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It's Still Not My Fault and I Feel Your Pain
From The Daily Capitalist
The State of the Union
I will say that President Obama is pretty good at this speech stuff. Remember last year when Professor Obama said that the adults are now in charge and we're going to clean up the mess the kids made? This year had a much different tone. At times he almost sounded humble. Thank you, Massachusetts.
This time he hit right to the heart of what his pollsters and advisers were saying: "It's the economy, stupid." He didn't even get to health care until he was about half way through his speech. But he says he understands what we're going through and the government is going to save us. Again. He said "we" (I guess that means his administration) prevented another depression. Thanks a lot. I think.
He launched right into the banks and said we're not going to put up with that sh*t anymore. Not really, but it sure felt like he was mad at them.
All the rest were the usual ornaments that politicians love to decorate the legislative Christmas tree with. This program for small businesses, a tax credit for that, green jobs, "China’s not waiting to revamp its economy ... Well I do not accept second-place for the United States of America," free college stuff, a jobs bill, energy independence, more stimulus, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Actually he did say something good about nuclear power and offshore drilling. "Tough choices," he said. Fair enough.
Much of what he said was the usual thing that presidents say:
I have never been more hopeful about America’s future than I am tonight. Despite our hardships, our union is strong. We do not give up. We do not quit. We do not allow fear or division to break our spirit. In this new decade, it’s time the American people get a government that matches their decency; that embodies their strength.
He kept calling it Bush's recession over and over and over. I'll give him that. But both parties were equally culpable. It just happened to crash on Bush's watch. But it gets old when he has to keep reminding us that it wasn't his fault. He has no clue.
So here we are in Year 2 of Obama and we need another jobs bill because the first one didn't work. Please! These guys never examine their premises.
The almost funny part when he said, dead serious, "[E]ven as health care reform would reduce our deficit, it’s not enough to dig us out of a massive fiscal hole in which we find ourselves." This is why we're in trouble. He and the Democrats actually believe this.
He noted that we are headed for massive deficits:
So let me start the discussion of government spending by setting the record straight. At the beginning of the last decade, America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion. By the time I took office, we had a one year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program. On top of that, the effects of the recession put a $3 trillion hole in our budget. That was before I walked in the door.
His solution to runaway spending and the financial collapse of Medicare and Social Security? – a bipartisan commission. This is not good. Until they understand that they are the problem the result will be massive tax increases because politicians can't cut spending. Besides, it's not his fault.
He did get to the point that he will pull out of Iraq by August. I have my doubts that it will happen, but it's fine with me: let's go home. Most foreign policy issues were an afterthought.
The ending of the speech was was pretty good. It was meaningless but he says meaningless things so well. You will recall that several minutes went by and no one clapped or hooted as he basked in the glow of America's greatness and how we're not afraid of hard work. Reminds of me Bush ("It's tough. It's hard work").
And then there was the usual ending all presidents leave us with: hope.
We have finished a difficult year. We have come through a difficult decade. But a new year has come. A new decade stretches before us. We don’t quit. I don’t quit. Let’s seize this moment – to start anew, to carry the dream forward, and to strengthen our union once more.
Wow.
What I really dislike about him is how he always frames the argument in terms of what he even referred to in his speech as "false choices." He keeps setting up the opposition as straw men and then knocks them down. How can that be bipartisan? He took a dig at the Republicans saying that he's waiting for some good ideas about health care from them. That should tell you something about his agenda.
I see Congressional stagnation which is a good thing.
Obama won't change. And I hope he doesn't. A move to the center might win him a second term.
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We’re headed for another depression, says Peter Schiff. Some quotes from The Precarious State of Our Union:
“The President spoke optimistically about the future, but in reality there is little evidence to support such an upbeat outlook. He began his speech by assuring us that the worst of the storm had passed. General Custer may have said something similar when the first wave of Indian attacks ebbed at Little Big Horn…
“To lead us back to brighter days, he articulated a vision of a centrally planned recovery, where clean energy and a Soviet style five-year plan to double our exports would make our economy preeminent once more. He fails to understand that the only reason our economy rose to the top in the first place is that the government left it alone…
“Rather than tightening the reins on the reckless monetary policy that undermined our savings, diminished our industrial output, inflated asset bubbles, and led to reckless speculation on Wall Street and excess consumption on Main Street, we are loosing them further. Rather than repealing regulations that distort markets and create moral hazards, we are adding new ones that do more of the same. Rather than cutting government spending to reduce the burden it places on our economy, we are increasing both the amount of the spending and the size of the burden. Rather than making government smaller so that the private sector can grow, we are making government bigger and forcing the private sector to shrink. Rather than paying off our debts we are taking on even more. Rather than encouraging people to save we are enticing them to spend. Rather than creating jobs, we are merely creating unemployment benefits.
“As a result, instead of seeding the soil for a real recovery we are setting the stage for a prolonged depression.”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/schiff/schiff70.1.ht
http://www.lewrockwell.com/schiff/schiff70.1.html
okay, there is a lot I like about Schiff and I agree with his belief our economy is about to tank it...but this statement "...He [Obama] fails to understand that the only reason our economy rose to the top in the first place is that the government left it alone…" is just factually, historically incorrect.
Even Schiff notes that the later 40s, 50s and 60s were the best of economic times in the US. Guy with a HS educ could get job, buy a house, raise a family of four and retire with nice pension...no sweat. Not quite like that these days. While I don't put a lot of stake govt programs helping one way or another, one would have to admit the US had these good times at least in spite of, if not because of, a time of high income taxes, high business taxes, strong protections for unions, strong labor protection legislation, many social programs leftover from the 30s, heavy regulation of banks, airlines, other businesses.
Now, I tend to think our economic good times in the 50s and 60s were mostly due to our global competition being wiped out in WWII and the fact that we essentially inherited Europe and Japans colonies from which we got super cheap commodities for a while, and that we also had demographics of baby boom on our side in terms of many young to support the old.
However, those good times did not just go to some banker class, they were spread amongst everyone via flat incomes (unions, high taxes on rich), democratic corporate structure (stock owners called the shots not a insider elite management class), social programs for elderly/disabled such as Soc Sec, and heavy regulations on businesses. I contend that flat incomes produce a more dynamic economy than one with concentrated wealth, but you do not have to agree with this larger point to see my refute of Schiff's statement...the US prospered greatly in 50s and 60s, at the least, in spite some very lefty policies at the time.
Of course there were other mitigating economic factors then govt size and regulations on business, but I think its way too simple-minded to say all our economic success occurred when we were closest to the libertarian ideal of no regulations and low taxes and all economic failures have come from too much regulation and to much taxation, in fact, if you plotted it, low regulation and low taxes would be negatively correlated to economic good times (not that this is necessarily causal, but it is certainly not causal the other way if its a negative correlation).
There is a lot more going on than just typical partisan claims, I wish we could see past this and agree on the more populist ideas we share rather than flipping back and forth thru establishment Repubs and Dems. Like the Repub Congress and Bush prez control from 2000-2006 did so much to improve this country's economy and financial system that we now need to return to that with great haste. Clinton and Rubin/Summers and his Repub Congress, Bush and Paulson and his Repub and Dem Congresses, and Obama and his Dem Congresses have all sold out to the banksters and the libertarian solution of lowering taxes and lessening regulations is not the fix to this aspect of this mess, nor is a Dem prez or a Repub prez like the last three guys any sort of solution...we need a populist who is willing to fight fraud, cut off the financial parasites, and return free and fair markets to us.
Schiff has some great counter financial-culture ideas but he is too much of simple ideologue for me. Anyone who boils this down to all "too much big government", or "too little government", is just being too rigidly partisan for me and not looking history and the performance of other countries/systems around us with an open mind to see what works and what does not.
Which version of history are you talking about?
Oh, the public school version, where they convince human beings that the most simple solution just can't be the right one. If it doesn't sound complicated then it probably needs another six to eight months of meetings and dealings.
Social programs only work if you give the guy a fishing pole. Stealing the fish off of a producers plate to give the guy that just wants to feel sorry for himself has gotten us where we are now. But what am I talking about! Taxes shmaxes! When you have a fiat printing press taxes become a means to a social-manipulation end anyway. It was never about the money - and all about the control.
agreed 100%
The american dream used to be paid for with cash by even the avg joes..but now it is JUST a dream for them ... even with maxxin credit they aren't getting what their parents got
and their moms didnt even have to work...the math is jacked up. The 'middle' is what? $40,000? that is what it was 20 years ago..you have to make double that to feel you have ANY control in your life now
Exactly.
It is disastrous that the discussion seems to go down the path of "THIS IS YOUR FAULT, PRICK!" instead of "What are the economy's current problems? How were they caused? What can we do to fix this?"
I used to think that Schiff was a better thinker. After reading that article, I have to agree with you. He is just a simple ideologue.
Its going to take a few more months for political leaders in the West to figure out that the fiat money system has vaporized.
Due to intellectual inertia, the "right" and the "left" are still squabbling over taxes, benefits, healthcare ...
Once it becomes clear that the money supply is going to zero as debt goes "poof" - the discourse will change - radically.
The political structure in the West - and the "big government" state that has grown up around and through it - like an invasive vine - has just been cut off at the root.
Soon enough, there will be no delusion that "targeted tax cuts" can suffice. Spending cuts "next year" - except for military spending and entitlement programs which are imagined to be off the table - will be recognized as pointless.
In the West, debt is money. Or more accurately, debt WAS money. When the money supply goes "poof" - there's no income to tax. You end up with parabolic increases in bankruptcies, foreclosures, lawsuits, and congressional hearings.
Now that the Central Banks have come to the end of their line - there is no alternative but to RADICALLY cut back the size and scope of the state - and I mean by >80% across the board - with NOTHING being "off the table." Without radical debt and tax relief for the private economy, the money supply basically falls to zero.
To "save the state" - the bankers are going to have to double the money supply and FORCE it into circulation. That's a recipe for hyper-inflation, and everybody knows it.
The surreal tone in the financial markets is caused by a universal recognition that the Western political state has died, and attendant fiat currencies and financial assets have no real lasting value.
Everyone is a speculator now. And the speculation is "how does all of this fall apart?"
a) quickly, through a deflationary collapse, massive reduction in the state, and radical debt and tax relief for the private economy?
b) quickly, through a hyperinflationary force-feeding of even more debt (or "money if you can still bend your mind into believing that debt is money) into the system?
c) over the next few years - as governments forestall adjustments toward equilibrium through market interference, state take-overs, and institution of a global government controlled by bankers
*
None of these options provides an environment in which the private sector will voluntarily commit new capital toward economic grown (and you can just forget about people going into debt).
And each option will lead to a comprehensive destruction of the value of financial assets which constitute the "retirement plans" for hundreds of millions of families in Europe and in the United States.
*
Fiat-money is intellectual dishonesty. Karma is a bitch.
That was a great rant Madcow. I will be looking for more here at ZH.
Good points, if the TPTB are stupid enough to let this happen in the near term...but take a look at Zimbabwe now...it is a nation without national debt, little personal debt unless its brand new and they are recovering quite nicely now. Deflation and/or hyperinflation are hard and people starve while its happening, but if the TPTB really loses control, after few horrible years, it will be jubilee. Worse case scenario if partial collapse ala great depression.
well instead of totally handing the money directly to the public they should at least put in a massive public works/infrastructure/nuke plants program before we dissolve the dollar with hyper inflation
that way no one has to 'waste money' on any of it like people feel doing it now is
With a Police State mentality - a prison planet of hyper-surveillance, tracking, and predictive behavior models to root out dissent.
This doesn't get any better until we wrench our country back from the tyrants.
Agreed, just trying to be optimistic occasionally...I do think secrets will be revealed and people in high places will be made low...
+1
It is MY pain....
And YOUR ignorance....
Mr. O
The SOTU was perhaps the most disgusting speech ever written. At a time when a nation was begging for grown-ups to get together for real solutions they not only drove the wedge deeper they also nailed it in place.
But watching Hillary drag this joker into a primary battle that will leave them both looking like the victim of a pitbull and will be pure comedy. The CLintons will just not go away. This time I'll be grateful.
yeah he is SOOO for health care that he exiled Hillary and her reform outta the country while he didn't even have one and has the Senate & House come up with joke plans and stall it out
sounds like a plan went as planned by Rham and his boys..kill health care but use it to distract from the money funnel to his friends on wall street
and the repubs were in on it too by puttin palin on tour and burying ron paul.... tea party with palin??? no paul??? disgrace on both sides
This comment seems to be from 2007.
LOL! In one breadth you claim Obama does nothing but cater to big business and bankers and in another you claim he is marching us to socialism?! This is why the GOP is viewed as the great unwashed inbreds of society. They have consistently failed everytime they've been in power and their only strategy is to scream "socialism" just like they did when we were building the nation's highways, schools, water treatment plants, etc. And keep in mind it was the Bush administration that shoveled trillions of tax dollars to bankers, TARP was a Bush administration bailout. You guys have become nothing but a party of old bitter uneducated trailer park inbreds. I probably pay about 10 times as much in taxes per year than you earn in total, but of course I'm the one who is defending a "socialist" in which case it means you are the welfare queen living off my dime.
You pay taxes ? The "rich" don't pay taxes. You better spend some of your money on tax lawyers to shuffle your earnings out of the country.
After all, only the little people pay taxes...
Such anger. I would agree with you about the GOP, but don't see much difference between them and the Democrats. I'm glad you're happy paying your taxes. Tell us how much.
Wow! Hey guys, we've got a rich elitist here spouting off, and bragging about his money. Of course the rich defend socialists as they carry on with their looting of the middle class they so effectively pander to. The Barbara Steisand and Al Gore socialists; capitalism for me, socialism for the masses.
We need 'rich' socialists - they are the only ones with a voice. Unfortunately, America has socialism for the uber-rich - a rigged game!
Niiiiiiiice.
Have a high opinion of yourself, do you? I don't see many conservatives leeching off the dole. Just look to Detroit.
Scrap Medicare, SS, and lawyers.
oh you are so wrong. around here (north florida) there are many "cultural conservatives" getting food stamps.
He's being somewhat honest. Medicare is dead if we can't expand the bene pool to include young pups that don't burn as much cash out and can be bled for nice premiums in.
I like this quote at the headline top of this piece
"This administration and the Democratic leadership is marching us toward European-style welfare socialism and seem incapable of compromise."
Marching? They are marching towards socialism?
That connotes progress and the strength of an army.
Whether its due to Obama admin/Dems in congress incompetence or conservatives excellent resistance, Dems and Obama admin have been trying to forward an agenda that is factually to the right of of all European nations, and they have done nothing except a stim bill that was have tax cuts/credits and quarter UI support and quarter infrastructure spending. More spending than Repubs would have wanted, but far from a socialist revolution...had they done stim with no tax cuts and credits, maybe you could call it way left..
European nations have health care systems that range from UK total govt system, to single payer insurance/private providers like Medicare for all/Canada-type system, to a mix of universal coverage from private and public insurance and private and public providers. If the current HCR bill was passed, which Dems have been singularly poor in making happen, it would leave US with a system still to the right of the most rightward European HC system, Switzerland. Sure, it is a move to the left for the US and many do not agree we should reform our private system, but trying unsuccessfully to move to somewhere to the right of Swiss HCR is not exactly "marching toward European socialism". When Congress passes single-payer and w have Canada's type of health care system and start talking about the providers also being govt employees (like UK or our Vet system), only then could one say we were marching towards UK socialism...
but til then, I say Obama, on his way to try giving us Swiss Health Care system has instead walked us into quick sand, and its not likely we will even arrive to the right of the Swiss, but stay here in the sand. Hardly marching.
Mutt:
Socialism? Well, perhaps more welfare statism. You have a point. A top-down system like the UK or Canada would be socialism. The system proposed by the Democrats has elements of top-down to mandatory insurance more like France. It is coercive in either case. By "marching" I suppose I can be accused of literary license. But, I believe Obama and the Democrats have an agenda which combines elements of socialism, welfare statism, and corporatism. They are desperate to achieve these goals before they lose their majority status.
MM,
Put your ear to the ground for a moment. Yeah. You hear that?
http://marketoracle.co.uk/images/2010/Jan/us-collapse-18-11.gif
It doesn't sound like marching because the you don't hear the rocket launched from the UAV until after it blows your car/house/wedding to smithereens.
Socialist revolutions are never about the people - that's the lie of socialism. They tell the people that thousands of extrajudicial executions are for their benefit. We won't have a socialist revolution in the parts of the country where legal firearm ownership is relatively high - those kind of people don't like being told what to do by busy-bodies. The HCR debate isn't about the people either - it's about furthered control and higher profits.
I have friends that ask me, "What's so bad about socialism?" Well, you eventually run out of other people's money and the whole show is fronted by a lunatic that cares not for human life.
Agreed - this guy is no socialist - he is Bush in disguise - all for the status quo and can't pay off the bankers quick enough. He's also impotent - unable to pass anything - and anything he wants to pass is irrelevant. A socialist would immediately have gone in and capped interest rates on credit cards and banned unsolicited overdraft charges. He would have eliminated mortgage interest rate deductions from income. All easy 'socialist' measures. He would have gradually reduced the age requirement for qualifying for Medicare from 65 downwards. He would have brought troops home from Germany -- maybe even considered declaring 'victory' in Afghanistan and getting out. Unfortunately, he is no socialist - that is the big big disappointment in the US President.
You’re right. These days it’s just impossible to find a socialist. All Obama wants is for individuals and small businesses to have greater opportunity. Economic freedom! This guy is a Thomas Paine if I’ve ever seen one. I can’t think of anyone who’d want to take other people’s money to give to other people’s programs. Can you? If it weren’t for Obama’s MSM tag as “Mr. Charisma,” I’d think he was a duplicate of Robert Taft—he’s antiwar, he hates welfare spending… I bet if the truth were known, he was secretly running small businesses before he ran for the U.S. Senate. Probably had a paper route in Hawaii. And he grew up and used the money from his paper route to buy some sort of mail order business. And to think these foul-mouthed conservative would mistake him for a socialist!
One of the things we noticed was that it was the Bush supporters who put Obama in office. You remember what they said. "He’s just like Bush but he can give a better speech!!" And it was just a trick that the minorities lined up to vote for McCain, trying to make the election look close... Has anybody ever investigated those exit polls?
Woo... Guess I better get out the maximum strength sarcasm remover...
my feeling too. it is comical to hear obama compared with mao or stalin. he doesn't compare with roosevelt or lyndon johnson (except afghanistan looks a lot like vietnam).
Hoover.
A move to the center would simply confirm that Obama's a republican for anyone who doubts this, it would alienate his "base" of progressives (which he has ignored since the election anyway) but probably make him a one term wonder. Come on - the guy's done nothing but shovel billions at big bankers and defense contractors. His perpetual outreach for "bi-partisanship" assures nothing being done about any serious issues to reign in investment bank fraud; his justice department continues to do nothing to investigate the people who gave AAA ratings to junk bonds. Obama is a much sharper tool of elite wealth than Bush was, but he's still the tool of the status quo. The game today pits the left side of the Stanford Binet bell curve against the right side of the curve - Obama's as far to the right on that distribution as Bush was the left - while the looting goes on unobserved by the great hump of "average" in the center.
Yes, while there are points here with which one might agree, Econophile's grasp of the whole question seems bounded both by the infantile Republico/TeaParty notion that Obama is simply a Marxist of the POUM variety and a presupposition that an utter reliance on natural forces, like some maniacal faith healer's refusal of medical intervention when proffered, will somehow carry the day. It is simply the worst sort of collaborationism to cast either this speech or the economic crisis with which it purported to deal in terms of some imaginary right/left dynamic. The interminable hubbub about "partisanship" in the media is a calculated distraction, a smokescreen intended to obscure the monolithic character of the ruling class. Come on, Econophile.
Mass media is doing its paid-for job to ostracize or marginalize any political movement that would disrupt or accelerate The Plan of the Fabians. POUM was just the flavor of the month to get people to accept looting as a means to get perceived benefits. Same thing going on now.
Look at Black approval of Obama. Now that's what I call positive racism! Like I said, perceived benefits.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/121199/obama-weekly-job-approval-demographic-...
That amorphous movement, labeled by FOX as TeaParty, and by MSNBC as TeaBagger, is comprised of disenfranchised, marginalized political orphans that are actually starting to wake up to the reality of Fabian Socialism - Libertarians and moderate/centrist groups are enjoying the new company but getting people with no hope (a "jay oh bee") on the horizon to accept free-market principals and principles is a difficult prospect when socialistic mal-investment and preferential protectionism were the main reasons many of them had their j.o.b. for so long in the first place.
Without property rights there is no "natural force" in the economy. No one can make a natural decision - their worm gets snatched right out of their beak. The Mass win was simple a NO! to the current situation - it will be voting for the lesser of two evils until We exercise our birthright to "alter or abolish".
"That amorphous movement, labeled by FOX as TeaParty, and by MSNBC as TeaBagger, is comprised of that are actually starting to wake up to the reality of Fabian Socialism."
Is it that these "disenfranchised, marginalized political orphans" are "starting to wake up to the reality of Fabian Socialism" or is it that neo-conservatives, the RNC and Nazi radio have put words into their mouths. I strongly suspect the latter. Admittedly, libertarianism is politically marginalized - largely for its peace and anti-imperial emphases - but as much is true for every other shade of political opinion that incurs the opprobrium of the ruling class. Of itself, libertarianism, with its almost psycho-pathological absolutising of moral and economic relativism, could hardly attract a following as large as reported here. The odour of Republican manipulation and the presence of Republican operatives in the "movement" is now so obvious that the withdrawal of Republican speakers from a planned, major, February Tea Party conclave has all but doomed it! Orphans these people may be, but libertarian in any convicted sense they are not. Led now by the Glenn Becks and the Krauthammers, they are of the same raw material as they were in their Sturmabteilung iteration in 1923-1934. The Nazis made virtually the self-same complaints about Marxism, you know.
Andrei:
Your comment says a lot about you! You couldn't be more wrong. Libertarianism is an intellectual movement founded on the principle of natural law (Hume and Locke) and free market capitalism (A. Smith down to the Austrians). You might want to read something before you make such silly comments.
"Your comment says a lot about you!"
Now I'm crestfallen. And here I'd thought it said so much about you. :-)
"Libertarianism is an intellectual movement founded on the principle of natural law (Hume and Locke) and free market capitalism (A. Smith down to the Austrians)."
So you won't embarrass yourself again quite as blatantly as you have in this instance, the state of pure nature and the principle of natural law on which it is based in Hobbes and Locke were hypothetical, that is to say abstractions and in no way real, good sir. Is one to assume, then, that the whole of libertarianism has its basis in fantasy? Now who might it be that's been making silly comments?
Oh, Andrei,
First, I said Hume and Locke, not Hobbes.
Second, not sure if I understand your point about "abstraction." Are you saying that truth can only be found through empirical analysis? I refer you to the concept of a priori analysis.
My point was that I don't think you have a grasp on "libertarianism."
Thanks for your comments.
I meant to say Hume, not Hobbes. My apologies.
My point here is simply this, that the notion of a pure state of nature was never considered by these thinkers to be anything more than a mere hypothesis. To them it existed solely in the abstract. It was simply a point of departure, and as such shared all the limitations imposed on this kind of construct. And similarly, one suspects, the libertarian vision if its foundational idea is grounded in this same abstraction, in this false nostalgia for an imagined, more pristine primitive state. This idea has absolutely no basis in objective reality, in human history as it were. One almost gasps in amazement how such thinking gets built into the quasi-religion that libertarianism has become. The ethereal is a poor place to plant ones feet, I'm sure you'd concede.
This is what I mean by being dishonest. Your vitriolic posts have no basis in objective reality. You make what is very simple into something more complicated - you ridicule the right of people to be left alone - that is the essence of recognizing that all human beings have the right to travel and interact with anyone, anywhere - without restriction. That is freedom. That is liberty.
The Constitution sets forth the principles that limit a government's ability to impose on human activity. A government can never "give" rights that human beings already have - they can only take them away. The reason it is absurd to consider Libertarians as anti-government is because critics dishonestly ignore the message: stay within your limits, or else.
Agreed. The parallels you have made with German history in previous posts make perfect sense in the psychological view of things.
I'm not sure exactly what you are positing, but I agree that if a politician doesn't promise freebies they don't get many votes.
"I'm not sure exactly what you are positing, but I agree that if a politician doesn't promise freebies they don't get many votes."
Without wishing in any exhaustive way to get into an analysis of tenets of libertarian ideology, let it suffice to say that so much of its emphasis is placed on a vision of individual political liberty that for all practical purposes it makes an absolute of it, much like beauty or truth. So much so, in fact, that the state itself, a neutral moral reality by any sane measure, is actually accorded moral agency, a phenomenon elsewhere viewed as the exclusive possession of the human person. So radical is the anti-state faith and consequent moral relativism of libertarians that one easily could see the comfort an abject sociopath might enjoy in it. These are views, of course, that are antithetical to those held by a very great majority of people and, once grasped, would be utterly rejected by them. In effect, that's what I was positing.
As an aside, one supposes additionally that there is no accident in the fact that much enthusiasm for libertarian ideas today comes from adolescents and very young adults, witness the Ron Paul zealotry, for example. As any experienced father can tell you, an all-surpassing defiance is characteristic of this age group, so who might be surprized if the next regalling one receives about a "free markets" economy might come from someone hardly old enough to possess working papers. :-)
Your attempted insults apply more to prison inmates than those that enjoy a government that stricly adheres to the vision of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine. If their minds are viewed as radical and sociopathic in contemporary society then we really do need to "alter or abolish" the status quo. These great, imperfect men issued warnings long before today - and they are ignored and ridiculed by the dishonest.
As usual, nice. This whole charade is a distraction from the consolidating group calling the shots.
Obama's "chickens are coming home to roooooooost"
they are so coming home to roost.