I admire the way Libertarians so adroitly play fast and loose with reality.

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SWEET!!!

Why would spending money on welfare-state social policies be subsidizing more poverty? Welfare-state spending on social policies is what enabled the first world to become first world. How many third world countries have the welfare-state social policies of the US?

I sometimes like fast and loose. However, promoting the general welfare is also in our social contract.

And I'm always amused by the antics of those who are so scared of the fact that the Libertarians are right, they do things like post misquotes and hope nobody notices.


A purpose, perhaps, but not the primary purpose, as you earlier asserted.

If you insist on spouting hyperbole instead of rational discourse, I'm not sure how long I'll stick around. I can see where current military actions could be considered 'the common offense', but that in no way means we have no 'common defense'.

As I stated, it provides for a greater chance of lesser social utility than does the 'warfare-state'. Which is not to say the latter is a utopia or even a guarantee against a new stone age, just a better long-term bet than a welfare state.

It can when the labor in question is illegal, from another country and at least tolerated if not outright encouraged by that country, and creates an undesired impact upon the culture of the receiving country.

Better than what? Tho I agree that I haven't seen any outright Good solutions to the issue.


Basic economics - Anything you subsidize, you get more of. (Or at least more of than if you hadn't subsidized it.) Governmental welfare policies subsidize poverty, just as other policies have subsidized Hummer purchases, healthcare costs, and retarded parking spots.

You put the cart before the horse. The US became wealthy enough that it could afford to subsidize poverty rather than it subsidized so much poverty that it became rich. Depending on whose definitions you use, the US became a world power not later than during WWII. It became one of the world's wealthiest countries not later than the 1950s. It started becoming a welfare state not earlier than the 1960s.

Similarly, the former communist bloc countries were the largest foray into the welfare-state that we've seen. My personal experience may not be representative, but I saw first-hand more official corruption, black-market trading, and health and safety hazards in less than one week there in the 80s than I have in decades here in the warfare-state. And on a more objective measure, they have experienced a lot more social turmoil and generally lower living standards than us 'warmongers' since their grand experiment began.

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Today's forecast: Government corruption.

Tomorrow's forecast: 100% chance of more 'politics as usual'

Maybe it's finally time to vote Libertarian

Hey, I agree that it's not the primary purpose. But it's incredibly disingenuous of you to pretend that it's not even mentioned in the Constitution - which you strongly implied.Many people on the right have repeatedly asserted (not wholly without justification) that the US began to become a welfare state with FDR's New Deal. I'm curious to know why you disagree.

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That's why they're called "developing" countries. We didn't have welfare-state social policies while we were developing. The New Deal marks the beginning of America's decline.

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I never signed a contract. If one existed for the current government it would look like this and no one in their right mind would sign it.



Probably the most popular writing upon the social contract was John Locke's Two Treatise's of Government.

John Locke also said governments that restrict people's rights "put themselves into a state of war with the people who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience."

It looks to me like if there ever was a social contract it is now null and void.

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I wouldn't be so sure. Not signing it is, to say the least, risky. Not many americans (or citizens of other nations...) would prefer their country to be void of a government. As for a different government, everything is interesting to hear. I however tend to be very skeptical about untested ideas, being a computer programmer

Other posters here could discuss that statement far better than I ever could. Here's my 2 cents anyway: the government is the only able to grant rights at all. It makes the whole idea of "a government restricting rights" slightly absurd. A mention of the constitution (a constitution being imho the nearest legal form of a "social contract") would have been more appropriate than a mention of the "rights".

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Client: In six days, do you hear me, six days, God made the world. And you are not bloody well capable of making me a pair of trousers in three months!
Tailor: But my dear Sir, my dear Sir, look at the world, and look at my trousers.
(Beckett)

That's absolutely correct if you're a fascist. But then the whole idea of a free country is a wash.

I'll quote the DOI cuz I like to do that.

"endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.... That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men."

So governments don't create rights, they are inherent in the human condition but governments are instituted to secure them.

I'm sure you know the next part about when they don't secure rights than they should be altered or abolished.

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I was under the impression that anyone who claims to be an American citizen has agreed to the social contract known as the US Constitution. US citizenship was created by the constitution.

I think that the primary purpose of statism is to establish and maintain order, sufficient to promote the general welfare, not the general warfare.

Do you agree that there is a difference between that common defense and the common offense?

I disagree with you that any warfare-state economic model is better than any welfare-state economic model. Socialist welfare-state policies are what enabled most the first world to become the first world. Socialist warfare-state policies have only helped to ensure more of the chaos form of anarchy in most of the third world.

I only agree with you to the extent that an "invasion" of migrant labor is analogous to a "war" on drugs.

If you are going to use an economic framework, then we can say that poverty is being subsidized by through warfare-state policies that do nothing to correct frictional unemployment. Welfare-state policies could reduce or eliminate the effects of frictional unemployment. In this sense, we would not be subsidizing poverty, but paying people to be more market friendly.

The primary difference between the current first world and the third world are those very same welfare-state policies that you claim are detrimental to a first world economy. The second world used a less efficient command economic model that only failed, in my opinion, because of ideology, not because of any welfare-state economic model.

I disagree with your opinion. If the new deal marks America's decline, why is America still an exhorbitantly expensive superpower?

If they paid people real wages for picking fruit, people would pick fruit. If you can't grow fruit in the USA and make money, fine, grow it in Mexico. Just keep these people from taking over our country. They breed like flies. They shove their culture down our throats. They steal their way in and then demand rights.

Get the hell out and go home!

Hang them all by the goddam neck!

I pretty much agree with you but "hang them by the neck" was a little bit over the top but im pretty damn mad too.

These companies can afford to hire legal residents but they choose not to because they are greedy. Fuck, the damn machines do allmost everything anyways beyond picking the damn fruit.

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America’s political correctness is a disease that will bring down our once fine nation.