RoR: Forum

"I'm interested in two things here. First of all what is all this talk of "big" government? Can someone define what "big" government is and then go on to explain to me why that's bad? Oh, and after that could you then define what "big" business is and explain to me why it's not bad if "big" government is?"

Who are you, and what have you done with Steve?

Post 21

Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 5:01pm

What's the point of your cynicism Steve? WHEN would it be the appropriate time to protest the government so that we can know we're not seen as a bunch of hypocrites in your eyes? Or is it simply too late, and no one should protest. Is that what you're saying?

Post 22

Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 5:03pm

Here you go Steve...

------- Government ----------
1. The first purpose of government is to define a set of objective laws, the minimum needed, to protect individual rights.
2. The second purpose of government is provide the minimum machinery (structure, organizations, buildings, people, courts, elections, etc.) to enforce those laws - mostly about courts, police and military.
3. If the government is too big, it will of necessity violate rights even as it attempts to protect them.
4. If the government is too little it won't be able to get the job done.
5. This whole business of government is a requirment because we have to deal with force. To flourish on earth man needs to be able to act freely - that is free of threat of initiated force, the actual initiation of force, fraud and theft. Regulating the use retalitory force (police, military) is the means to the making a good environment.

------- Business ----------
1. Business is just a contractual, voluntary relationship between people.
2. In a free society (no force allowed) they can't do business with each other or with other vendors or with investors or with customers except by mutal voluntary consent.
3. How big or how small a business should be (for a given environment) is a business decision - it depends upon the market, the particular industries capitalization needs, the competition, etc. Who cares?
4. If business has to compete for the sales needed to stay alive, and it can only get a sale by attracting a customer, then it has to compete to make the customer happy. Big or small only win's by most happy customers. So there is no such thing as too big or too small. They are all either just right for the moment, or they are evolving towards being just right, or they will go out of business as a competitor does a better job.

--------- Tea Party ----------

1. No special interests driving it.
2. Not partisan in nature, but rather ideological - that is, they are driven by political ideals.
3. It is people who work for a living
4. It is the first time ever we've seen a group that is explicitly in favor of Capitalism.
5. They recognize the need to radically change government (small, low taxes, balanced budget)
6. They aren't perfect (lots of gun-powder patriots, religious people, etc.)

--------- Why Now? What's New? ----------

1. Current level of spending/debt is unsustainable (that's a first)
2. The Social Securtity is in the red this year (that's a first)
3. We have a socialist as president (that's a first - except for maybe FDR)
4. The currency is on the verge of collapse (First time in modern American history)
5. We are sliding into a depression that could make The Great Depression look like a minor recession. (First at that level of intensity)
6. We have acquired more debt in last 4 months than the total of all debt from all prior years of government since Washington was president.
7. This year (or in the next year or two) we will have more people who get their money from the government than from private enterprise - and a large part of it being entitlement.
8. The Tea Party people can tell that We are, for the first time, about to become a socialist country - bye bye free enterprise for good.

Post 23

Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 5:43pm

To John

The appropriate time to start bitching hardcore is when someone offers you shit for gold. It's too late when that shit hits the fan.

To Steve W

You have defined neither "big" government or "big" business. You did not even try, in my opinion, so I'll help you out.

"Big" government, like "big" business, is a meaningless term which is used to confuse the issues and shift focus. As with most meaningless terms they are constantly used and abused in such a way as to make conversation pointless. The "bigness" or "smallness" of government is meaningless. A small government could just as well violate rights as larger one.

It's funny that you define business as it aught to be, rather than what it is: a mooching group of wealthy people who use the government to secure nearly unending prosperity for them. It really is time admirers of Rand stopped looking to business people as hero's. That was then, when perhaps there was a chance that someone created something good that others wanted and would never need any "help" from the government. I'd like you to point me to a company, oh, say in the top 25 of the Forbes 500, that does not benefit from government regulation. These are not hero's. They are scum and should be treated that way.

That's not to say that those left out of the big business world are any better. It seems to me there are two groups fighting in this country, regardless of what the silly Tea Party would suggest: the Big Moochers and the big moochers. Each has an interest in wielding the governments club to bash the other over the head. Sometimes business wins and sometimes "the people" do. However, both have a sick view of how society should work. Again, why all the bitching about government nonsense now? Is it because a certain group of people are holding the clubs when this other group wishes to?

Post 24

Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 5:50pm

The appropriate time to start bitching hardcore is when someone offers you shit for gold. It's too late when that shit hits the fan.

Thanks for the completely worthless response. I'll be sure to ignore your whining over people protesting the abuses of government from now on.

Post 25

Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 5:57pm

If someone is in their twenties and bitching that is understandable; they have inherited a world where there's much to bitch about. However, someone who's in their forties or fifties had better have a damn good excuse as to why they were not taking to the streets decades ago. Those assholes left a wrecked country to their progeny. For them to start whining now is a bit of the Johnny-come-lately.

Post 26

Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 6:16pm

So do you know every Tea Party protester in their 40's and 50's to say definitively that this is their first time bitching about the government? What percentage of them has always been happy with the violation of their rights in the past? Your view is just asinine as the liberals who attack the tea party as being primarily motivated by racism, even though when challenged they can offer no proof of what percentage of the tea party movement is actually racist. I'm going to assume you don't know what this percentage is and you just like to make hasty generalizations about people. Nor does it matter that they're johnny-come-latelies, if anything, we should be happy that so many people have finally either had a change of mind or found the time to protest. Maybe in the past they didn't think it was bad enough to forgo their time protesting in lieu of going to work and providing for their families. But again, you don't possess this information. They have no moral obligation to prove to you their sincerity, and you can either laud any and all efforts to have more freedom, or you can cynically shit all over them while you comfortably sit at home doing nothing except bitch on the internet.

What exactly have you done? Should anyone take your bitching about the world seriously only if you step out of your house into the streets while holding up a sign?

Post 27

Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 6:35pm

The difference, Steve, is that Big government has guns and the power to use them. I just read that the SEC sent the Goldman case to prosecutors. Government has that power. Where's Goldman's power to resist? Government could padlock Microsoft and Disney if they wanted to. Can Microsoft and Disney padlock the doors of Congress?

I think the Tea Party movement is brilliant, and inspiring. But I'm an optimist.

We can all sit back and whine about the "if onlys." But to blame people who were merely living their lives and minding their own business is outrageously unfair. Did you really expect your neighbors to care about your life when they were busy enjoying their own? How much of your today will you sacrifice for my grandchildren's tomorrow, Steve?

Get real.

(Edited by Teresa Summerlee Isanhart on 4/29, 6:41pm)

Post 28

Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 7:02pm

The point, John (and I thought you were ignoring me), is that they have not changed their minds. The Tea Party is a lark. When the books are settled we'll find that they vote just as everyone else does: for dopes. Right now Republicans are doing what they can to pull these people in and they will succeed, in one way or the other.

The Right, Republicans, libertarians and so on, always talk a good game about cutting spending and lowering taxes and slowing down the machine of government. They talk about it but never really get much done. Why should anyone assume they will now? Because a few of them claim they are not part of the Republican party but rather some group known as the Tea Party?

So, who are the Tea Party that we should be thrilled with their existence? Well, Gallup says that 49% of them call themselves Republicans and 43% independent. Since only 8% admit to being Demo's I'm going to make a wild assertion that the 43% claiming to be independent have voted for Republicans far more than they have for Democrats. What else can we find out about our new saviors? How about this: the overwhelming majority are employed or retired, just like Republicans; the majority of them, a meager 79%, are white, just like Republicans; and oh, guess what, the majority of them are pro-life (65%), just like Republicans. So, I'd like to hear what's so different about these folks from the Republicans we have now? Looks like a bunch of white Christians to me. And boy we've gotten far with their help.

Teresa, I am a little perplexed; when did happiness for one man equal distress for another? Shouldn't I be able to enjoy my life without it threatening your grandchildren?

Post 29

Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 7:18pm

"The Tea Party is a lark. ...Looks like a bunch of white Christians to me."

And you look like a lazy punk who likes to talk a good game of being the ideal hero for freedom while sitting on your ass complaining about people actually making some kind of effort for more freedom. Everyone apparently is a revolutionary sitting in their comfortable computer chair. The difference here is that I've read enough of your comments to judge your character, whereas you are making a hasty generalization about millions of people you don't even know.

When in your 20's did you come to the realization the government is violating your rights? 23? 24? 21? What happened before then? Aren't you just a johnnie-come-lately yourself or were you born with the knowledge of freedom and government abuses of it? And what are you now? Some whiny smug punk who thinks he's better than people who are actually making an effort to gain more freedom for themselves and for you?

The Tea Party is a specific movement against creeping socialism. A wish for more economic freedom. They are not protesting in favor of Christianity as some kind of state sponsored religion. What the demographics of this group is composed of should make no difference and is nothing more than an ad hominem attack.

(Edited by John Armaos on 4/29, 7:23pm)

Post 30

Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 7:48pm

Again, John, you are either unwilling or unable to grasp that I am not at all concerned with the means of taking action. I am only concerned with what the action is taken for. As I've said a few times now the Tea Party crowd represents nothing new, in spite of what they or Steve W claim. That they claim to want more freedom or more chicken is irrelevant to me. What is rather interesting though is how goddamn similar they are to the Republican Party. And since I have absolutely no respect for those dopes I certainly cannot respect a group which is only a growth on the ass of the Republican Party.

Now I've been a faggot, sissy, honky, string bean, ugly, fascist, communist, punk asshole my whole life. Add any name you wish and it can't be nearly as bad as what someone else has said. If you wanna talk Tea Party that's fine. If you wanna toss around school yard names better to take that outside where names don't seem to hold the same value any longer.

Post 31

Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 7:50pm

I'll have to join you all tomorrow. I have a party to attend...I wonder if they'll have tea?

(BTW: BRING TED BACK! He's a pain in the ass, even to me, but I like him. What gives?)

Post 32

Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 7:59pm

"Teresa, I am a little perplexed; when did happiness for one man equal distress for another? Shouldn't I be able to enjoy my life without it threatening your grandchildren?"

"However, someone who's in their forties or fifties had better have a damn good excuse as to why they were not taking to the streets decades ago. Those assholes left a wrecked country to their progeny. For them to start whining now is a bit of the Johnny-come-lately."

You're perplexed? Seriously? What kind of world are you leaving my grandchildren, Steve? What are you doing about their tomorrow, aside from whining about their grandma's past?

Post 33

Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 8:01pm

Steve:

Again, John, you are either unwilling or unable to grasp that I am not at all concerned with the means of taking action. I am only concerned with what the action is taken for.

Well....tell us! What is the action taken for? Is there some ulterior motive you're aware of when they specifically protest against socialist welfare programs and government bail-outs? Do you have some privileged knowledge of this secret ulterior motive?

Now I've been a faggot, sissy, honky, string bean, ugly, fascist, communist, punk asshole my whole life. Add any name you wish and it can't be nearly as bad as what someone else has said. If you wanna talk Tea Party that's fine. If you wanna toss around school yard names better to take that outside where names don't seem to hold the same value any longer.

And yet it appears you are perfectly fine with smearing an entire group of people you don't even know with the same stupid school yard antics. I'm calling you a smug punk because that's what you are. Some kid that thinks he's the morally superior freedom fighter sitting on his ass complaining about people asking for more freedom because some of them are old, white, and Christian. Because for some reason, freedom is only good for secularists and minorities, but not for anyone else.

(Edited by John Armaos on 4/29, 8:03pm)

Post 34

Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 11:18pm

Steve said,"Again, John, you are either unwilling or unable to grasp that I am not at all concerned with the means of taking action. I am only concerned with what the action is taken for."

All bullshit! Steve, I don't believe you care about action or reasons. You don't offer reasons or logic to back your opinions. You wouldn't care if the Tea Party people were wisdom incarnate - not when you can almost taste the pleasure of calling them a pimple on the ass of the Republican party. You don't provide us with a philosophy or set of principles or an explanation worth listening to. You don't consider what we have written - treating it with cheap sarcasm or arbitrary dismissal. You go overboard taking cheap shots at anyone and everyone - presenting yourself like a mean drunk looking for someone to vomit on. You give the impression that you are only about tearing things down. Only about cynicism and sarcasm. It is like you are trying out to be RoR's pet nihilist - in a cartoon sort of way.

Post 35

Friday, April 30, 2010 - 6:03am

Steve:

If someone is in their twenties and bitching that is understandable; they have inherited a world where there's much to bitch about. However, someone who's in their forties or fifties had better have a damn good excuse as to why they were not taking to the streets decades ago. Those assholes left a wrecked country to their progeny. For them to start whining now is a bit of the Johnny-come-lately.

Thank you for the mirth.

When you are in your forties or fifties, if you are lucky, you will look at that statement and see how utterly and embarrassingly precious that makes you sound.

Until then, enjoy. We all get to be the first people ever born who 'get it' in our twenties.

Now, go 'take it to the streets.' Get out the paper mache, the tempura, and go throw yourself a Big Headed Puppet Parade.

You know; 'change the world' -- via street theatre, when not at our day job at the video store, or living in Mom's basement playing WoW.

When I was 'in my twenties' I wasn't whining about what I wasn't handed by others as my 'inheritance.' ('inheritance?' You need to go cry on Jeeves The Butler's shoulder...)

I quit my crappy job, have been signing both sides of my paycheck ever since I was 26.

You whining because I didn't, instead, pave the way for you and arrange for there to be a nice, comfortable job/world waiting for you in the endless Thirteenth Grade of Life? You know, that 'world' created by others, that some 'inherit?'

Christ, you make me glad I have no employees...

Have a great life, waiting and whining about your missing 'inheritance.' 'Wrecked country?' The opportunities that exist in today's economies are too countless to list--they just aren't the same opportunities that existed ten minutes ago. I have no concept at all of what you could possibly be bitching about. I tell you, I once worked in a steel plant, it's not all that it is cracked up to be.

What you really need, to gain some perspective on our 'wrecked' country, is maybe 15 minutes in Bangladesh. You won't even need to wander too far away from Zia to figure it all out.

Maybe in your thirties, like me.

Good luck, Precious. Don't be too hard on yourself when you look back at making those twenty-sounding statements, we all did it. Jesus, the sixties was filled to the brim with Change This Screwed Up World puddingheadedness. In our twenties, we just can't understand why someone hasn't long done something about all the stupidity, crime, ignorance, poverty, dumbassdom... in the world. As if.

If you are very lucky, you aren't going anywhere we haven't already been. Maybe. But not my problem. Good luck with your journey. And your realization, that the only person in this always much to bitch about world you can actually change is yourself, unless you want to whip out the guns, which is far too often the choice made...

regards,
Fred

Post 36

Friday, April 30, 2010 - 5:06pm

Hitting the nail on the head...

You whining because I didn't, instead, pave the way for you and arrange for there to be a nice, comfortable job/world waiting for you in the endless Thirteenth Grade of Life? You know, that 'world' created by others, that some 'inherit?'

Priceless.

Post 37

Friday, April 30, 2010 - 5:33pm