Author Topic: Opportunity vs Outcome  (Read 12411 times)

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sirs

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Opportunity vs Outcome
« on: May 25, 2010, 04:49:42 PM »
That's really what it comes down to between this polar battle of right vs left, liberty vs control, Capitalism vs Socialism.  Tell me how I'm wrong
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They're All Obama Liberals Now

Liberals have a learning disability when it comes to the impracticability of socialism. They are so steeped in the seductive lies of false compassion that no amount of logic, history or everyday experience registers. Thus, they continue to burden the market system to an unsustainable level.

Liberals have always denied they intend to unduly shackle the free market. They say America is exceptionally prosperous -- though it never occurs to them why -- and can afford robust entitlement and redistributive schemes. But in no way would they favor anything extreme that would push the market to the tipping point.

Well, now that they are completely in charge, we've seen what they will do.

Obama liberals believe not in America's promise (and Martin Luther King Jr.'s hope) of equality of opportunity, but in equality of outcomes. Truth be told, Obama probably believes in a wholesale reversal of wealth distribution: not just equalizing it, but making the wealthy poor and the poor wealthy. But I'll leave the psychoanalysis to others.

Largely because of their worldview differences, conservatives and liberals will never agree on the moral merits of capitalism versus socialism.
Conservatives believe, generally, that economic and political freedoms are interconnected and that socialism, beyond the obvious, constricts and eventually smothers political liberties. (Hat Tip: Friedrich Hayek.) They believe that our rights are a gift from God and that it is both immoral and counterproductive for a central government to confiscate a major portion of some people's work product and transfer it to others. Nor is any man entitled to moral bragging rights for presiding over government-coerced theft.

But we're not going to reach a consensus on these moral questions, and liberals will continue to demonize, bully and attempt to shame conservatives with their phony moral arguments and ignore the overwhelming empirical evidence contradicting their intractable views.

They could sneak just a superficial peak at an unbiased summary of world history -- should any remain in print -- and confirm that the United States of America has been the freest and most prosperous nation ever -- by far. Even if they reject that Judeo-Christian principles undergird the Constitution, which established a system of limited government that has led to this nation's freedom and prosperity, they should at least acknowledge the freedom and prosperity part.

But don't be so sure, at least not of Obama liberals. They seem to believe that America's success was some kind of historical accident or the result of collective malfeasance on the part of our forefathers and all those who succeeded them up to November 2008. They don't just want to change it, but punish it.

But even liberals less extreme than Obama are applauding his "transformative" change. What they don't understand is that this radical change cannot occur without punishing America and most Americans.

In their insatiable desire to rearrange the seating around the economic dinner table, they're converting the dinner hall to the Titanic and the dining room chairs to deck chairs. With their ever-expanding government and increasing regulatory control, they are sapping the lifeblood out of this country -- and bankrupting it. Even if they can't agree that stealing people's work product is immoral, can't they see that the end result of that confiscatory act is overall financial destruction -- a radical constriction of the economic pie and diminution of our economic and political liberties? No amount of moral preening can wipe clean the moral bankruptcy of economic and political despair born of good intentions.

Sadly, these notions simply do not compute with them and so they reject the evidence that proves it. Thus we have a jubilant David Leonhardt, economic columnist for The New York Times, celebrating that Obama has ushered in a "new progressive period (that) has the makings of a generational shift in how Washington operates" and that rivals "any other since the New Deal in scope or ambition." Leonhardt appears to approve the income redistribution in Obamacare, the financial reform bill and the "stimulus."

Leonhardt says that the "theme" of Obama's agenda has been "to lift economic growth while also reducing income inequality." But "by focusing on long-term problems, Mr. Obama and the Democrats have given less than their full attention to the economy's current weakness."

Leonhardt just doesn't get it. It's not that Obama has not focused enough on the economy because he's been preoccupied with his agenda. It's that his agenda is incompatible with fixing the economy because it is destroying the human spirit and its capacity for productivity, not to mention that it, and his method of implementing it, are wholly inconsistent with any powers the framers' contemplated for the federal government.


The Fatal Flaws to liberal "good intentions"
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Universe Prince

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Re: Opportunity vs Outcome
« Reply #1 on: May 25, 2010, 04:53:04 PM »

That's really what it comes down to between this polar battle of right vs left, liberty vs control, Capitalism vs Socialism.  Tell me how I'm wrong


You're wrong in trying equate political 'right' with 'liberty.
Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
--Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen ("The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" [1988])--

sirs

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Re: Opportunity vs Outcome
« Reply #2 on: May 25, 2010, 04:55:30 PM »
And you'd be wrong in trying to make such a broad brush claim, with so much evidence to the contrary
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Universe Prince

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Re: Opportunity vs Outcome
« Reply #3 on: May 25, 2010, 05:05:28 PM »

And you'd be wrong in trying to make such a broad brush claim, with so much evidence to the contrary


You wrote the sentence. Not me.
Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
--Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen ("The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" [1988])--

sirs

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Re: Opportunity vs Outcome
« Reply #4 on: May 25, 2010, 05:25:03 PM »
You applied the broadbrush accusation, not me
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Universe Prince

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Re: Opportunity vs Outcome
« Reply #5 on: May 25, 2010, 06:12:25 PM »
I addressed your specific comment. Addressing your comment as written is not a broadbrush. If you didn't mean to equate 'right' and 'liberty', 'left' and 'control' then feel free to clarify your meaning.
Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
--Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen ("The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" [1988])--

sirs

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Re: Opportunity vs Outcome
« Reply #6 on: May 25, 2010, 06:25:41 PM »
Actually you didn't.  You made a simple accusation, broadbrushing the "political right" as not wanting liberty/freedom.  Your effort to apply immigration as the 1 lone leg to base such a weak arguement, might have been made in other threads, but not this one.  Or what else would you be basing it on??
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Universe Prince

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Re: Opportunity vs Outcome
« Reply #7 on: May 25, 2010, 06:41:39 PM »
You' lied again. I did not say the political right does not want liberty or freedom.

I'm not doing this again. I'm sick of this whole thing where someone lies about what I said and then I defend myself by explaining umpteen times what I did say.

Just forget it.

Expecting honest discussion is apparently expecting too much.
Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
--Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen ("The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" [1988])--

sirs

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Re: Opportunity vs Outcome
« Reply #8 on: May 25, 2010, 06:51:47 PM »
You' lied again. I did not say the political right does not want liberty or freedom.

"You're wrong in trying equate political 'right' with 'liberty."

Not sure why you think our readers have such a short attention span

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Universe Prince

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Re: Opportunity vs Outcome
« Reply #9 on: May 25, 2010, 07:00:42 PM »
Sirs: "That's really what it comes down to between this polar battle of right vs left, liberty vs control, Capitalism vs Socialism.  Tell me how I'm wrong"

Me: "You're wrong in trying equate political 'right' with 'liberty."

Anyone who believes my comment is "a simple accusation, broadbrushing the 'political right' as not wanting liberty/freedom" has significant problems with reading comprehension and possibly a weak grasp of the English language.
Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
--Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen ("The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" [1988])--

sirs

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Re: Opportunity vs Outcome
« Reply #10 on: May 25, 2010, 07:54:38 PM »
Still haven't managed to answer the question of how "You're wrong in trying equate political 'right' with 'liberty." is not broadbrushing the political right as not supportive and advocating that of liberty.  Your simple say so minus any evidentiary proof isn't going to cut it

Indeed, the polar opposite is the case, when it comes to comparisons of the political left

Care to provide us this laundry list of regulations and restrictions to people, employers, businesses, corporations, etc., advocated by the political right??
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Universe Prince

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Re: Opportunity vs Outcome
« Reply #11 on: May 25, 2010, 08:03:05 PM »

Still haven't managed to answer the question of how "You're wrong in trying equate political 'right' with 'liberty." is not broadbrushing the political right as not supportive and advocating that of liberty.


You provide actual evidence that it is, and I'll consider providing the unnecessary evidence that it isn't.
Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
--Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen ("The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" [1988])--

sirs

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Re: Opportunity vs Outcome
« Reply #12 on: May 25, 2010, 08:12:05 PM »
The actual wording is all the evidence necessary.

"You're wrong in trying equate political 'right' with 'liberty." = It's right to believe that the political 'right' does not equate with liberty/freedom

And he thinks I have a reading comprehension problem    ::)

Care to provide an alternate meaning?  Contrary to popular Libertarian thought process, Libertarians aren't the ONLY folk that advocate freedom & liberty, Prince.  Some ideologies are simply a tad more constructive in doing so
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

sirs

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Re: Opportunity vs Outcome
« Reply #13 on: May 25, 2010, 08:44:16 PM »
Private pay shrinks to historic lows as gov't payouts rise

Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.

At the same time, government-provided benefits ? from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs ? rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.

Those records reflect a long-term trend accelerated by the recession and the federal stimulus program to counteract the downturn. The result is a major shift in the source of personal income from private wages to government programs.

The trend is not sustainable, says University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes. Reason: The federal government depends on private wages to generate income taxes to pay for its ever-more-expensive programs. Government-generated income is taxed at lower rates or not at all, he says. "This is really important," Grimes says.

The recession has erased 8 million private jobs. Even before the downturn, private wages were eroding because of the substitution of health and pension benefits for taxable salaries.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis reports that individuals received income from all sources ? wages, investments, food stamps, etc. ? at a $12.2 trillion annual rate in the first quarter.

Key shifts in income this year:

? Private wages. A record-low 41.9% of the nation's personal income came from private wages and salaries in the first quarter, down from 44.6% when the recession began in December 2007.

?Government benefits. Individuals got 17.9% of their income from government programs in the first quarter, up from 14.2% when the recession started. Programs for the elderly, the poor and the unemployed all grew in cost and importance. An additional 9.8% of personal income was paid as wages to government employees.

The shift in income shows that the federal government's stimulus efforts have been effective, says Paul Van de Water, an economist at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

"It's the system working as it should," Van de Water says. Government is stimulating growth and helping people in need, he says. As the economy recovers, private wages will rebound, he says.

Economist Veronique de Rugy of the free-market Mercatus Center at George Mason University says the riots in Greece over cutting benefits to close a huge budget deficit are a warning about unsustainable income programs.

Economist David Henderson of the conservative Hoover Institution says a shift from private wages to government benefits saps the economy of dynamism. "People are paid for being rather than for producing," he says.

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Plane

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Re: Opportunity vs Outcome
« Reply #14 on: May 25, 2010, 09:05:06 PM »
That's really what it comes down to between this polar battle of right vs left, liberty vs control, Capitalism vs Socialism.  Tell me how I'm wrong
----------------------------------------

They're All Obama Liberals Now

Liberals have a learning disability when it comes to the impracticability of socialism. They are so steeped in the seductive lies of false compassion..........


I like the article , Joe the Plumber had the thing pegged on day one.