Thread: How to Defeat a Liberal in a Debate

Originally Posted by JeffLV

The existent of pre existing property rights are an important concept here.

Clearly. It's the only thing preventing a miscarriage of justice in that example.

However, some people call property rights "theft".

And you can also roll the question back a little and ask, "What gave me the right to cut down the cypress trees to make my house?"

Originally Posted by Someone

Except, of course, that the evidence overwhelmingly favors liberal economic policy over conservative economic policy.

Not really. Kinesian theory supports liberalism, but that's only one school of economics. And that school gets more discredited by the day -- Europe got into big trouble because they followed the Keniesian Ecomonic models that said that it's good to run a deficit in a recession to boost spending. Except that those acts caused Europe to run out of money and have a debt crisis which meant that no one was spending any money. Had they used a conservative model that encouraged surpluses, Europe would be fine.

Originally Posted by septimine

Not really. Kinesian theory supports liberalism, but that's only one school of economics. And that school gets more discredited by the day -- Europe got into big trouble because they followed the Keniesian Ecomonic models that said that it's good to run a deficit in a recession to boost spending. Except that those acts caused Europe to run out of money and have a debt crisis which meant that no one was spending any money. Had they used a conservative model that encouraged surpluses, Europe would be fine.

What Keynesian model says you're supposed to run big deficits when the economy is growing well?

The problem with places like Greece is that the did use a conservative model. They cut tax revenues. Deficits and debt exploded. Same thing that happened here.

Originally Posted by raytri

Clearly. It's the only thing preventing a miscarriage of justice in that example.

However, some people call property rights "theft".

And you can also roll the question back a little and ask, "What gave me the right to cut down the cypress trees to make my house?"

Naturally the argument relies on the idea that property rights are pre-existing. Asking where they came from is another question >.< lol. Some claims to property rights might be better understood as theft, arguably. This being a reason why some resources should be publicly owned or regulated, rather than owned by private entities (like water sources, fish stock, etc.). The nitty gritty of this could get nasty fast, but I presume we can safely assume, for the sake of current arguments, that SOME things are acceptably owned privately.

Originally Posted by JeffLV

It comes from your self-defeating argument that people can't properly value public goods, and thus must be forced into taxation, but then have to value public goods and allocate their dollars. Being forced to value public works and then being asked to allocate value to those public works that you apparently didn't have enough value to allocate to on your own doesn't seem like it gains anything. And then your other conflicting opinion that the government can't allocate for public works, but they can decide how much needs to be allocated overall.

Let me correct my statement then. You support a contradictory contradictory philosophy ("pragmatarianism"), but you base this on the logic that individuals are capable of properly valuing public works on their own (anarcho-capitalism).

We force people to pay taxes because they can't properly value public goods? That's ridiculous. We force people to pay taxes because of the free-rider problem. The free-rider problem doesn't say that people don't value public goods. How would that make any sense? If I don't value something then how would it be a free-rider problem if I don't pay for something that I don't value? The free-rider problem says that people who value public goods can free-ride off the contributions that others make to public goods.

We solve the free-rider problem by forcing people to pay taxes. If people have to pay taxes anyways then why wouldn't they spend their money on the public goods that they value?

Originally Posted by JeffLV

Who said I didn't support prevention? If you want to participate in a market that damages the environment, or has a substantial risk of damaging the environment, the burden is on you to fund that prevention, not me.

Great...so go around collecting funds from the various companies. Call them dues or fees or whatever you want...you still need an enforcement/monitoring mechanism and that enforcement/monitoring mechanism is the EPA. If the EPA covers all its operating expenses from money it collects from companies then that's outstanding! If it doesn't...then it would be up to taxpayers to fund the difference.

Originally Posted by JeffLV

Naturally the argument relies on the idea that property rights are pre-existing. Asking where they came from is another question >.< lol. Some claims to property rights might be better understood as theft, arguably. This being a reason why some resources should be publicly owned or regulated, rather than owned by private entities (like water sources, fish stock, etc.). The nitty gritty of this could get nasty fast, but I presume we can safely assume, for the sake of current arguments, that SOME things are acceptably owned privately.

Agreed. I was playing a little bit of devil's advocate there.

Originally Posted by raytri

Not necessarily. Because part of the equation is "right to the resource" and "ability to pay."

Say I have no money, but I have built a house out of 500-year-old cypress.

Say a developer wants those logs and is willing to pay $1 million for them.

Does the developer's willingness to pay far more than I can hope to pay mean he values the logs more than I value my home? No. It simply means he is *able* to pay more.

And what gives the developer the *right* to buy those logs in the first place?

To whom do the fish in the sea belong? What is to prevent overfishing and the collapse of that common resource?

There are plenty of economic situations that the market is either unable to handle, or does not handle efficiently or fairly.

You say it's your home...which implies ownership...so if you're not willing to sell your home for the $1 million dollars that he's offering to you...then clearly you value your home more than you value the $1 million dollars. If you're saying that it's not your home...then why would he be offering you $1 million dollars for something that you do not own? If you're saying that a third party owns the logs...and both of you want the logs...then the third party should sell the logs to the highest bidder...which will probably be the guy with the $1 million dollars.

The resources should...and do...go to the people who use them most productively. The alternative is to give resources to people who waste resources and nobody benefits from that.

That being said, my issue isn't with public ownership, me issue is with the fact that we allow 538 congresspeople to determine the distribution of public funds. Whatever the tax rate is...we should allow taxpayers themselves to determine which government organizations they give their taxes to. The productive use of resources is a function of all our perspectives...not just the perspectives of 538 congresspeople.

Originally Posted by Iriemon

The problem with places like Greece is that the did use a conservative model. They cut tax revenues. Deficits and debt exploded. Same thing that happened here.

This simply is not true. Either you have a poor grasp of the political philosophy of conservatism, or you are uninformed in regards to Greek politics and what led to the Greek crisis.

Greece is a welfare state. A large portion of its expenditures are for various social programs like universal health care, state sponsored pensions, social security, etc. Up until recently (and leading up to the crisis) their tax rates have also been high - certainly higher than in the US. The reason for for the massive deficits was the evasion of taxes which was rampant.

There is nothing about Greece that would lead anyone with any knowledge of political philosophy to assert that they "used a conservative model."

What an incredibly silly thing to say.

Originally Posted by Xerographica

The resources should...and do...go to the people who use them most productively. The alternative is to give resources to people who waste resources and nobody benefits from that.

A known practice among large companies in mature industries is to buy up competitors who might challenge them and then simply bury them. Is that a productive use of resources?

I'm not suggesting that should be illegal. I'm just pointing out that people buy things for lots of reasons, many of which have zip to do with economic efficiency.

That being said, my issue isn't with public ownership, me issue is with the fact that we allow 538 congresspeople to determine the distribution of public funds. Whatever the tax rate is...we should allow taxpayers themselves to determine which government organizations they give their taxes to. The productive use of resources is a function of all our perspectives...not just the perspectives of 538 congresspeople.

Right. Because taxpayers are going to take the time to research all the available options and carefully weigh what needs funding.

For that matter, who decides what options are available to be chosen from? Within a broader category (like, say, defense), who decides what weapons systems will be bought, and how many?

We have representatives for a reason: they're supposed to spend the time developing the expertise and studying the options to make good decisions on our behalf. We can then judge them by the results, and vote them out if we don't like the results. It's a very rational division of labor.

The fact that many Congresspeople are idiots, or deep partisans from safe districts, is a problem. But direct democracy at the level of granularity you're talking about isn't a solution.

BTW, there's a science fiction short story based on the premise of individual allocation of taxes. It's called "We the People", written by Jack Haldeman:
http://www.sff.net/people/jack.haldeman/people.htm

Originally Posted by Random_Variable

This simply is not true. Either you have a poor grasp of the political philosophy of conservatism, or you are uninformed in regards to Greek politics and what led to the Greek crisis.

Greece is a welfare state. A large portion of its expenditures are for various social programs like universal health care, state sponsored pensions, social security, etc. Up until recently (and leading up to the crisis) their tax rates have also been high - certainly higher than in the US. The reason for for the massive deficits was the evasion of taxes which was rampant.

There is nothing about Greece that would lead anyone with any knowledge of political philosophy to assert that they "used a conservative model."

What an incredibly silly thing to say.

Conservatism, unlike liberalism, doesn't have an economic paradigm. In terms of an economic concept it will be refer, for example, to a social welfare function where losses are weighted greater than gains. In that sense generous social expenditures can be called conservative. Those infected by party politics might not appreciate that though