Art-make an argument or get a life. You name callers are all alike sound and fury signifying ignorance.

Bill-See above and until Bush initiated the drug benefit that he got caught lying about the costs of, and which the republican congress passed with the clause that prohibited their negotiating with drug companies, (unlike say the VA which can negotiate and consequently gets its pharmaceuticals cheaply), medicare worked pretty well and was not in danger of insolvency. Social Security is still solvent and works well enough that seniors rose en mass to tell their legislators not to mess with it, because Bush’s reforms would have bankrupted it and everyone knows it. It remains solvent thanks to their efforts. And they should know if it works as seniors are the biggest group of beneficiaries. I can’t speak to medicaid. I only know that it is underfunded. But if you are a Freemarketeer then why shouldn’t the government be allowed to negotiate with drug companies like any other buyer in the market? Don’t you believe in the free market?

David H.-Freemarketeers are just repackaging 18th century economic philosophy of laissez-faire coined by the frenchman Colbert. Which is what gave rise to the Dickensian society of the 1850’s and the robber barons and iron, oil, and railroad trusts of the gilded age. If you were the one of the masses and not part of the aristocracy life was HARD with a capital HARD. It was 12 hour workdays for low wages and little or no time off. It was dangerous, unsanitary, with little or no chance to climb out the depths of extreme poverty. It was child labor, debtor’s prisons, company stores, and an average life expectancy of age 39. That’s what Freemarketeers brought about and if they have their way would bring back, because they like cheap labor and they all fancy themselves as the aristocracy. If trickle-down, or supply side economics, worked then why have real wages fallen since Bush has been in office? Tinkle down economics only helps the wealthy. And that’s where the true arrogance of economic policy lies.

Where in anything I’ve written have you seen me wishing for a Marxist or Fascist system? I believe in democracy and that is based on an educated citizenry. Our founding fathers tried to establish a system that gave us a level playing field (or at least strives for one) so that the real American Dream of being able to be the best you can be is not based on an accident of birth or who you know. Fascism is government ruled by corporations and we’re pretty close to that now thanks to Ron Raygun and deregulation mania that he propagated. In the constitution preamble are the words “Promote the general welfare” does that mean our founding fathers were Marxists? Marxism didn’t exist then. What does that phrase mean to you? Allowing the “free market” to force people to work in unsafe environments? To allow corporations to maim and kill with defective products with no recourse to sue for injury? That’s hubris. It is also laissez-faire economics, under its new name Freemarketeer.

I don’t believe in socialism, communism, capitalism, or any other system as an ultimate answer. Socialism is good for some things, capitalism is good for some things, but anybody that thinks that one system fits all is arrogant. I believe in what works and that no system has a perfect answer. I believe that single payer universal health care works better than any other health care system, but still has its flaws. Perfection is never achieved it can only be striven for.

Show me a free market. Show me a single market not corrupted by the influence of the most wealthy or the influence of government. There’s no such thing. Whenever I tell that to a freemarketeer you’d think I just told the Pope there is no God. Well if you can prove to me that either one exists then I’ll kiss your butt, otherwise I say to you the Free Market is a fiction. Governments create markets and they can and should regulate them to prevent the excesses of pollution, slavery of, and injury to the general population by corporations, which now actually have more rights than real human beings and less accountability. Talk about arrogance.

Hi Going Green,

Mind if I call you GG? The biggest reason that government creates more problems than it solves (which actually isn’t true, but certainly is the perception) is the corrupting influence of money. That is the one thing in the Bible that is absolutely unarguable. We could have a much more effective and reasonable government if we could have real campaign finance reform.

Unfortunately the Supreme Court ruled that campaign spending is a form of free speech so all bets are off. It would take a constitutional amendment to remedy that, and I don’t think we’ll ever see that.

If I could design campaign finance reform this is the plan I would implement.

I would designate a monetary amount spendable for each office race. For the sake of argument let’s say a Senate race is worth $1 million. Each candidate could raise $1 million. The could get it from one donor or a million donors as long as they published where the money came from. That way before we vote, we would know exactly who they would be beholden to. But they would only be able to spend $1 million on the race. A penny more and their names would be taken off the ballot. All campaign spending would be audited, before the election. This would give all candidates, not just the 2 big parties a more level playing field. Campaigning would have a time limit, say 3 months. Enough time to get out your message, your ideas, plans, and reasons for people to vote for you, but not enough time to slime your opponent. All TV and Radio stations would be required to give a certain amount of free air time to candidates as a public service requirement for their broadcast license. After all we the people own the airwaves, if they want to use them to make money then we have the right to require that they be used to the good of our people. Anything goes on the internet as it is still an equalizer for those that can’t raise the $1 million. This plan would go a long way toward making ideas and not personalities the focus of campaigns. It would take away the bullhorn of the extremely wealthy and give a voice above a whisper to the much less economically endowed so their ideas could be heard.

I can think of many flaws to this plan, but it would be so much better than what we have now, and I think it would ultimately give us a better less corrupt government.

Mr. Brown,

Marxist systems are based on the government controlling the means of productions. It takes a fascist government exercising dominance over the people enforced at the barrel of gun in order to run a Marxist system. As they say “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” The ideas you are proposing fit squarely into the above ideologies. You honestly believe by removing individual freedoms, that people of your ilk can decide what is best for the rest of us. This is truly a frightening thought. History is filled with fanatics who think they can make the world a better place by just making everyone bow to their wishes.

David H.-I forgot to ask you, who said anything about pointing a gun, or planning an economy? Where do you guys come up with this stuff? If you don’t like the way our government runs, you get to vote, so exercise that franchise, only don’t take that right from the rest of us. Government doesn’t plan an economy, it does influence the marketplace for good or ill in how it sets the rules of the market. It can prevent abuse or cause it, but you and I define what is abuse. To me price gouging is abuse. Maybe if you have oil stock price gouging is OK. To me, saying I can’t join a union and go on strike for better conditions is abuse. If you’re a corporate stockholder you may want to hire illegals and/or scabs to bust the union and you may not think that’s abuse. The government decides what is abuse by regulation and enforcement. Don’t like the regulation then vote in deregulators. But if you can’t afford to leave your job, because you have a pre-existing condition and your boss tells you that you have to breathe unsafe air or you’ll be fired then that is abuse. And if you don’t stand up and work to change the rules so that abuse can’t take place, then you’ve lost not just the battle but your integrity.

David H.-the standard definition of Marxism is not government controlling the means of production but the workers controlling the means of production. The standard definition of fascism is government controlled by corporations. If you want to redefine those terms you should state that before you deviate from the standard definitions. Otherwise we can’t even agree on what we’re arguing about. More to the point exactly what freedoms do you believe my proposals infringe upon? Name one. And please demonstrate how my ideas do that, otherwise your accusations are just empty rhetoric, puffed up nothing that makes you sound good to your fellow Libertarians.

Rich,

I pretty much agree about campaign finance reform, but could we add strict limits on lobbyists and influence peddling while we are at it? I have been pretty much politically oblivious for most of my life, now I’m just bored and disgusted with the whole thing.This is turning into the campaign that never ends,and I’m not even sure things will change regardless of who wins.

I think the whole system needs overhauled-federal and state- but as you say,that will never happen.I don’t follow politics too much as a rule,I don’t really have time,and now I know why.I prefer to feel that what I do can have a positive impact on those around me, but politics seems to be an exercise in futility, at least for the average person.I understand that every vote counts and strength in numbers and all that, but there isn’t a candidate I have any faith might be able to turn this around, and if there was, all the political nonsense would make them ineffective at best.I have always believed in doing the right things for the right reasons,but I realize that has no place in politics,so I have a hard time getting enthused about any of it.It seems that politicians will say anything to get elected, but don’t hold them to it afterwards.I know that sounds harsh, and that there are(statistically,there must be:)honest politicians, but I can’t think of one offhand.All the bickering over parties seems pointless with the country in the state it is.We need to find common ground and build from there, with constructive ideas instead of all the useless rhetoric some of these guys have memorized so they don’t have to think.F.Scott Fitzgerald said ” The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.” First and foremost,we are all Americans, and that should trump everything else.I’m not totally apathetic,just undecided about what to do at this point.All the finger-pointing and name-calling is a real turn-off.There seems to be such an all-or-nothing attitude-whatever happened to moderation?I think the solution will be closer to the middle than at either extreme, but compromise appears to be unthinkable.

GG- They WANT you to feel apathy and frustration, it makes people hopeless and makes people less likely to pay attention to corruption, and less likely to vote. They created an ineffective, incompetent gov’t. by staffing it with incompetents and cronies so they can say “See gov’t doesn’t work AND it’s evil.”

But it can still be fixed. One reason is that it may be a Democratic landslide in congress this year. All the indications are that it will. That means a lot of NEW politicians will be holding office. Many of those won’t be corrupted yet. That’s why Obama might actually get some things done. Success breeds success. Look at what happened to republicans. Once they took over congress, they now control all 3 branches. But the weight of their collective stupid policies finally caught up with them. We have better policies, so while there will still be corruption we can minimize its impact. Gov’t can be functional again.

As to your point on limiting the influence of lobbyists. I would love to find a way, but other than keeping their election donations held to a minimum by limiting campaign spending by the candidates, I don’t know how to do it. Would welcome suggestions that can pass constitutional muster. We can pass more limits on junkets and free lunches and honoraria, is about all. I’m not sure where else you can draw the line safely.

Libertarians love to scream about gov’t. limiting their freedoms. They forget that the flip side of freedom is responsibility. You’ll never hear one of them screaming for more responsibility.

My schedule is pretty full for the next 2 days so I may being seeing you on a future blog before I can get back to doing this. Keep fighting, don’t let chaos reign.

Very interesting and mostly respectful debate here, folks. Thanks. The bottom line is that the theories and ideas will be proven or disproved over the next generation or so. The size and scope of the federal government and its control over us has grown steadily throughout its existence. The idea of state and local governments being laboratories for ideas that fit the needs of the citizens was scrapped along with the Tenth Amendment and the founders’ ideas of liberty for a free people. The math and human nature will catch up with the idea that government is the savior of our society. Nearly half the U.S. population now depend upon government through salary, contract, or entitlements for their livelihood. Another monstrous bureaucracy for government control of healthcare will, no doubt, be the final straw. Do the math.

GG-one last thought, there are lots of heroes in government. Sen. Patrick Leahy, Sen. Tom Harkin, John Conyers, Dennis Kucinich would be the start of a long list of current statesmen. Listen to them on CSPAN sometime you’ll hear some honesty that is positively invigorating.

Bb-Wish I had time for this but Universal single-payer health care saves money. Will have to get back to you on that as I’m almost late. If you can do math I can prove it. It changes an existing bureaucracy with admittedly slight enlargement, not creating a new one. Sorry gotta go, don’t drink the kool-aid.