many leftist definitions are imprecise/amorphous and intentionally so.
 
No, I don't advocate that the government initiate aggression against the person and property of anyone. Try again.

Your words mean nothing when your actions say the opposite. You can preach all you want about the mean old government and how they should not take peoples property and you label this with the hyperbolic term AGGRESSION trying to sound holier than thou but in reality you benefit and use such government sponsored takings and your life is better for them.

So your statements about what you claim to believe is just irrelevant falsehoods.
 
Your words mean nothing when your actions say the opposite. You can preach all you want about the mean old government and how they should not take peoples property and you label this with the hyperbolic term AGGRESSION trying to sound holier than thou but in reality you benefit and use such government sponsored takings and your life is better for them.

So your statements about what you claim to believe is just irrelevant falsehoods.

Is this your argument? You think I'm going to stop recommending that the law be changed such that aggression is not initiated against my fellow Americans? You expect me to join your side and recommend that the government violate the person and property of my fellow man. I don't think so. Not one bit. There are enough of your ilk already. What are needed are more people to oppose aggression, not endorse it.
 
Perhaps the most important reason societies began to form is due to the fact that human cooperation could create an exponentially compounding benefit whereas isolated groups of people or hermits could hardly do anything and were mostly stagnant by comparison. If the purpose of society is to provide as much benefit for it's members as possible, then the most active way of accomplishing that is if societies members cooperatively use the fruits of society to fund and install welfare institutions that ensure society and it's members are in the most ideal condition possible. What is the point of society if it can't be used as a feedback mechanism for perpetual benefit?

Personal/Direct Welfare
Education:
If everyone could freely receive an education, there would be no barriers for people to get a good education to get a high quality job in the first place. It hardly makes sense that Societies require people to get an education, and then create a money blockade that prevents people from receiving the very education they need to help manage society and be active in it in the first place. Free, Tax-funded education including universities is a guarantee to a steady stream of Jobs.

Health:
Good health for all is essential for any society because it is both humane, and ensures that everyone in a society is in good condition to work and manage their lives with much less worry. Tax Funded Universal Health-Care Ensures that there is absolutely no blockade towards peoples well-being.

Housing:
If everyone Were housed, Everyone would be stable enough to even get an education, or pursue a job.

Food:
With everyone fed, everyone has the fuel they need to perform well in society, and to also prevent starvation.

The purpose of jobs:
With this type of welfare, some may ask what the purpose of jobs are. Jobs, especially in the modern context, should strictly be for non-survival investments such as personal entertainment, Innovation, Business, using electricity for non-essential applications, fulfilling dreams, etc. With survival conditions ensured amongst all members of a society, Anyone can pursue their dreams without worry of financial strain. a lack of funds cannot fulfill such extra-survival activities, thus leading to extreme boredom.

In the future however, some key advancements such as a fully automated industry, a mostly automated service industry, and the development of star-trek like replicators, will out date the system of having to get jobs and paying taxes. Plenty of these type of replicators could produce such an excess of food and gadgets that the whole concept of money becomes as pointless as the idea of buying air to breath. Based on some relatively recent developments, there is a very good chance many of these future developments will occur at least to some extent within just the next few decades. In this future, People could pursue all manner of creative task, innovation, jobs, and education simply as a hobby.
 
Everyone of those nations would do better if they adopted more free market policies and diminished the welfare state. They are all (at different times) going to end up like greece. Eventually the ponzi scheme collapses.

Except that Greece was doing things a LOT differently from the rest of the EU - their system was beyond the pale.

And yet again, you insist on cherry-picking, pointing out this or that problem, but refusing to explain the success of the other nations. Not only that, but you're not explaining why it is that out of ALL the democracies on the planet that have no social safety net (and there are many), NONE of them are first-world nations.
 
Your flaw is in assuming that because they are associated that one is causative of the other. Just not so.

Correlation of course does not denote causation...

...but when the correlation is to so great an extent, then it usually does provide a statistically-significant place to begin looking for the causation.
 
Is this your argument? You think I'm going to stop recommending that the law be changed such that aggression is not initiated against my fellow Americans? You expect me to join your side and recommend that the government violate the person and property of my fellow man. I don't think so. Not one bit. There are enough of your ilk already. What are needed are more people to oppose aggression, not endorse it.

Sadly, when people espouse your views but their own actions say the opposite, what you claim you advocate for and recommend is irrelevant since it has no credibility.
 
It's not really a matter of what people want or do not want to do. It's really more of a matter of leadership, of their system of government. As Napoleon once said, "There are no bad regiments, only bad colonels." If the people are living in a nation with a better system of government, they will do better. One sees this all the time with immigrants. Take a guy who's a bum in a third-world nation and bring him to a first-world nation, almost every time you'll see him working hard at a paying job.

Yes, individual people can be wildly different from each other, but generally speaking - and with allowing for local, cultural, and national norms - people are pretty much the same all over the world. That was my big paradigm shift in the Navy after growing up in the very deepest of the Deep South. People really are pretty much the same. Give them real opportunity and encouragement, and most (though certainly not all) will do their level best for you.

That you think what people do or do not want doesn't matter is a fundamental flaw in your logic. You probably think that computers revolutionized society as well when they did not--they just changed the way we do the things we already were doing.
 
Except that Greece was doing things a LOT differently from the rest of the EU - their system was beyond the pale.

And yet again, you insist on cherry-picking, pointing out this or that problem, but refusing to explain the success of the other nations. Not only that, but you're not explaining why it is that out of ALL the democracies on the planet that have no social safety net (and there are many), NONE of them are first-world nations.

Greece is simply a more advanced welfare state. Spain too. The rest just haven't caught up yet.
 
Correlation of course does not denote causation...

...but when the correlation is to so great an extent, then it usually does provide a statistically-significant place to begin looking for the causation.

You cited it as evidence of your point, now you admit it is not. The fact the better the economic state, the more can be allocated to the poor. They aren't doing well BECAUSE they help the poor as you suggest.

And again, while I regularly provide charity for the poor (money and healthcare, here and in Mexico) I do NOT see it as the govts role to forcibly redistribute for votes to do as much.
 
Perhaps the most important reason societies began to form is due to the fact that human cooperation could create an exponentially compounding benefit whereas isolated groups of people or hermits could hardly do anything and were mostly stagnant by comparison. If the purpose of society is to provide as much benefit for it's members as possible, then the most active way of accomplishing that is if societies members cooperatively use the fruits of society to fund and install welfare institutions that ensure society and it's members are in the most ideal condition possible. What is the point of society if it can't be used as a feedback mechanism for perpetual benefit?

Personal/Direct Welfare
Education:
If everyone could freely receive an education, there would be no barriers for people to get a good education to get a high quality job in the first place. It hardly makes sense that Societies require people to get an education, and then create a money blockade that prevents people from receiving the very education they need to help manage society and be active in it in the first place. Free, Tax-funded education including universities is a guarantee to a steady stream of Jobs.

Health:
Good health for all is essential for any society because it is both humane, and ensures that everyone in a society is in good condition to work and manage their lives with much less worry. Tax Funded Universal Health-Care Ensures that there is absolutely no blockade towards peoples well-being.

Housing:
If everyone Were housed, Everyone would be stable enough to even get an education, or pursue a job.

Food:
With everyone fed, everyone has the fuel they need to perform well in society, and to also prevent starvation.

The purpose of jobs:
With this type of welfare, some may ask what the purpose of jobs are. Jobs, especially in the modern context, should strictly be for non-survival investments such as personal entertainment, Innovation, Business, using electricity for non-essential applications, fulfilling dreams, etc. With survival conditions ensured amongst all members of a society, Anyone can pursue their dreams without worry of financial strain. a lack of funds cannot fulfill such extra-survival activities, thus leading to extreme boredom.

In the future however, some key advancements such as a fully automated industry, a mostly automated service industry, and the development of star-trek like replicators, will out date the system of having to get jobs and paying taxes. Plenty of these type of replicators could produce such an excess of food and gadgets that the whole concept of money becomes as pointless as the idea of buying air to breath. Based on some relatively recent developments, there is a very good chance many of these future developments will occur at least to some extent within just the next few decades. In this future, People could pursue all manner of creative task, innovation, jobs, and education simply as a hobby.

Your overuse of the word "everyone" in your post leads me to believe that you are rather naive about human nature.
 

Ah. The old Keynesian economics v. Austrian economics debate. And as history has shown to any truly objective observer (the key word being "objective"), Keynesian economics won out. If Keynesian economics were the train wreck that y'all so often claim, then the economies of the West could not have had such explosive growth over the past several generations.

An even better example are the economies of Germany and Japan. Yes, they've got their own problems...but their standard of living is still far superior to that - with the exceptions of certain oil-rich Middle Eastern nations - of any nation in the world that is not a socialized democracy.

In other words, you can bring up all the rhetoric and arguments you want...but you cannot - repeat, cannot - get past the sustained success of the first-world democracies...all of which are socialized democracies. You've got rhetoric...and I've got results. Thanks, but I'll stick with the results.
 
Your overuse of the word "everyone" in your post leads me to believe that you are rather naive about human nature.

Then you misunderstand the use of the word "everyone" relative to the context with which it is presented. For example, The assumption that "If everyone were housed" Would create an effect of inherent stability to get a job. Sure, people can be destabilized From various emotional and social factors, but something such as guaranteed housing eliminates concerns thus creating the overall effect of less perceived stress, and more perceived stability. I use the word in a general sense. There is no naivety in thinking that each of those features provide inherent benefits. If you want to make a positive assertion that Each or some of the welfare institutions mentioned wouldn't benefit society in at least a similar manner to how I suggest, then the burden of proof/rebuttal is now passed on to you. I have listed a series of reasons as to why each of those welfare institutions would lead to the effects in society I think they would very likely produce. I have even addressed the human nature argument filed under "The purpose of jobs". "Anyone can pursue their dreams without worry of financial strain. a lack of funds cannot fulfill such extra-survival activities, thus leading to extreme boredom."

In past consideration of the concept of 'human nature' I think the concept of a 'universal human nature' is a very narrow concept, as no two humans behave exactly the same. if Human Nature is to be used as an absolute, then it only applies to the ubiquitous facets of the human genome. There are many very common traits among humans - such as the will to survive, etc, But common does not mean everyone, and the concept of 'common' should never be confused with the concept of 'average'.
 
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