Socialism vs. Capitalism

[saganista]

Originally Posted by GhostInTheShell

No, it's not. No, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. The analogy doesn't fit. A better one might be the "community" ordered me to visit the local voodoo priestess to cure my headaches and I'm skeptical because last time they made me drink the blood of a few chickens. I don't buy into your BS, plain and simple.

What's BS about it? Are you claiming that there are no benefits at all to be derived from socialism? That all those who dabble in it will soon slide into some chasm of collectivism? That's a pretty reactionary claim considering that access to the benefits of socialism is one of the primary reasons why humans form societies to begin with.

Originally Posted by GhostInTheShell

It's a true statement. I have no doubt in my mind people like you would, collectively, drag me kicking and screaming to my death if you thought it would be for the greater good, whether or not a law had been broken. Dispensing with the hyperbole for a moment, the attacks on the 2nd amendment are a good example.

It's mindless paranoia. No one is coming to take your guns away. The worst you can say is that in places likely different from your own, there are people who are tired of sharing their environment with something called "stray bullets". Otherwise, you are a victim of your own imagination.

Originally Posted by GhostInTheShell

Also, from your posts I've bothered to read, I noticed you always resort to attacks on other people, launching insults, put downs and sarcasm with nearly every paragraph. Why? It's especially interesting because few of your arguments are really all that compelling to anyone with common sense.

Common sense is a rare commodity. Even rarer it sometimes seems are sincere, well thought out, and well researched and documented opinions and arguments coming from some of our right-wing friends. While it may be true that some of these should be ashamed at having put such arguments forward to begin with, it is those arguments that I seek to attack and undo. Such was the intent in this series of posts as well.

[GhostInTheShell]

Originally Posted by saganista

What's BS about it? Are you claiming that there are no benefits at all to be derived from socialism? That all those who dabble in it will soon slide into some chasm of collectivism? That's a pretty reactionary claim considering that access to the benefits of socialism is one of the primary reasons why humans form societies to begin with.

I never claimed that at all. In fact, I think I implied that I support certain social programs to a degree. Your position seems to be that if it’s in the best interest of the majority, we should do it. My position is that you have to draw a line somewhere.

The logical conclusion of collectivism is the complete dismissal of the notion of individual rights.

Regarding my comment above, picture an x=y graph plotting fewer individual rights (civil liberties) vs. collectivism. The origin is a position of many rights, but no social programs. At infinity you have complete collectivism at the expense of all individual rights. The graph doesn’t make a claim to the effectiveness of the programs or the importance of the rights (nor did my statement); it simply illustrates their relationship with one another. Most people agree that we should structure our society/government in such a way that we retain certain rights as individuals while compromising a few of them for the sake of the greater good (property rights/imminent domain, gun rights/arming criminals, privacy/spying on suspected terrorists, retain the products of our labor/paying taxes for the common defense, etc.). However, people will always disagree with one another on where we should draw the line. You, for example, appear to lean much further to the upper right corner of the graph, while I lean closer to the origin (not at the origin, but closer to it relative to you). Since people will always disagree with one another, there will always be a struggle--a tug of war--along the graph. So, going back to what I said two posts ago, realistically, I believe our society/government isn’t likely to move much closer to the origin. In fact, we’ll probably continue to move further away from the origin.

Originally Posted by saganista

It's mindless paranoia. No one is coming to take your guns away. The worst you can say is that in places likely different from your own, there are people who are tired of sharing their environment with something called "stray bullets". Otherwise, you are a victim of your own imagination.

I saw under the Bush administration just how easily our right to privacy and our absolute right to a fair trial (Patriot Act) could be ripped away from us, so don’t accuse me of mindless paranoia (yet another put down). I don’t think it’s likely someone will ever show up to my house to take my guns away, but I certainly think it’s within the realm of possibility that some day, perhaps sooner than later, they might pass a law preventing me from willing my guns to my children (should I ever father any). (Regarding the previous sentence, it’s worth mentioning that other ways in which people disagree with one another are the implementation of the programs and their effectiveness. For example, I don’t believe introducing more gun laws will really do anything for the greater good, though it’ll certainly have an effect on individual rights.)

Originally Posted by saganista

Even rarer it sometimes seems are sincere, well thought out, and well researched and documented opinions and arguments coming from some of our right-wing friends. While it may be true that some of these should be ashamed at having put such arguments forward to begin with, it is those arguments that I seek to attack and undo. Such was the intent in this series of posts as well.

Many of your posts are nothing more than sophistry. They’re wordy and nonsensical. My argument that collectivism undermines individual rights stands.

[GregW]

I do not find Saganista arguments to be illogical, wordy or nonsensical. I consider them to be well thought our and eminently sensible.

[saganista]

Originally Posted by GhostInTheShell

I never claimed that at all. In fact, I think I implied that I support certain social programs to a degree. Your position seems to be that if it’s in the best interest of the majority, we should do it. My position is that you have to draw a line somewhere.

My position was stated in the first post of this sequence: There are some good things about both lizards and balls, hence why not draw on the best of both. Your position is that one must stand in the breach because no matter how many social programs are enacted, more will be. You have posited a irreversible, chain-reaction wherein a-to-b implies a-to-z. Knock over one domino, and they all go down. You have indeed claimed it at all.

Originally Posted by GhostInTheShell

The logical conclusion of collectivism is the complete dismissal of the notion of individual rights.

Regarding my comment above, picture an x=y graph plotting fewer individual rights (civil liberties) vs. collectivism. The origin is a position of many rights, but no social programs. At infinity you have complete collectivism at the expense of all individual rights.

This is like the Laffer Curve. At the end points (tax rates = 0% and 100%) you seem to have no government revenue. But you have no idea of the shape, slope, or dynamic behavior of the curve in between. You simply assume a form that will comport well with the arguments you wish to make. There is no fixed exchange rate regime established between social programs and individual rights. All you really seek to do here is to limit an individual right to cooperate.

Originally Posted by GhostInTheShell

I saw under the Bush administration just how easily our right to privacy and our absolute right to a fair trial (Patriot Act) could be ripped away from us, so don’t accuse me of mindless paranoia (yet another put down).

There is a difference between criminal and lawful government. If you are going to admit of criminal government, then all systems of government are pointless.

Originally Posted by GhostInTheShell

I don’t think it’s likely someone will ever show up to my house to take my guns away, but I certainly think it’s within the realm of possibility that some day, perhaps sooner than later, they might pass a law preventing me from willing my guns to my children (should I ever father any).

The prospect of anti-gun inheritance laws keeps you awake at night? Maybe before you die, you should simply make an UGMA transfer of guns to your offspring as those might materialize. A lot of people do that with cash specifically to keep it out of one's estate.

Originally Posted by GhostInTheShell

Many of your posts are nothing more than sophistry. They’re wordy and nonsensical. My argument that collectivism undermines individual rights stands.

Sophistry deals in plausible but fallacious arguments. Your collectivism (sic) versus individual rights argument is thusfar an example of it. But as long as you are willing to engage in a form of criminal government by appointing yourself as both prosecutor and judge, I'm sure the argument does stand despite the evident fallacious nature of it.

[saganista]

Originally Posted by GregW

I do not find Saganista arguments to be illogical, wordy or nonsensical. I consider them to be well thought our and eminently sensible.

Me too. :-)

[MamaBee]

Our country was founded on the rights of the INDIVIDUAL...which is contrary to socialism.

[MamaBee]

Originally Posted by NewToCA

You can have (and we do have) capitalism with safety nets, so they aren't mutually exclusive.

Funny, I didn't realize that the economic system currently in use was Capitalism. Seems to me more like some sort of hybrid Corporatist, Statist, Social Democracy.

[GhostInTheShell]

Originally Posted by saganista

My position was stated in the first post of this sequence: There are some good things about both lizards and balls, hence why not draw on the best of both. Your position is that one must stand in the breach because no matter how many social programs are enacted, more will be. You have posited a irreversible, chain-reaction wherein a-to-b implies a-to-z. Knock over one domino, and they all go down. You have indeed claimed it at all.


This is like the Laffer Curve. At the end points (tax rates = 0% and 100%) you seem to have no government revenue. But you have no idea of the shape, slope, or dynamic behavior of the curve in between. You simply assume a form that will comport well with the arguments you wish to make. There is no fixed exchange rate regime established between social programs and individual rights. All you really seek to do here is to limit an individual right to cooperate.

I assumed an x=y graph for the sake of clarity. It’s not critical to my claim. The notion of an optimal point along the graph is subjective since the good things of balls and lizards are open to opinion. There may be an exchange of a number of rights for the smallest social program or there may be an exchange of only the most trivial of rights for sweeping programs. Triviality, the effectiveness of the programs, or even the notion of smallest and sweeping are subjective in this context. The structure of the graph(s) between the endpoints is irrelevent to my claim, which was simply that there is an exchange and that because we have different values there will always be a struggle. The only definite points are the endpoints.

When I said logical conclusion I was referring to one of the endpoints and implying that if even one person in a position of power supports an extreme level of collectivism, then without opposition we'd eventually end up there or very close to it. In a tug of war, where do you think the midpoint of the rope will end up if one sides gives up? Speaking practically, in our society we'll continue to move away from the origin if some subset of people doesn’t steady itself close to the origin. I use the history of our nation to support my claim.

Originally Posted by saganista

Sophistry deals in plausible but fallacious arguments. Your collectivism (sic) versus individual rights argument is thusfar an example of it. But as long as you are willing to engage in a form of criminal government by appointing yourself as both prosecutor and judge, I'm sure the argument does stand despite the evident fallacious nature of it.

It stands because neither you nor any other posters have shown it not to be true. All you have to do is provide a counter example, a collectivist program that didn't somehow involve the exchange of some individual right or another, to prove my argument false.