quote:

Originally posted by Spam and leave it to the people who have the energy, and knowledge, to deal with the discussion in a full and proper manner.

sure, when will they be arriving?

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quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN sure, when will they be arriving?

No idea, the lefties seem to, like... Have jobs, and sleep... And stuff...

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Captain Planet is gey.
Water, Fire, Earth, Wind, Heart???
These forces are supposed to combine to create Captain Planet?
Bullshit.
Those forces combine to create a soaking, boiling mudstorm on Valentine's Day.

quote:

Originally posted by Spam No idea, the lefties seem to, like... Have jobs, and sleep... And stuff...

lols. i really don't see it as a left-right issue. i mean sure, only the far right would equate government regulation to fascism. indeed, as mentioned in the article the label has been watered down by decades of abuse by the left. and now the tables have turned i suppose.

as far as im concerned, throwing around labels in such a way just gives people a poor understanding of what those labels mean (or are meant to mean). you can call your over-sized, over-regulatory government all kinds of things, but fascist isn't one of them.

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quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN lols. i really don't see it as a left-right issue. i mean sure, only the far right would equate government regulation to fascism. indeed, as mentioned in the article the label has been watered down by decades of abuse by the left. and now the tables have turned i suppose. as far as im concerned, throwing around labels in such a way just gives people a poor understanding of what those labels mean (or are meant to mean). you can call your over-sized, over-regulatory government all kinds of things, but fascist isn't one of them.

Of course it's a left-right issue.

When the republicans are in power, the lefties cry about the government being/becoming fascist.

When the democrats are in power, the neo-cons cry about the government being/becoming fascist.

It's like, yin and yang. Life's perfect harmony and all that jazz.

___________________
Captain Planet is gey.
Water, Fire, Earth, Wind, Heart???
These forces are supposed to combine to create Captain Planet?
Bullshit.
Those forces combine to create a soaking, boiling mudstorm on Valentine's Day.

quote:

Originally posted by Spam Of course it's a left-right issue. When the republicans are in power, the lefties cry about the government being/becoming fascist. When the democrats are in power, the neo-cons cry about the government being/becoming fascist. It's like, yin and yang. Life's perfect harmony and all that jazz.

yeah, but its just ridiculous. i don't know how any meaningful discussion can occur at a legislative level when labels are thrown around willy-nilly by them and everyone else. i don't see what sensationalism does for anything.

government regulation, mixed economies, taxation and similar =/ socialism.
government regulation, mixed economies, taxation and similar =/ fascism.

and there are too many loonies on the loose that try and say otherwise.

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quote:

Originally posted by The17sss Again, it's by the author known as Doctor Zero...

Dr Zero obviously has no foundation in any kind of economic theory or he would have pulled his head out of his arsehole long enough to get a whiff of the fact that there is no such thing as a "free market"

All markets, everywhere are regulated by governments and like everything in economics, extremes of control are just has painfully destructive as minimal supervision. You want the happy moderate middle ground of enough room to participate in economic activity without being strangled by red tape.
'Moderate Middle Ground'
Remember this people if you actually get enough of your own money to rub together for anything like real estate, share and other commodity markets.

What some of us are recovering from is an era of US minimal regulation of its markets and even some of its most respected intellectuals extolling the virtues of this minimisation and everyone following them along like sheep going 'its ok, we don't need the safety rails and training wheels'
Well, that didn't work.
See, out here on the capitalist highway, sometimes people forget that they share it with people that get frightened, some that are short sighted and even some that are selfish... then they're the duds who are just too damn stupid to ever be let near anything with a dollar sign on it and they write their own rules of the road as they go.
If they had training wheels, obeyed the rules of the road and safety barriers of regulation, you don't get them falling over in the middle of the road or crashing over the side FOR THEIR OWN DAMN GOOD.
Because once one goes, they all go and for the cautious of us out there, we risk being caught up in their mess when they screw up.

Minimal regulation and flagrant disregard for laws operating a market produced that bubble in the US economy, which inevitably popped and left you stranded in your current position.
You cannot do what you want.

That article was a load of tripe. Seriously? Isn't this the equivalent of posting "well thought out" diaries from DailyKos about how Bush was a dictator or something? A dictator in small doses is still potent... Jesus.

First of all, the author has bit hook line and sinker on the notion that we ever had a completely capitalist system. By his/her basic assumption of capitalism good, anything else bad, he/she has basically written off any form of mixed economy as inherently socialist or, in this case fascist.

Furthermore, I really wish you'd make up your mind as to whether the US is becoming socialist or fascist. It's quite upsetting how Americans these days don't even comprehend the basics of political theory. You don't have to be a political science major, but if you are "self-educated" as DOOMBOT suggests, then you should probably go back and re-read some basic comparative theory.

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Furthermore, isn't the17sss the same exact person who has blamed the Democrats for not giving support to regulating the economy under Bush? Which way would you like it?

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You already know the answer to that question.

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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

I think there's a problem with trying to put labels on something that becomes a side-debate to the real issue which is that many feel that they are being forced to surrender more and more individual freedoms to the government in the name of greater "security." It is a progression towards a more and more powerful nanny state. As a tribute to the late John Hughes: "Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism's in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself."

That said, I found the article to be interesting and thought provoking. I don't think America is headed the way of Nazi Germany or Communist Russia or anything like that, but I think we must always keep a watchful and skeptical eye on what our government is doing. The passage I particularly liked from Dr. Zero's article (why must he go by Dr. Zero? Just put your damn name on the article if you stand behind it!)

quote:

Government is a terrible senior partner for any industry, because it has only one thing to bring to the partnership, and that is compulsive force. Everything government does is an expression of force: it collects taxes under the threat of imprisonment or death, blocks access to markets through licensing, and changes the rules of market competition through regulation. A well-run government uses force to protect its citizens, from external threats and internal lawbreakers. As the size of government swells, so does the amount of force deployed to enforce its will. This is inevitable, because force is what a government is.

And PKC, I usually don't like to respond to you because I think it's a waste of breath, but I have to agree--your MO seems to be to call an argument stupid because it fails to meet your intellectually superior precise definitions of particular terminology, which is to sidestep the real debate, imho, which is that the U.S. government is slowly bleeding away more and more individual liberties under the guise of making the populace more secure. Until one day we wake up and we have forfeited our greatest gifts to the all powerful government. That's the slope I worry about. I don't think we're anywhere close to that, but I think we are dangerously close to starting to meander down that path.

quote:

“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.” -George Washington

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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

quote:

Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov First of all, the author has bit hook line and sinker on the notion that we ever had a completely capitalist system. By his/her basic assumption of capitalism good, anything else bad, he/she has basically written off any form of mixed economy as inherently socialist or, in this case fascist.

Wrong. His basic assumption is that Capitalism is inherantly better than other systems that allow government to exercise an increasing level of control for purposes of their own growth and power... which I believe can be seen throughout history's examples.

quote:

Furthermore, I really wish you'd make up your mind as to whether the US is becoming socialist or fascist. It's quite upsetting how Americans these days don't even comprehend the basics of political theory.

It's not possible for characteristics of both to happen at the same time? I mean, I'm not a political guru like you but even I can recognize that.

quote:

Furthermore, isn't the17sss the same exact person who has blamed the Democrats for not giving support to regulating the economy under Bush? Which way would you like it?

Let's be more specific please. In dealing with the Fannie/Freddie debacle, yes I pointed out the 12 times that Bush tried to enact regulation on that entity as it was obvious things were beginning to spiral out of control, and the 12 times Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, Franklin Raines, and other Democrats who (coincidentally) benefited from NOT having such regulations enacted.