If you aren't sure what they are trying to accomplish, this should clarify it...

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I don't think it's in the spirit of this board to call someone the "official APS slave boy".

Fair enough.  We have basic standards to uphold.  Decency and respect for others and whatnot.

That begs a question, though.  We aren't willing to vote anyone into slavery even just for pretend, but mellestad has no such scruples.  What's to prevent him from voting to enslave you or me?

[Balog]

Gentlemen, mellestad loves his socialism.  He's unlikely to change his mind, given how he's dancing all around the arguments you've put forth without really addressing anything in a substantial fashion.  Maybe it's time to cut your rhetorical losses.

[Fjolnirsson]

Annnd, Balag Balog wins the thread!

[makattak]

http://article.nationalreview.com/430816/if-we-europeanize-europe-is-in-trouble/jonah-goldberg

If We Europeanize, Europe Is in Trouble
We can’t become Europe unless someone else is willing to become America.

By now you may have heard: America is on its way to becoming another European country.

Now, by that I do not mean that we’re moving our tectonic plate off the coast of France or anything, but rather that a century-long dream of American progressives is finally looking like it might become a reality. The recently passed health-care legislation is the cornerstone of the Europeanization of America. And to pay for it, the White House is now floating the idea of imposing a value-added tax (VAT) like the ones they have throughout most of Europe.

In the egghead-o-sphere, there’s been an ongoing debate about whether America should become more like Europe. The battle lines are split almost perfectly along left-right lines ideologically. Liberals like Europe’s welfare states, unionized workforces (in and out of government), generous benefits, long vacations, etc. Conservatives like America’s economic growth, its dynamism and innovation.

From what I can tell, everyone agrees that you can’t have Europeanization without European-size governments. Hence, America’s government outlays (pre-Obama) have tended to hover around 20 percent of GDP (the average of the last 50 years), while Europe’s are often more than twice that. In France, government outlays are nearly 55 percent of GDP. In 2009, the bailout and the Obama budget sent America’s government outlays to 28 percent of GDP, but that should decline a bit over the next decade, unless Democrats have something else in mind.

To be fair, liberals insist conservatives are wrong to think that Europeanizing America will necessarily come at any significant cost. New York Times columnist and Princeton economist Paul Krugman says that, in exchange for only a tiny bit less growth, Europeans buy a whole lot of security and comfort. Economists such as Stanford’s Michael Boskin say Europeans have a standard of living about 30 percent lower than ours and are stagnating. Others note that the structural unemployment rate in Europe, particularly for young people (it’s over 20 percent in many countries), is socially devastating.

Obviously, I’m in the conservative camp. But I think the debate misses something. We can’t become Europe unless someone else is willing to become America.

Look at it this way. My seven-year-old daughter has a great lifestyle. She has all of her clothes and food bought for her. She goes on great vacations. She has plenty of leisure time. A day doesn’t go by where I don’t look at her and feel envious of how good she’s got it compared to me. But here’s the problem: If I decide to live like her, who’s going to take my place?

Europe is a free-rider. It can only afford to be Europe because we can afford to be America.

The most obvious and most cited illustration of this fact is national defense. Europe’s defense budgets have been miniscule because Europeans can count on Uncle Sam to protect them. Britain, which has the most credible military in NATO after ours, has funded its butter account with its gun account. As Mark Steyn recently noted in National Review, from 1951 to 1997 the share of British government expenditure devoted to defense fell from 24 percent to 7 percent, while the share spent on health and welfare increased from 22 percent to 53 percent. And that was before New Labour started rolling back Thatcherism. If America Europeanizes, who’s going to protect Europe? Who’s going to keep the sea lanes open? Who’s going to contain Iran — China? Okay, maybe. But then who’s going to contain China?

But that’s not the only way in which Europeans are free-riders. America invents a lot of stuff. When was the last time you used a Portuguese electronic device? How often does Europe come out with a breakthrough drug? Not often, and when they do, it’s usually because companies like Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline increasingly conduct their research here. Indeed, the top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other single country combined. We nearly monopolize the Nobel Prize in medicine, and we create stuff at a rate Europe hasn’t seen since da Vinci was in his workshop.

If America truly Europeanized, where would the innovations come from?

Europhiles hate this sort of talk. They say there’s no reason to expect America to lose its edge just because we have a more “compassionate” government. Americans are an innovative, economically driven people. That’s true. But so were the Europeans — once. Then they adopted the policies they have today and that liberals want us to have tomorrow.

Let me highlight the salient point:

Europe is a free-rider. It can only afford to be Europe because we can afford to be America.

[Perd Hapley]

Gentlemen, mellestad loves his socialism.  He's unlikely to change his mind, given how he's dancing all around the arguments you've put forth without really addressing anything in a substantial fashion.  Maybe it's time to cut your rhetorical losses.

I'm not interested in changing his mind.  I just want to ride the high horse as much as he does, just for sport.   

[roo_ster]

I'm not interested in changing his mind.  I just want to ride the high horse as much as he does, just for sport.   

The O² seems a bit thin up there.   Best no linger.

[As an aside, I'd like to remark that super/subscripts rock, as does strikeout text.  Every board should implement it.]

[Perd Hapley]

O₂ RLY?

[BReilley]

As long as I can show working examples of socialistic states, I believe it is a valid method for debate.  To take your tact, I would argue against pure capitalism by pointing out any example of a failed state or program that utilized capitalism.  However, that would be dishonest and meaningless to this debate so I don’t do that.  Does that make sense?

I don't agree that it would be dishonest or meaningless to address individual programs, since a whole lot of individual programs are what make up an individual's interactions with government(a system).  You advocate mixing socialist ideas with libertarianism with the goal of achieving a balance, so why not discuss the systems under which socialist principles have already been applied to America?
I mainly wanted to point out that there is no way to argue when you say "show me a modern society based on liberty" and brush off our examples as irrelevant.

No, that isn’t what I am saying.  I’m saying every valid system has both, and pure freedom is not an option for a nation.  Since I can point to nations I would not mind living in that use more socialism than America, I don’t feel you can say that more socialism = doom.  “Socialism” isn’t specific enough to make any kind of blanket statement.  See #3.

Fair enough, then.  I personally would not wish to live in France, England, Switzerland or the like.  If you think you'd be happy within those systems, cool, but I wouldn't.

I don’t want to live in America circa 1776.  I like the Interstate highway system, I like public radio, I like fire codes and food safety regulation, etc.  My life, today, is better than the life of people 150 years ago.  Unless you can show me a working example of how your proposal is better, I’m not going to take it on faith that things will be better by turning social and economic reality upside down.

Those are not valid examples, nor are they(excluding public radio) socialistic, at least they weren't conceived that way.  The highway system is like public utilities - it's fair to say that road construction is one of the things that the private sector would not do particularly well.  Fire codes, food safety regulations, highways, etc. are all results of advances in science and technology.
The interstate highway system is a logical, beneficial, and pretty cost-effective solution which benefits everyone pretty much equally.  Federal transportation funding is now such a big stick and a football for Congress that it's hard to say much about it, though.
Fire codes, another idea hatched in the spirit of improving general public safety.  Talk to a building contractor and find out how much time(and therefore money) he has to spend making sure he's in compliance every time building codes change.  Talk to the auto shop owner who gets a "friendly" pop-in visit from the fire-and-security company down the road, who call in the Fire Marshal when he says he'll use another, cheaper company to certify his extinguishers.  These kinds of things become clubs wielded by the compliance industry(which has power through the state).  That's beside the point, but it does relate to my whole corruption argument.
Food regulation has been pretty benign, although one might argue that things might improve more if we stopped subsidizing our own production and started penalizing China for sending us melamine in our baby formula and Mexico for sending E. Coli in our tomatoes.  Go local, indeed.

Have you, by the way, read anyone here calling for the abolition of highways, fire codes and food safety regulation?  No.  What we're complaining about is paying for someone else's hybrid-car subsidy, or paying a private company $550 to RETAIN ON FILE a plan(which I drew) of my shop detailing locations of chemicals etc. so that I can comply with fire codes and not be shut down, or paying for reduced or free lunches for the kid with a Blackberry in the pocket of his A&F jeans.

The same thing could be said of Libertarianism, because you are assuming private organizations would take care of things and the powerful would not take advantage of the weak.  At least with socialism (or any government system that is not economic laissez-faire) there is a way to establish a somewhat independent watchdog to mediate the needs and wants of citizens.

I am equally concerned that the "weak" not take advantage of the "powerful".
My needs are my responsibility.  What government-funded watchdog can we depend on to protect the rights of citizens?

It is imperfect, but I shudder to think of what a modern mega corporation could accomplish without any kind of regulation or oversight.  That does not mean total government control though; I have stated before that a good system of governance balances protection and safety with incentives and risk.

I would love to see what a mega-corporation would accomplish without any kind of regulation or oversight.

[Tallpine]

What's to prevent him from voting to enslave you or me?

He/they already have 

[Balog]

I would love to see what a mega-corporation would accomplish without any kind of regulation or oversight.

It becomes a surrogate .gov with Constitutional or Bill of Rights type limits.

[BReilley]

It becomes a surrogate .gov with Constitutional or Bill of Rights type limits.

Well... I was thinking more along the lines of efficiency, product innovation and the like.  I kinda knew that was not the best way to phrase what I meant to say, but I can't stand when people take the corporations-kill-babies-unless-government-stops-them approach.  Incidentally, your reply makes me think of a Gibson novel(Mona Lisa Overdrive, I think) about some team of mercenaries assisting some top-level scientist in "defection" to another megacorp Has a business entity ever actually become so powerful it eclipses a government(in the real world, not some backwater tribal state)?

[Mabs2]

Well... I was thinking more along the lines of efficiency, product innovation and the like.  I kinda knew that was not the best way to phrase what I meant to say, but I can't stand when people take the corporations-kill-babies-unless-government-stops-them approach.  Incidentally, your reply makes me think of a Gibson novel(Mona Lisa Overdrive, I think) about some team of mercenaries assisting some top-level scientist in "defection" to another megacorp Has a business entity ever actually become so powerful it eclipses a government(in the real world, not some backwater tribal state)?

Some people would suggest that oil tycoons and such run the US.

[sanglant]

Some people would suggest that oil tycoons and such run the US.

and yet the opec member countries are great democracies that should never be challenged on anything. it's really baffling

[mellestad]

That was kind of disappointing.  But oh well.  All I will say is that if you are not willing to accept a evidence based approach for politics, there is no way to resolve conflict between parties.

Besides, I *have* changed my political opinion before, and I have laid out my requirements to change it again.  I don't see how I could be more honest or open to argument without having my brains leak out.

@Monkey:  I agree, but that is an oversimplification of the debate we've been having isn't it?  Otherwise that reframes the debate from socialism to a debate purely over welfare.

@Rocket: What arguments are those?

@Mak: Any response on the economic development index question I asked?

I don't agree that it would be dishonest or meaningless to address individual programs, since a whole lot of individual programs are what make up an individual's interactions with government(a system).  You advocate mixing socialist ideas with libertarianism with the goal of achieving a balance, so why not discuss the systems under which socialist principles have already been applied to America?
I mainly wanted to point out that there is no way to argue when you say "show me a modern society based on liberty" and brush off our examples as irrelevant.

Well no, you can argue specific points and that is fine.  I just meant you can't say, "Socialism=bad" by pointing out specific examples of failed (real or not) socialist programs.  Again, I can point to failed capitalist programs or successful socialist states.  Since there are thousands of each, it isn't productive or honest to paint either broad system with specific programs cherry picked by either side.

That is the problem though, I'm not seeing positive examples for your side, just negatives.  If I say A is bad, B is good my standard of proof needs to be higher than A has X wrong with it and nothing else.

Fair enough, then.  I personally would not wish to live in France, England, Switzerland or the like.  If you think you'd be happy within those systems, cool, but I wouldn't.

And that is fine.  We can disagree and still have a productive political process under those terms.  Then it becomes a question of who in the country wants to move towards what system and politics ensue, like it is supposed to.

Those are not valid...

Actually, I have heard people talk about abolishing any government service beyond defense.  It comes up fairly often here.

I am curious now though, what is your definition of socialism?  It seems to be different from some others on this board, and it might help both of us to be clear about terms.  On this board the word socialism tends to be applied to any government program that steps over an arbitrary line decided by the poster, and on this board I use it in the same way.  In your examples you seem to be picking and choosing what is good and bad ad-hoc.  That is fine, but it doesn't address the general point, it only addresses specific programs.

To me it seems like an argument for my side, at the root of it, because you accept that there are some things the government does better than private industry, often for the benefit of society as a whole.  Once you do that you've accepted some level of socialism and then we just need to debate specifics, through the political process.

That is one of my major gripes with the way this debate often takes place, everything is arbitrary and no-one agrees on what is properly libertarian and what isn't. I've personally spoken with people who say roads and utilities would be taken over by private industry without any problems and so should be kept out of government power.

To me you have two options in the larger debate.  1) Full freedom, possible exception for defense spending and everything else is left to states or local governments.  2)  Government power is decided by the voters and their representatives.  As I said above, the problem with this middle-road libertarianism is there is some sort of objective right and wrong about this program or that program but even on this board no-one agrees about what crosses that arbitrary line, so you can't resolve conflict.

I would love to see what a mega-corporation would accomplish without any kind of regulation or oversight.

Ok, look how large companies behave before they are broken up by monopoly courts.  Without regulation a successful company can be too big for a free market competitor to fight.  Say we're talking about Wal-mart, if they had zero regulation.  How in the world would anyone fight a 400 billion per year company if they 'went bad'?  Even with the regulation we have now they already wipe out the business community of small towns they enter.  You couldn't compete, you couldn't undercut their prices, you couldn't out-advertise, they could make it impossible for you to get good locations...businesses can't fight them now.  I dunno man, right now Wal-Mart has the 26th(22nd if you go by the CIA world factbook) highest GDP of any country in the world, double that of Israel(202 billion in 2008).  You don't think they could leverage that to do whatever they wanted in an unregulated world?  I don't know if people really realize the scale of a modern mega corp (you might, I'm not saying you don't).

I'm not anti-corporate, not at all, but you can't have mob rule and you can't have corporate oligarchy either.  There has to be some sort of system for arbitration between the 'classes' of a society that is in some way neutral (or at least looks like it is).

Honestly I don't think we have much to debate in this specific thread.  My point has simply been socialism!=bad in some objective way.  From your posts, I think you would accept that if phrased in a way that didn't set off your socialism alarm.  We can argue about specifics all day long and we'll agree on some things and disagree on others...that is fine.  I'm not out to convince anyone (right now) that some specific program is good or bad, I just want the acknowledgment that mixed systems are a reality.  I don't think most posters are accepting that as a valid point, or that it is even my argument, but you might.  Past that I don't care, I'm not interesting in a mega-thread going through the yay and nay of random government programs that I'm probably not qualified to debate anyway.

I appreciate that you took the time to write a thoughtful reply.

[Jamisjockey]

Whether socialist states have failed or not isn't the real issue (all though almost all western socialist states are failing now, incluidng the US).  The real issue is do individuals have rights over the state, and do individuals have rights to retain thier own earnings?  You either believe that the state has unending power to tax and spend, or you don't. 

[Balog]

British East India Company stood in place of fed.gov for a while, didn't it?

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Hey mellestad, now that your back do you mind answering my question about whether slavery is inherently evil?

[Perd Hapley]

That's not how it works.  Mellestad asks the questions.  The rest of us answer.

Or at least that was my impression, since he never responded to a lot of things I said. 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Well then, while he's at it he can answer you, too.

 

[mellestad]

Hey mellestad, now that your back do you mind answering my question about whether slavery is inherently evil?

I've said I will if you start a new thread about objective morality, I was fairly clear about that and I stated that multiple times.

That's not how it works.  Mellestad asks the questions.  The rest of us answer.

Or at least that was my impression, since he never responded to a lot of things I said. 

I also said to point out anything I failed to respond to.  If I have not covered a question of yours, then follow up so I can answer.  The fact that I've spent a considerable amount of time on this discussion should make it clear that I am not avoiding debate.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I've said I will if you start a new thread about objective morality, I was fairly clear about that and I stated that multiple times.

The question is germane to this thread, so a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer here would suffice, no need for other threads.  You could answer the question here quicker and easier than by creating a new thread or by explaining why you won't answer here.  As it is, it sounds like you're trying to avoid the issue.

So, is slavery evil/wrong?

[mellestad]

Whether socialist states have failed or not isn't the real issue (all though almost all western socialist states are failing now, incluidng the US).  The real issue is do individuals have rights over the state, and do individuals have rights to retain thier own earnings?  You either believe that the state has unending power to tax and spend, or you don't. 

I've been clear in my opinion on this point...as long as citizens can vote for the representatives that are making these decisions, it isn't 'the state' that is making the choice, it is the citizens.  The citizens are free to change the way the government functions when they can muster the political power to get their way.

Citizens, collectively, most certainly do have a right to retain their own earnings.  If you want individuals to be able to make that call at will, you can't be born into any sort of social contract that involves taxation.

As far as I know, the only way for a citizen of any nation to break off their native social contract (well, without commiting a crime) is to emigrate.  I would be curious to know of how a system would be set up any othe way and remain viable.

[mellestad]

The question is germane to this thread, so a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer here would suffice, no need for other threads.  You could answer the question here quicker and easier than by creating a new thread or by explaining why you won't answer here.  As it is, it sounds like you're trying to avoid the issue.

So, is slavery evil/wrong?

I think it does deserve a thread, and I'm not going to start it because it is more likely to survive if someone else makes it.  You could title it, "A Question for Mellestad on Objective Morality".  A yes or no answer is not enough and I know what you would do with either soundbite.  This isn't a msm 'news' show. 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I've been clear in my opinion on this point...as long as citizens can vote for the representatives that are making these decisions, it isn't 'the state' that is making the choice, it is the citizens.  The citizens are free to change the way the government functions when they can muster the political power to get their way.

You must not have noticed that Congress just passed a major health care bill that 3/4 of the people opposed.

 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I think it does deserve a thread, and I'm not going to start it because it is more likely to survive if someone else makes it.  You could title it, "A Question for Mellestad on Objective Morality".  A yes or no answer is not enough and I know what you would do with either soundbite.  This isn't a msm 'news' show.  

Yes or no?

Simple question, simple answer.  Quit dodging.