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Ruth Bader Ginsberg predicts another Dem in the White House. Do you Agree?

... as far as welfare programs go, mandatory health insurance isn't 1/100 of what Social Security or Medicare are. It exists for the same reason and under the same logic car insurance does, because uninsured persons pose a prohibitively expensive risk to the public good.

As a solution to the 20% of Americans with no coverage and skyrocketing premiums, it is centrism at its most bland and uncontroversial. The only reason it became controversial was because Republicans needed a new program to be their whipping boy because it became increasingly obvious their welfare dependent constituents were reacting badly to their posturing on Social Security and Medicare.

Opinion noted, rejected as being contrary to known reality

none of those programs should have survived honest supreme court review. sadly, the supreme court circa 1934-1950 was hardly honest and the courts after that were more interested in sustaining precedent than doing the right thing
 
Opinion noted, rejected as being contrary to known reality

none of those programs should have survived honest supreme court review. sadly, the supreme court circa 1934-1950 was hardly honest and the courts after that were more interested in sustaining precedent than doing the right thing

If all you can say is that "You're wrong" then you might as well not have bothered to respond at all. The resemblence between ObamaCare and car insurance is so fundamental and so obvious that any comparisons of either to Medicare or Social Security are as hollow as any assertion can be.
 
If all you can say is that "You're wrong" then you might as well not have bothered to respond at all. The resemblence between ObamaCare and car insurance is so fundamental and so obvious that any comparisons of either to Medicare or Social Security are as hollow as any assertion can be.


its idiotic a comparison. Driving on public roads is not a right. You don't need car insurance to own a car or drive it on private property. Medicare and social security violate the tenth amendment
 
its idiotic a comparison. Driving on public roads is not a right. You don't need car insurance to own a car or drive it on private property. Medicare and social security violate the tenth amendment

Constitutional debates are a language game that I don't care about. Ritualized political practice is the only thing that has any relevance. And in ritualized political practice, the 10th Amendment and federalism have been mostly superseded by subsequent amendments and reinterpretations of old clauses.

Whether or not Social Security or Medicare are constitutionally justified doesn't matter to me, but in terms of composition ObamaCare is nothing like them.
 
Constitutional debates are a language game that I don't care about. Ritualized political practice is the only thing that has any relevance. And it ritualized political practice, the 10th Amendment and federalism have been mostly superseded.

Whether or not Social Security or Medicare are constitutionally justified doesn't matter to me, but ObamaCare is nothing like them.

yeah its far worse
 
Because the crazy elements of the GOP turns off both the unaffiliated elements of the electorate and the more moderate republicans

And those crazy elements as you call it aren't going to come out and vote for a Romney or a McCain that is basically just a democrat in denial.

Times have changed and those people the party was pretending to represent have put out candidates that actually represent them and I highly doubt you will pull them back under the illusion moderate republicans represent them anytime soon. Without those crazy elements as you call it the majority of the moderates will vote democrat and you will lose.
 
... as far as welfare programs go, mandatory health insurance isn't 1/100 of what Social Security or Medicare are. It exists for the same reason and under the same logic car insurance does, because uninsured persons pose a prohibitively expensive risk to the public good.

As a solution to the 20% of Americans with no coverage and skyrocketing premiums, it is centrism at its most bland and uncontroversial. The only reason it became controversial was because Republicans needed a new program to be their whipping boy because it became increasingly obvious their welfare dependent constituents were reacting badly to their posturing on Social Security and Medicare.

I would think it would be pretty easy to attack forced commerce be that car insurance or health insurance. It's a bit depressing that so many people care so little for their own liberty that they don't respond much at all when they lose it. Then again, most people don't have a problem using their neighbor for their own personal gain. Hell, just look at Social Security and Medicare for proof of that.
 
I would think it would be pretty easy to attack forced commerce be that car insurance or health insurance. It's a bit depressing that so many people care so little for their own liberty that they don't respond much at all when they lose it. Then again, most people don't have a problem using their neighbor for their own personal gain. Hell, just look at Social Security and Medicare for proof of that.

Most parents would give up any number of personal freedoms to save their children. So long as that remains the case, liberty will always be a lower priority concern to opportunities and economic security in this country, and every other civilization that has ever existed. At least in the United States it is a second-tier concern, unlike China where it is much lower.

Liberty is a young man's cause. That's why young men die for it while old men make decisions from behind desks.

Anyway, the problem is that it is "not" easy. Liberty was easier to justify when the United States was a frontier society because most families and communities weren't that interdependent, so nobody had much claim on anyone else's resources or loyalty. Our comparatively high performance society makes many demands on the population as a whole, and if a significant margin fails (like if young people fail to supply Social Security with additional funds) then the entire organism begins to decline.
 
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Most parents would give up any number of personal freedoms to save their children. So long as that remains the case, liberty will always be a lower priority concern to opportunities and economic security in this country, and every other civilization that has ever existed. At least in the United States it is a second-tier concern, unlike China where it is much lower.

Liberty is a young man's cause. That's why young men die for it while old men make decisions from behind desks.

Anyway, the problem is that it is "not" easy. Liberty was easier to justify when the United States was a frontier society because most families and communities weren't that interdependent, so nobody had much claim on anyone else's resources or loyalty. Our comparatively high performance society makes many demands on the population as a whole, and if a significant margin fails (like if young people fail to supply Social Security with additional funds) then the entire organism begins to decline.

I'm not willing to give up my liberty for the community and to perfectly blunt I find the demand on me to do so by the community unsettling and unjustified. You don't demand that you fellow citizens give up their rights because you might benefit from it. That is an unacceptable demand that no one should willingly accept. It honestly doesn't matter to me when talking about government that people need certain things in their life be that money when they retire, an education, healthcare, a living wage, housing, food, clothing, any of it. To demand someone to provide for peoples needs is an unacceptable demand to put on someone else. I will help people that i see fit to help in ways that I see fit to help them or I will do nothing about it and let it be how it is. It is only my concern when I make it my concern and no one gets to tell me otherwise. It doesn't matter to me what people think. Liberty is a human right and I will not accept it's violation, ever.

I was raised to help people, but I was not raised to take from people what is not mine nor was I raised to order people around to do my bidding and ignore their protest. That is what government is doing with these welfare programs, wage controls(minimum wage), public accommodation laws, subsidies, mandates, etc and I have no stomach for it. It flat out pisses me off when I see my money going to Social Security and I had no say in it. Apparently, I'm supposed to be grateful for the government for looking out for me, but I never asked them to look out for me. I can take care of myself and I sure as hell don't need the government taking my income to pay the elderly against my will.

What really gets to me most of all is that the supporters of these policies tells me that I'm immoral. I'm the guy that is telling them to leave people alone and deal with people on a voluntary level, while they are the party ordering people into commerce, telling business owners they must accept everyone on their property and hire people not on the owners terms, but on their terms, and most importantly for the topic, forcing everyone into charity, and yet somehow I'm the guy that is immoral.
 
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The nice thing about liberty is that those who think it's a low priority don't really have a choice. People will live how they want and do what they want, and as long as they don't harm others directly, the state doesn't have enough resources to come down on them hard. All the liberty haters really have is moral blackmail, ineffective if you know they are full of crap.
 
And those crazy elements as you call it aren't going to come out and vote for a Romney or a McCain that is basically just a democrat in denial.

While some will stay home, it seems many react on the lesser of two evils fallacy and vote simply to make sure the other guy doesn't get into office. Though, admittedly, I never looked up the numbers for the 2012 potus election

Times have changed and those people the party was pretending to represent have put out candidates that actually represent them and I highly doubt you will pull them back under the illusion moderate republicans represent them anytime soon. Without those crazy elements as you call it the majority of the moderates will vote democrat and you will lose.

I'm not big on party politics, tbh
 
I personally can't stand Hillary Clinton, and I won't vote for her, but I think that the odds are very high that she'll be the next President. It's a long time out, plenty of time either for her to screw up, or for the Republicans to get something right -- but neither of those happen very often, so I don't expect them to happen before the next election.
 
I'm not willing to give up my liberty for the community and to perfectly blunt I find the demand on me to do so by the community unsettling and unjustified. You don't demand that you fellow citizens give up their rights because you might benefit from it. That is an unacceptable demand that no one should willingly accept. It honestly doesn't matter to me when talking about government that people need certain things in their life be that money when they retire, an education, healthcare, a living wage, housing, food, clothing, any of it. To demand someone to provide for peoples needs is an unacceptable demand to put on someone else. I will help people that i see fit to help in ways that I see fit to help them or I will do nothing about it and let it be how it is. It is only my concern when I make it my concern and no one gets to tell me otherwise. It doesn't matter to me what people think. Liberty is a human right and I will not accept it's violation, ever.

I was raised to help people, but I was not raised to take from people what is not mine nor was I raised to order people around to do my bidding and ignore their protest. That is what government is doing with these welfare programs, wage controls(minimum wage), public accommodation laws, subsidies, mandates, etc and I have no stomach for it. It flat out pisses me off when I see my money going to Social Security and I had no say in it. Apparently, I'm supposed to be grateful for the government for looking out for me, but I never asked them to look out for me. I can take care of myself and I sure as hell don't need the government taking my income to pay the elderly against my will.

What really gets to me most of all is that the supporters of these policies tells me that I'm immoral. I'm the guy that is telling them to leave people alone and deal with people on a voluntary level, while they are the party ordering people into commerce, telling business owners they must accept everyone on their property and hire people not on the owners terms, but on their terms, and most importantly for the topic, forcing everyone into charity, and yet somehow I'm the guy that is immoral.

The issue is not that straightforward. The left wants less liberty because they need the government to protect people from abusive corporate power structures who themselves infest the government with special interests that engineer the economy against the working man, and the right colludes with those power structures to overcome the left and achieve their goal -- which also constitutes an imposition on liberty. At the same time, the left has to work with those abusive power structures because attacking them head on would cause society to plummet, and the right has to work with the left because taking away social safety nets and regulations would similarly cause society to plummet.

There is no single group of people weighing liberty against safety or anything of that nature, there are many groups of people acting in loose coalitions and alliances and rivalries trying to weigh and measure all concerns via political, legal, and economic mechanisms that are prone to dysfunction.
 
But I think we should all be able to agree that the burden of proof lies on those who would restrict.
 
The issue is not that straightforward. The left wants less liberty because they need the government to protect people from abusive corporate power structures who themselves infest the government with special interests that engineer the economy against the working man, and the right colludes with those power structures to overcome the left and achieve their goal -- which also constitutes an imposition on liberty.

???? Abusive corporate power structures? What do you mean by that?

At the same time, the left has to work with those abusive power structures because attacking them head on would cause society to plummet, and the right has to work with the left because taking away social safety nets and regulations would similarly cause society to plummet.

Why would taking away regulations cause society to plummet? Most of them are more about controlling industry than punishing any sort of harms that occur. I don't think eliminating control would cause society to plummet. Do we really need the government controlling industry or do just need human rights protected? Just a thought.

Safety nets are only positive in that they boost economic activity, but at the cost of wages and increased disparity. Sure people can still think they are positive because they provide someone with some resource, but people seemingly forget who else it effects by doing so. Then again, I doubt they care.
 
And those crazy elements as you call it aren't going to come out and vote for a Romney or a McCain that is basically just a democrat in denial.

Most of them do. They listen to months of propaganda about how Romney/McCain are socialists and as bad as Obama, then when they get the nomination, it's, "Oh, well, it's the lesser of two evils. We'd better vote for them." And the majority do, certain that next time it'll be a reactionary radical populist from the Tea Party . . . but it's not. Next time it's Romney -- and they vote for him too.
 
MMM... I don't think I made up the definition for the word "dynamic", and I didn't use it as a descriptor; you did that.
No I wouldn't consider myself libertarian. I consider myself a Moralist, which has me firmly leaning toward libertarian ism, but without the dope and such.
Before you lean too far libertarian, here is something to consider: http://www.debatepolitics.com/general-political-discussion/145001-libertarian-abnormal-psychology.html#post1061216315.
 
She is under pressure to retire while Obama is in the White House. She doesn't want to retire. She has one of the most interesting jobs in the world. And - whatever you think about Scalia or Kennedy "ideologically" - chatting with them over lunch should be a little more intellectually rewarding than playing bingo (or whatever it is retired upper class Jewish ladies do). Of course she "predicts another Democrat".

I will say one of the more distasteful things I find in our political process is the desire among partisans to have SCOTUS justices either die or retire while their preferred party holds the OO so they can appoint someone else. Ginsburg will retire when she's good and ready. I've seen this for years ... I remember Republicans champing at the bit for Thurgood Marshall to retire when Reagan/Bush were in office (he did); I remember Democrats basically rooting for Stevens to croak so they could appoint a liberal to the court (he didn't, but retired anyway and is still kicking at 93).

I also found it to be a bit of political opportunism for Bush to bump Roberts' appointment from justice to chief justice when Rehnquist died. If I had my druthers, which I obviously do not, I think the successor to the chief justice of the SCOTUS should be taken from the existing court, rather than have a newbie take over the top job. That was fortuitous timing that Bush did not waste; however, I cannot definitively say it was to the detriment of the court, since the obvious choice for CJ (had Roberts been previously appointed) would have been Scalia, and NO THANK YOU.
 
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I'm not willing to give up my liberty for the community and to perfectly blunt I find the demand on me to do so by the community unsettling and unjustified. You don't demand that you fellow citizens give up their rights because you might benefit from it. That is an unacceptable demand that no one should willingly accept. It honestly doesn't matter to me when talking about government that people need certain things in their life be that money when they retire, an education, healthcare, a living wage, housing, food, clothing, any of it. To demand someone to provide for peoples needs is an unacceptable demand to put on someone else. I will help people that i see fit to help in ways that I see fit to help them or I will do nothing about it and let it be how it is. It is only my concern when I make it my concern and no one gets to tell me otherwise. It doesn't matter to me what people think. Liberty is a human right and I will not accept it's violation, ever.

I was raised to help people, but I was not raised to take from people what is not mine nor was I raised to order people around to do my bidding and ignore their protest. That is what government is doing with these welfare programs, wage controls(minimum wage), public accommodation laws, subsidies, mandates, etc and I have no stomach for it. It flat out pisses me off when I see my money going to Social Security and I had no say in it. Apparently, I'm supposed to be grateful for the government for looking out for me, but I never asked them to look out for me. I can take care of myself and I sure as hell don't need the government taking my income to pay the elderly against my will.

What really gets to me most of all is that the supporters of these policies tells me that I'm immoral. I'm the guy that is telling them to leave people alone and deal with people on a voluntary level, while they are the party ordering people into commerce, telling business owners they must accept everyone on their property and hire people not on the owners terms, but on their terms, and most importantly for the topic, forcing everyone into charity, and yet somehow I'm the guy that is immoral.

sheep go to great length to bleat how great living in pens is
 

I have read through the post but have not read the studies. The excerpts have led me to tentatively conclude three things.

1. The interpretation of the data is likely influenced by the confirmation bias of the authors (upwards of 80% of psychology professors are politically liberal).
2. The commentary shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how individualism affects society, and improves the general welfare. The commentary does not include the prospect that "self interest" includes social improvement for a larger community, nor does it contemplate benefits of experiencing difficulty.
3. The viability of libertarianism as a governing philosophy is necessarily correlated to the extant that individuals are moral agents (George Washington warned that we would not keep our republican form of government without a moral populace).

Finally, I do not consider myself a libertarian, as I said before, I consider myself a moralist. I lean libertarian to the extant that I believe in individual liberty. No other person does or should have a claim on another's ability to make individual choices apart from the objective harm that one might cause.
 
Finally, I do not consider myself a libertarian, as I said before, I consider myself a moralist. I lean libertarian to the extant that I believe in individual liberty. No other person does or should have a claim on another's ability to make individual choices apart from the objective harm that one might cause.

I have a similar view. A bias towards liberty over control, combined with understanding the necessity of rule of law. The burden of proof is on those who would restrict. I am all in favor of regulations and law provided they a) are constitutional, and b) actually address a problem we all agree exists, and c) has a reasonable chance of alleviating that problem.
 
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