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Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/12/2008 10:08:02 AM   
kinkbound


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Joined: 9/15/2007
Status: offline 		Is a big, intrusive, all-inclusive, nanny government the ideal?

On the opposite end of the spectrum, can Man, with its inherent prejudice and greed, be trusted to totally self-regulate?

I would say "no" to both, and my guess is that most people would agree that neither extreme would be the ideal. However, if the ideal falls somewhere in-between these two extremes, where should the line be drawn?

If your were empowered to engineer your ideal government, where would you begin? Would you attempt to be fair to all, or would you favor either capital or labor? Can prejudice and greed even be regulated, and if so, should they be?
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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/12/2008 10:19:04 AM   
Musicmystery


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Status: offline 		Can a pretense of a topic be so packed with loaded questions as to beg the question?

yes I said yes I will yes

Molly Bloom

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/12/2008 10:28:30 AM   
NorthernGent


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kinkbound

However, if the ideal falls somewhere in-between these two extremes, where should the line be drawn?



Justice, defence (although limited), health, education.

Health and education require redistribution of wealth. Now, Mill and the classical liberals argued that taxation was a form of robbery. 'Know what, when you sit down and consider this, it's hard to put a case together to refute it.

But, I remain in full support of robbery, all the same. The reason being that there is no democracy where knowledge is owned by special interest groups, which is where we (we being the English) stand today; and the democratisation of knowledge can only ever happen through the redistribution of wealth. No amount of Victorian philanthropy will do the trick. Ultimately, where knowledge is a closed shop, you're open to being a puppet of the sovereign.

So, in my book, government is not some magical organisation that will turn anxious, fearful people into virtuous human beings; it's a convenience to provide people with a platform from which to exercise an informed stake in the nation.

The line is drawn where the majority agree, however.

P.S. Greed is not the root cause of every error of judgement.......sometimes we fuck up because we're limited by our knowledge.....

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/12/2008 10:51:41 AM   
kinkbound


Posts: 387
Joined: 9/15/2007
Status: offline 		Very interesting points, NG, as usual.  

Without question, democracy cannot exist when knowledge is possessed soley by special-interest groups.

I certainly agree with justice and limited defense. I'm less inclined to agree with education and health except in more extreme safety-net situations. I'm assuming here that education means formal education, and not related to the aforementioned knowledge/special interest groups.

Playing the devil's advocate for a moment, if there truly were justice (as in an equitable sense, not necessarily a judicial sense) in a democratic society, would not its able-bodied and able-minded citizens be in a position to manage their own health and education choices and needs?  

< Message edited by kinkbound -- 10/12/2008 10:52:45 AM >

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/12/2008 11:10:54 AM   
NorthernGent


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kinkbound

I'm assuming here that education means formal education, and not related to the aforementioned knowledge/special interest groups.



It does mean formal education. I'm government educated, and I've managed to deduce that sometimes we're deliberately led down a path on the grounds of that which they deem to be in the public interest. A reasonable education is the bedrock of challenging government wisdom. I'd call it the lesser of two evils: better to have a universally decent standard of government education (taking into consideration the obvious flaw), than the inevitable haves and have nots system where education is left to the free market; in other words, you'll get a stab at democracy in the former, and a return to aristocracy and associates in the latter.

quote:

ORIGINAL: kinkbound

Playing the devil's advocate for a moment, if there truly were justice (as in an equitable sense, not necessarily a judicial sense) in a democratic society, would not its able-bodied and able-minded citizens be in a position to manage their own health and education choices and needs?  



As far as I see the redistribution of wealth, the aim is to provide opportunity for all. I accept that it's taking money from one and giving it to another, but it's the lesser of two evils. Government management of health and education is more than acceptable for me, providing the government are truly accountable to the people and the people take an interest in managing the government where they abdicate their duties.

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Sooner or later, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/12/2008 12:22:14 PM   
LadyEllen


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From: Stourport-England
Status: offline 		The inherent problem in replying to such a question is the notion of mankind as a group of identical individuals, when it is more than apparent that there is huge variation in all manner of ways between individuals.

Because of this natural variation, any self regulation of individuals in a society will just as naturally result over time in some individuals achieving greater power and wealth than other individuals, and being so enabled these individuals will tend to use their greater power to ensure their continued higher status to the detriment of those less naturally advantaged. The great advantage of this extreme is that individuals may achieve to their utmost and succeed well, driving progress for the society as a whole, but this comes at the significant disadvantage that other less advantaged individuals will be forever limited in their life prospects, and because those who have achieved success will wish this to be repeated for their offspring and not the offspring of others and they have the power to do so, any individuals in subsequent generations of the less advantaged will not be able to fulfil their potential.

Equally, because of this natural variation the other extreme (the "nanny state") will seek to impose regulations with the intent of neutralising any advantage that some individuals might possess, and thereby rendering a level playing field where all may participate and none be at disadvantage. The problem with this state of affairs however is that to produce equality the regulations must look to the lowest common denominators of variation between individuals, which occasions the deliberate suppression of any individual achievement and so the suppression of any societal advance.

What we need is a way which recognises, promotes and celebrates the natural variations between individuals and a socio-economic system in which no single set of characteristics might mark individuals as potential winners or losers. This means opportunity for all, each according to his/her natural inclinations, not only in education but in terms of eventual participation in the economy. This means in turn, in terms of the current way our economies are organised, that we put in place regulations which would not result in the economic prospects of great swathes of the population being exported elsewhere in order to maximise the success of a small swathe of the population managing that export. One cannot have a healthy society at either extreme if a significant proportion of that population are economically disenfranchised because the natural variation of humankind which they represent has been deemed by others as unwanted.

E

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/12/2008 12:36:41 PM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: NorthernGent

quote:

ORIGINAL: kinkbound

However, if the ideal falls somewhere in-between these two extremes, where should the line be drawn?



Justice, defence (although limited), health, education.

Health and education require redistribution of wealth. Now, Mill and the classical liberals argued that taxation was a form of robbery. 'Know what, when you sit down and consider this, it's hard to put a case together to refute it.



Property was stolen in the first place. You must know Balzac's saying 'Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.' well when you dig and you don't need to usually dig very deep, you find one. You have to remember, where there is private property, that property didn't used to belong to any private person at one time, it usually got into private hands in the first place through theft and conquest. The reason people accept property is because of a social consensus, not because someone has more right to something than someone else. People only have rights as long as the collective holds, as Louis XVI found out, once the consensus collapses, it doesn't matter who the fuck you think you are, you can't count on anything. So its in the interests of everyone (particularly the haves) that people are generally getting enough out of the collective to keep them acquiescent.

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/12/2008 12:44:19 PM   
corysub


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kinkbound

Is a big, intrusive, all-inclusive, nanny government the ideal?

On the opposite end of the spectrum, can Man, with its inherent prejudice and greed, be trusted to totally self-regulate?

I would say "no" to both, and my guess is that most people would agree that neither extreme would be the ideal. However, if the ideal falls somewhere in-between these two extremes, where should the line be drawn?

If your were empowered to engineer your ideal government, where would you begin? Would you attempt to be fair to all, or would you favor either capital or labor? Can prejudice and greed even be regulated, and if so, should they be?


In my opinion, the "ideal government" would take the form of the Constitution of the United States.  The founders of our country had tremendous forsight and judegement in structuring a form of government that borrowed from the Greeks to the British system of law. 

You can never legislate prejudice..but what made our country great is the level of tolerance here that is far superior to anywhere else on the planet.  Groups have thrived here that would have been relegated to storekeepers or farmers back in the old country. Greed...greed is not a crime...unless people are so overcome with greed that they break the laws that protect the rights and property of others.  Than they should be sent away for a long time...something that only applies to poor people it seems and not well financed criminals or the wealthy. "If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit"..and a killer walks free.

The only change I would make would be to legislate "term limits" on everyone in public office.  I think two terms for the President is fine, I think the Senate should have two four year terms as well, starting with the mid-term of a President so the people could change the power of Congress with respect to treaties.  I think Congress should be allowed no more than six years..maybe two three year terms so that they are not running for re-election the first day after they are sworn in.  The biggest problem is that Congress has become the absolute acme of the "Peter Principle".  Republican and democrat legislators are mostly in safe districts and while control shifts on the margin, generally we see the same old faces for decades getting more and more power under the present system, committee chairs, etc...and so someone like Pelosi, who was elected from a "left of center" district with under 300,000 votes, controls what comes to the floor and what doesn't.  Nowhere are people in the Congress moved up to positions of power based on intelligence or ability to perform for the public good...it's all "seniority".

Of course..this is all fanatasy...but an interesting question nonetheless.

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/12/2008 12:54:04 PM   
Hippiekinkster


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Status: offline 		FR

We already have term limits; they're called "elections".

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/12/2008 12:59:34 PM   
Musicmystery


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quote:

You can never legislate prejudice


Of course you can. The U.S. Constitution started by defining African-Americans as fractions of people (3/5 if memory serves). And what about the Jim Crow laws? Or Apartheid?

< Message edited by Musicmystery -- 10/12/2008 1:00:14 PM >

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/12/2008 1:04:36 PM   
Owner59


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From: Dirty Jersey
Status: offline 		What about when the "private" sector does so badly that the gov.(us,the tax payer) must buy huge chunks of the private market,or die?

Just wondering....

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/12/2008 1:15:06 PM   
Musicmystery


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Status: offline 		59,

I don't see anything on this thread that relates to your question, so I'm guessing you're asking about financial issues on other threads. But as this thread's topic is so broad, what the hell.

Two factors are at work--

1) Indeed, private companies made poor decisions based on purchasing ill-made loans and ill-made bundles of securitized loans
2) The resulting smokescreen means legit institutions can't even be comfortable lending to other legit institutions, because sizable loans can abruptly be in default, and no one wants to get stuck and be the next to go under.

The issue is the credit markets---currently, we run the risk of NO market. The measures passed in the U.S. and abroad are attempts at restoring enough confidence to continue those markets (i.e., institutions willing to borrow and lend).

Are these approaches shots in the dark and probably ill-conceived? Yup. Can we just wait and let everybody sit on their cash until all the dust settles? Not without serious freezing of the economy.

A dilemma to be sure. A mess that could have and should have been prevented--but that was then, this is now.

Live well,

Tim

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/13/2008 9:05:23 PM   
kinkbound


Posts: 387
Joined: 9/15/2007
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quote:

...I'm government educated, and I've managed to deduce that sometimes we're deliberately led down a path on the grounds of that which they deem to be in the public interest...


Sometimes I think that we're deliberately led down the path to be obedient little taxpayers. Then I ponder who this benefits most.

quote:

...A reasonable education is the bedrock of challenging government wisdom. I'd call it the lesser of two evils: better to have a universally decent standard of government education (taking into consideration the obvious flaw), than the inevitable haves and have nots system where education is left to the free market; in other words, you'll get a stab at democracy in the former, and a return to aristocracy and associates in the latter...


Interesting thought. It seems to me that even under the current system, those who can afford the top-tiered ivy-leaugue schools are those who go on to be a part of the controlling class. So in many ways, we already have a have and have-not structure.  

quote:

As far as I see the redistribution of wealth, the aim is to provide opportunity for all. I accept that it's taking money from one and giving it to another, but it's the lesser of two evils.


Hypothetically speaking, if the current powers-that-be are willing, would it be possible to create an equitable system where a true level playing field exists for all, and only a minimal safety net is structured for those physically or mentally disabled, or orphaned minors?   

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/13/2008 9:17:49 PM   
rexrgisformidoni


Posts: 578
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Status: offline 		I'm going to become either a pirate or nomad. Citizen of nowhere, plunderer of everywhere. 

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/13/2008 9:22:04 PM   
kinkbound


Posts: 387
Joined: 9/15/2007
Status: offline
quote:

The inherent problem in replying to such a question is the notion of mankind as a group of identical individuals, when it is more than apparent that there is huge variation in all manner of ways between individuals. Because of this natural variation, any self regulation of individuals in a society will just as naturally result over time in some individuals achieving greater power and wealth than other individuals, and being so enabled these individuals will tend to use their greater power to ensure their continued higher status to the detriment of those less naturally advantaged.


But isn't that pretty much the same result we now have under our socialistic societies?

quote:

The great advantage of this extreme is that individuals may achieve to their utmost and succeed well, driving progress for the society as a whole, but this comes at the significant disadvantage that other less advantaged individuals will be forever limited in their life prospects, and because those who have achieved success will wish this to be repeated for their offspring and not the offspring of others and they have the power to do so, any individuals in subsequent generations of the less advantaged will not be able to fulfil their potential.


This leads me back to my earlier thought about the offspring of the ruling class attending the top-tiered ivy-league schools, to perpetuate the ruling class.

quote:

Equally, because of this natural variation the other extreme (the "nanny state") will seek to impose regulations with the intent of neutralising any advantage that some individuals might possess, and thereby rendering a level playing field where all may participate and none be at disadvantage. The problem with this state of affairs however is that to produce equality the regulations must look to the lowest common denominators of variation between individuals, which occasions the deliberate suppression of any individual achievement and so the suppression of any societal advance.


Ah... a different perspective of what a "level playing field" could be. Not necessarily creating truly equal opportunity for all, but rather making all citizens equal in status and income instead. What a horrid system that would be!

quote:


What we need is a way which recognises, promotes and celebrates the natural variations between individuals and a socio-economic system in which no single set of characteristics might mark individuals as potential winners or losers. This means opportunity for all, each according to his/her natural inclinations, not only in education but in terms of eventual participation in the economy.


And in your opinion, what would be the most critical change needed to effect such a system?

quote:

 This means in turn, in terms of the current way our economies are organised, that we put in place regulations which would not result in the economic prospects of great swathes of the population being exported elsewhere in order to maximise the success of a small swathe of the population managing that export. One cannot have a healthy society at either extreme if a significant proportion of that population are economically disenfranchised because the natural variation of humankind which they represent has been deemed by others as unwanted.



Now you're suggesting the implementation of protectionism and tight borders. What negatives might this entail?

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/13/2008 9:22:47 PM   
SummerWind


Posts: 314
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quote:

ORIGINAL: kinkbound

Is a big, intrusive, all-inclusive, nanny government the ideal?


Nope....fought a revolution to not have one
quote:


On the opposite end of the spectrum, can Man, with its inherent prejudice and greed, be trusted to totally self-regulate?

nope....countless examples of the misuse of political power for self gain

quote:


If your were empowered to engineer your ideal government, where would you begin?

Lawyers and Lobbyists would become part of the Fish and Game hunting code......

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/13/2008 9:29:03 PM   
kinkbound


Posts: 387
Joined: 9/15/2007
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quote:

Property was stolen in the first place. You must know Balzac's saying 'Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.' well when you dig and you don't need to usually dig very deep, you find one. You have to remember, where there is private property, that property didn't used to belong to any private person at one time, it usually got into private hands in the first place through theft and conquest.


Indeed, the acquisition of much land in the world has been accompanied by rape, plunder, and pillaging.

quote:

The reason people accept property is because of a social consensus, not because someone has more right to something than someone else. People only have rights as long as the collective holds, as Louis XVI found out, once the consensus collapses, it doesn't matter who the fuck you think you are, you can't count on anything. So its in the interests of everyone (particularly the haves) that people are generally getting enough out of the collective to keep them acquiescent.


It's pretty hard to argue that point. There's no doubt in my mind that the ruling class wouldn't want to see the natives to get too restless.

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/13/2008 9:35:44 PM   
kinkbound


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Joined: 9/15/2007
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quote:

In my opinion, the "ideal government" would take the form of the Constitution of the United States.  The founders of our country had tremendous forsight and judegement in structuring a form of government that borrowed from the Greeks to the British system of law. 


I often wonder what our system would be like today, if those founding fathers had only defined money, and identified who should create it, and for who's benefit.

They defined the dollar, but they never defined money.

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/13/2008 9:42:41 PM   
rexrgisformidoni


Posts: 578
Joined: 9/20/2008
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quote:

ORIGINAL: kinkbound

quote:

In my opinion, the "ideal government" would take the form of the Constitution of the United States.  The founders of our country had tremendous forsight and judegement in structuring a form of government that borrowed from the Greeks to the British system of law. 


I often wonder what our system would be like today, if those founding fathers had only defined money, and identified who should create it, and for who's benefit.

They defined the dollar, but they never defined money.


money is things we don't really need. or reasons to punch people or get drunk and beat people up.


_____________________________

when all you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like nails

“I am the punishment of God...If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.”

Genghis Khan

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RE: Where Should the Line Be Drawn? - 10/14/2008 12:06:07 AM   
corysub


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

quote:

You can never legislate prejudice


Of course you can. The U.S. Constitution started by defining African-Americans as fractions of people (3/5 if memory serves). And what about the Jim Crow laws? Or Apartheid?


Music, you parsed half the sentence, but that's ok.  I was discussing my current view on creating an ideal government based on the original Constitution. I should have updated to include amendments that significantly improved upon the strong foundation laid by the originial signers in "their time". Of course, as far as positive amendments, I would not include the 18th in that category. :)  So, in that respect, you are right, and I stand corrected.

Everyone has some sort of prejudice..and that's what I meant.  Prejudice goes beyond or between race on race...it occurs at some level within and between every race, between ethnic groups,  religions, fat and skinny people, and I guess in just about everything human beings do.  Prejudice of some sort is a fact of life, something that is not legislatable...while legislation does make it "legal". The question is whether personal prejudices impact on the "civil rights of others" and that would not be allowed in my "Ideal" government.

(in reply to Musicmystery)
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