Thread: Is the Bible the fiscally liberal atheists' only justification for liberal programs?

Originally Posted by thebrucebeat

You know where those laws came from?
The class warfare of the turn of the century. Look it up.
The free market is a rigged deck, and the worker pulls the jokers. That is why it has to be regulated, just like the regulations you just described. When it is found that the market is being manipulated, regulations get put in place to protect the general welfare of the populace. A completely free market is like shooting fish in a barrel for those with the resources to buy the gun.
You just made my point.

I'm sorry but card game analogies, fish in a barrel analogies? Are there any arguments to support modern liberalism which include anything from reality as a premise? That's sort of what I'm looking for here.

The only regulations which should exist are those that prevent anti-competitive practices. A purely free market is at risk of generating monopolies and trusts which undermine the effectiveness of the free market. All other regulations are unnecessary and any further problems are dealt with, as they arise, more effectively by the free market than they can be by government regulation. This is not the liberal position and is not what you are being asked to defend.

You are apparently suggesting that the need for certain regulations implies the need for all conceivable regulations. Surely you see that is not a logical conclusion.

Originally Posted by The Wyrd of Gawd

What happens when people stop believing in the BS? The system always collapses. Do you think guys like Trump will jump in and man the machine guns? Does it really matter to poor people which gang of crooks run things? They will be poor regardless of who's in charge so why should they die to keep the current crowd as their overlords?

They don't have to actively revolt. They just have to stop supporting the system. Look at what happened to the USSR.One day they were big frogs. The next day people said "get lost". And then, just like that, it was over.

Guys like Trump? There are millions of people in this country who believe that a man should work to provide for himself. Anyone who revolts because the amount of free money they get is lowered to only cover basic needs will find far more opposition than just the few billionaires. Just about anyone who works to make a living doesn't care to see lazy able-bodied people who made bad decisions given more and more for free, when all they really need was already covered decades and billions of dollars ago.

And let me ask you, after you guys win your revolt, are you prepared to plant your own crops, tend to them, harvest them, raise your own livestock, slaughter your own livestock, etc. Without capitalism, that is what's in your future.

No reply to my rebuttal of your insane assertion about the laws of supply and demand no longer applying. Do you still really believe that?

Originally Posted by The Wyrd of Gawd

So how large is your yacht?
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-b...ld-2012-8?op=1

The mobile home in which I was raised could probably fit inside most yachts.

Originally Posted by The Wyrd of Gawd

Fiscal liberalism = civilization. Without the things that you whine about = entitlement programs, government spending, high taxation, increased regulation, union support, etc. = you end up with a country like Somalia or Chad. Since they don't have fiscal liberalism conservatives should love living there.

B. S.

If Black or white conservative Capitalist christians could live there without being systematically murdered, that country could become one of the more well to do african nations.

Originally Posted by Wolverine

Conservatives are just as guilty as liberals.

Your bitter partisanship is clouding your judgement.

Guilty of what? Nothing is clouding my judgement except for the inability of liberals to produce an argument that justifies their belief that wealthy people are not entitled to their money or an argument that justifies the belief that the government is more qualified/competent to create wealth than private investors working in a free market.

Also clouding my judgement is the fact that I worked awfully hard on a post earlier in this thread trying to explain some of the specifics about supply and demand, and it was completely ignored by the liberals who continued to post non-sequitor class warfare arguments.

These things cloud my judgement, and cause me to suspect that NO liberal has a decent argument to support his or her views. However, I am open to the possibility that one might arrive. My judgement clouded though, I highly doubt it.

Originally Posted by The Wyrd of Gawd

Fiscal liberalism = civilization. Without the things that you whine about = entitlement programs, government spending, high taxation, increased regulation, union support, etc. = you end up with a country like Somalia or Chad. Since they don't have fiscal liberalism conservatives should love living there.

This intrigued me so I did a little investigation. Social programs, while pretty much always existing in a very limited form the the US really began to grow as a national policy in the 1930's with FDR and then took off in the 1960's with LBJ.

I pulled up a graph of the historical division of wealth in the United States and when FDR took office and introduced Social Security the wealth of the "99%" of Americans declined from about 68% to about 64% until basically the start of WW II. Starting with WW II which drove an artifical economy based upon war time spending (i.e. the standard of living actually went down because of rationing) the wealth of the 99% started going back up (because they couldn't spend their money on anything) until it reached about 72% in 1950. Then it declines again back down to about 68% in 1965 where the Vietnam War seemed to boost the economy once again until we reached 80% in 1975, or the end of the Vietnam War.

From there we've basically been on a down hill run with minor bumps along the way. Today were at about 65% of the total wealth belonging to the botton "99%" of the population which is roughly equivalent to where we were at during the depression under FDR but we're still on a downward trend as of about 2008 which is the last year shown on the chart.

With the anticpated inflation that't soon to strike because of the record amounts of borrowing by federal government and the net decline in average wages since 2008 things aren't looking very well.

http://www.capitalfreepress.com/3611...united-states/

Originally Posted by MAYTAG

I'm sorry but card game analogies, fish in a barrel analogies? Are there any arguments to support modern liberalism which include anything from reality as a premise? That's sort of what I'm looking for here.

The only regulations which should exist are those that prevent anti-competitive practices. A purely free market is at risk of generating monopolies and trusts which undermine the effectiveness of the free market. All other regulations are unnecessary and any further problems are dealt with, as they arise, more effectively by the free market than they can be by government regulation. This is not the liberal position and is not what you are being asked to defend.

You are apparently suggesting that the need for certain regulations implies the need for all conceivable regulations. Surely you see that is not a logical conclusion.

You know who is actively lobbying for the breakup of the EPA? The Koch brothers.
You know who is one of the most egregious polluters in America today? The Koch brothers.
Regulations are the people's voice against manipulations of the market to the detriment of the general welfare.
You have safer food, housing that is safer, all kinds of things you take for granted that are only in place due to regulation.
The business of business is business, meaning profit. It has no obligation to the general welfare, other than how providing it helps to profit the company. Not all companies will take advantage of this, but enough will to tilt the free market's competitiveness to force others to cut corners to remain viable.
Regulation is a necessary piece of the marketplace puzzle.

Originally Posted by thebrucebeat

You know who is actively lobbying for the breakup of the EPA? The Koch brothers.
You know who is one of the most egregious polluters in America today? The Koch brothers.
Regulations are the people's voice against manipulations of the market to the detriment of the general welfare.
You have safer food, housing that is safer, all kinds of things you take for granted that are only in place due to regulation.
The business of business is business, meaning profit. It has no obligation to the general welfare, other than how providing it helps to profit the company. Not all companies will take advantage of this, but enough will to tilt the free market's competitiveness to force others to cut corners to remain viable.
Regulation is a necessary piece of the marketplace puzzle.

It just too often ends up being too costly to run a business in the U.S. Why would anyone waste the money?

Originally Posted by MAYTAG

The mobile home in which I was raised could probably fit inside most yachts.

It's not where you start from but where you end up that matters.

Originally Posted by MisLed

B. S.

If Black or white conservative Capitalist christians could live there without being systematically murdered, that country could become one of the more well to do african nations.

Have you seen Angola lately?

http://www.businessinsider.com/chine...la-2012-7?op=1

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ity-world.html