Politics! (An addendum for your consideration)

"Maxima Speed" (maximaspeed) 02/09/2019 at 14:53 • Filed to: None

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CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > Maxima Speed 02/09/2019 at 14:59

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Maxima Speed > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 02/09/2019 at 14:59

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Of course comrade. :)

CB > Maxima Speed 02/09/2019 at 15:01

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Well this seems like it’ll create reasonable and not at all toxic discussion.

fintail > Maxima Speed 02/09/2019 at 15:02

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Now there’s a non-partisan source

Tristan > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 02/09/2019 at 15:03

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If you say something stupid with enough feeling and conviction in your voice, people will cheer. Just look at AOC.

Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks > Maxima Speed 02/09/2019 at 15:04

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https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/mises-daily/

Factual Reporting: MIXED

The Mises Daily produces news that has a right wing economic bias and sometimes sources to other highly biased right wing sources. Does not always support the consensus of s cience as exampled by anti-science advocate Lew Rockwell serving as Chairman. (7/16/2016) Updated (D. Van Zandt 4/25/2017)

Maxima Speed > Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks 02/09/2019 at 15:06

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I am merely providing a link to a 1940's article for your consideration. There is no reference to science in this one so we should be good :)

Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks > Maxima Speed 02/09/2019 at 15:07

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No, you aren’t. You’re stirring shit.

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > Maxima Speed 02/09/2019 at 15:10

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Anything without restraint is the path to totalitarianism: there are as many examples of capitalism run riot as there are socialism. The political spectrum is a circle -go far enough left or far enough right and you wind up in the same place. The opposite of T otalitarian is M oderate.

gettingoldercarguy > Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks 02/09/2019 at 15:11

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Agreed

gettingoldercarguy > Tristan 02/09/2019 at 15:11

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Ignoring the orange elephant in the room are we?

Maxima Speed > Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks 02/09/2019 at 15:16

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Im genuinely not. Im presenting my viewpoint on a matter that maybe I didn’t express in a manner that was fully consistent with how I feel on the subject . Honestly it was all a bit much and I couldn't keep up with it.

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > Maxima Speed 02/09/2019 at 15:21

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Maybe going full Godwin in the openi ng post of a thread isn’t the best way to do that if you wa n t people to engage with your viewpoint :-).

Maxima Speed > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen 02/09/2019 at 15:23

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Duly noted, it doesn't seem to be working so you might be onto something there.

jimz > Maxima Speed 02/09/2019 at 15:40

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ok, so, what argument are you trying to make by posting that? ‘cos I’m not sure what your link-n-run is supposed to tell us about your beliefs? Yes, I see von Mises wrote a lot of words, but all those words are his opinion. So stretch your brain a bit and tell us what you think that opinion has to do with the world today?

‘cos if you’re going to say it means “progressives” are bad, or that “socialism” is evil because they were the “National Socialist” party, then that screed really doesn’t do that. And it makes claims such as

The Czechs and the Danes capitulated without a fight. Norwegian officers handed over large sections of their country to Hitler’s army. The Dutch and the Belgians gave in after only a short resistance. The French had the audacity to celebrate the destruction of their independence as a “national revival.” It took Hitler five years to effect the Anschluss of Austria; two-and-one-half years later he was master of the European continent.

Hitler does not have a new secret weapon at his disposal. He does not owe his victory to an excellent intelligence service which informs him of the plans of his opponents. Even the much-talked-of “fifth column” was not decisive. He won because the supposed opponents were already quite sympathetic to the ideas for which he stood.

which, to use modern slang, is [ citation needed .] Those countries capitulated because they knew they weren’t anywhere near capable enough to resist.   

DipodomysDeserti > Maxima Speed 02/09/2019 at 15:52

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So you’re saying that since the son of Austrian nobility said that attacks against Austrian capitalists (nobility) helped bring the nazis to power, that socialism is like nazism?

Sounds like you have a pretty good grasp of economic and political theory...

Keep in mind that Mises once referred to Milton Friedman and his Chicago School buddies as socialists. Which is fucking insane.

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > Maxima Speed 02/09/2019 at 16:02

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In the spirit of actually engaging:

I’m from a country (New Zealand) which is a reasonably successful western democracy, but which is by US standards out-there socialist: our centre-right political party would be slightly to the left of the mainstream of your Democrats . We have way more in the way of safety nets and some curtailments of individual rig ht s that many Americans wouldn’t b e happy with,but on the other hand our net tax rate is lower than yours and we rate higher on most international scales of individual and business freedom than the US. ( Not that I’m particularly holding N Z up as a shining example - there’s shit we can ma ke work bec au se we’re small that simply wouldn’t fly at US scale )

With that as context: I genuinely don’t understand why there seems to be a common attitude in US p olitics that any shift of gove rnment policy leftwards of the status quo leads inevitably to disaster and must be resisted at all cos t regardless of the details of the poli cy in question . Pretty much all other w estern democrati c countries are significa n tly left of the US, and it seems to work out OK for them .   There’s a vast difference between having greater government involve me nt in social safety nets and in controlling the tragedy of the commons on the one hand, and the totalitarian com mand-economy BS most Ameri c ans think of when the word socia lism is mentioned on the other .

On the other hand, I ’m aware that this is contrary to the gene ral tenet of republicanism that less government involvement is a good thing on principle. On the Republican side, the numbers seem to suggest that the US isn’t exactly great at small government anyway, which given that you’re not doi ng much of the socia l ist big-government stuff, suggests that there are chunks of government that could be cut back in w ays that wouldn’t upset most of the population overly. But that’s not something Republicans can sugges t without Demo crats goi ng off about unfettered capitalism leading to totalitarianism.

Is there actually any way nowadays that either side can suggest that maybe government should do a bit less of X and a bit more of Y, that could lead to a sensible public discus son of whether less X or more Y were  actually a good thing, rather than it leading directly to a capitalism-communism slang ing match?

(note: that’s actually a genuine question, and not particularly related to the AOC/GND thing, whi c h I’m not across the details of or motivations behind ).

jimz > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen 02/09/2019 at 17:59

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I genuinely don’t understand why there seems to be a commo n attitude in US politics that any shift of government policy leftwards of the status quo leads inevitably to disaster and must be resisted at all cost regardless of the details of the policy in question.

I think the spectre of the Soviet Union still lingers on in the minds of a lot of older people. they literally fear the word “socialism” because the German Bad Guys called themselves National Socialist, and the red Evil Empire was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Nevermind the fact that a name is just a name; North Korea calling itself the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” doesn’t make it a democracy. They literally honestly think the end goal of “socialism” is to control everyone and exterminate large numbers of people. the first part is a common refrain I see a lot, how “libruhls” are bad because they just want to control you. Nevermind the fact that the people saying that usually are perfectly happy to sit in pews on Sunday morning and cede control over their lives to a guy in a robe holding a book.

I hate to say it, but I don’t think things are really going to change much until the majority of the Boomers are gone.  They’re the ones who grew up in prosperity thanks to their parents fighting on the winning side of WWII. They’re the ones who don’t understand that this country is a very different thing already than what it was when they grew up.  

Tristan > gettingoldercarguy 02/09/2019 at 18:07

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Nope.