This is as big test for you Tinker. Whether you can be taken seriously again rides on this.
Enki wrote:Free-Market ideology doesn't recognize that the government exists as a mechanism to manage conflicts of interest.
No Tinker. That is but one theoretical aspect of government.
In the reality based universe Government is Cuba, and North Korea, and the KSA, the European powers that created the African slave trade, and Richard Nixon, and Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and Adolf Hitler, and Chairman Mao, and Rudy Guliani.
That is government. That is what we're dealing with here. Do any of the above seem like they got up in the morning and started worrying about managing our conflicts of interest? Or do you think they had other appetites?
The reason your thinking doesn't get off the ground is because you are in denial of these kinds of realities.
It is completely and totally corruptible, but a planet ruled by gangsters who dump poisonous sludge into the groundwater with absolutely no accountability whatsoever is the outcome of 'no government'.
Actually Tinker in parts of the world, even in America, it is the government that actually dumps poisonous sludge in the groundwater. Do you realize that? Do you realize the impact that has on your belief system? Can you acknowledge it and integrate it into your thinking or will you just be denialist about it? You have to address this, it is a major flaw in your belief system.
Government works imperfectly, but it's religious belief to think that it never works at all.
At the end of the day, I have SOME stake in government, I have the ability to impact it somewhat. A private corporation who I am not a shareholder in at all, that's not the case. So the Free-Marketeer wants me to give up what little power I do have to allow juggernauts free reign over a landscape that renders me powerless.
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The largest corporation in the world controls, I don't know, 1% of GDP or so.
Government in total controls nearly a third.
The largest corporation in the world today was not 10 years ago, and the largest one 10 years ago was not 10 years before than, and so on and so on. And the government chugs on.
See the difference? See who the real juggernaut is?
Government is an unwieldy and poorly balanced sword, but it's the only sword I've got. I see the direct effects of Government every day. Things like running water, sewers, trash collection, etc...
See the things you mention here are like 2-3% of government activity. What you appear to be saying, and what I really do think you're saying, is since sewers, then single payer. Uh no, no way.
You often claim libertarians are chaotic anarchists yet your own stated beliefs provide nothing that would stop us from turning into North Korea. I have never seen you say one thing that would lead me to believe that you could stop a North Korea.
Since sewers, then redistribution of wealth. Since sewers then nationalized agriculture. Since sewers then nationalized banks. Since sewers then political education agencies. Since sewers then low performer go to work camps.
By your rationale any power can be given to government. You have provided no rationale to curb the government in any way.
Do you realize that?
I cannot really fathom how someone can not understand the absolutely necessary conditions that government brings about to facilitate those same markets. In an absence of government most of those corporations operating in the so-called 'free-market' simply would not exist at all.
I cannot fathom how you, who can read and write, cannot understand that the right believes in
limits on government, not
no government.
Back when you were trying to fuse libertarians with progressives, you would describe libertarian beliefs, libertarians would say no you have it all wrong and you just wouldn't listen. I cannot tell if this is a tactic on you part or you simply can't understand what people are saying to you.
Limits. It could be that you don't believe in limits, and therefore really can't understand that other people do believe in it. So far, you have never described any way, set any standard by which the government could be limited. I've never seen it. So the issue is, can you conceive the the debate is not about government or no government, but about
government limits?
If it were not for the copyright regime in place, Facebook could not exist. If it weren't for Patent Law, Microsoft, Apple and Google could not exist. If it were not for DARPA, the internet would not exist.
Right. Well within the proper powers of a limited government. The protection of property rights.
If it were not for the interstates, we would not be able to drive cross country as easily as we do.
Traditionally the left has said that the interstates were giant giveaway to car companies, and I cant say that they don't have a point.
The direct effects of government are ready and apparent.
Yes, wars, death, famine, deprivation, oppression. ENORMOUS waste and poverty. Is that what you were referring to?
Whether particular aspects of them are good or bad is another thing. Regulatory capture is not a reason not to have regulations, it's a reason to wrest control of the captured regulators away from those being regulated.
You don't hire a chicken to pull a plow. You don't let John Hagee officiate a Gay Marriage. You don't roast a pig in a coffee maker. You don't put sand in an engine oil pan. You don't hire Barack Obama to close Gitmo. You don't introduce your hot wife to John Edwards.
Similarly, you don't put people in charge of money who's careers are completely dependent on short term political sentiment.
Does that make sense?
Government is not designed to do everything. It can't do everything, and we can talk about why, arguably there are very few things it can do, and therefore should be restricted to that.
So none of this is new, but you talk with regularity as if you've never heard of it before, and we need to find out why.