[PUG] - America's Political Philosophy | INFJ Forum

[PUG] America's Political Philosophy

Jack

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Mar 25, 2010
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"When our Founding Fathers birthed this nation, they did so upon the proposition that "governments are instituted among men" for the purpose of preserving their freedoms."

That proposition is an entire political philosophy within itself, one that has been violated and ignored. You see we talk about regulating the economy a lot, and regulating this and that, and a lot of people throw out accusations of socialism, and fascism and all this, but even if we don't want to go that far, we've fundamentally violated our own ideals in the most critical way once we allow government to regulate our rights. That, however we've already done.

I think this current institution of government has violated explicitly and implicitly, not only the philosophy upon which it was made, but its very own constitution, and laws.

Our founders were very clear what their philosophy of government was. I think it would be beneficial to return to that particular attitude of government rather than to side on a big, blustery, corrupt government with either right or left leaning social issues.

Ready Set Go!
 
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Really? Wasn't that government voted into power? So in a sense.... Isn't it a government that represents the people? Or am I missing some steps to this whole democrazy thing? If the people wanted this.... who are we to limit their liberty for this choice?

(I'm not interested in politics at all.... but I do know like a teeny bit~ I like to associate myself with that cat in Alice in wonderland)
 
How could a government not regulate rights? That is the main point of a government.
 
I am actually quite tired about people complaining about the government. The majority of the people who are in power are real people just like us and are doing the best they can. The problem is the people and the lack of responsibillity of corperations and the private sector. How to solve that problem I don't know, but the problem is not the government, and I refuse to debate this matter any further, and I find it quite pathetic when people gripe about the government taking away "rights".
 
How could a government not regulate rights? That is the main point of a government.




Here's an interesting alternate philosophy. The purpose of government is to regulate rights. So then the concept of inalienable rights must be foreign to your version of government then.
 
If the people wanted this.... who are we to limit their liberty for this choice?
Good point, people who spend a lot on their credit card have the same principal problem. They want the benefits, but complain about the cost. :p

We constantly complain about the government becuase it takes so much money from us, forces us to jump through hoops to do anything, and violates our rights on so many occasions, but usually someone can argue a logical rational good idea for every single government restriction upon us, but in the end if you screw over only a minority of people enough times, everyone is screwed over. :p

Of course the answer of who WE are would be people ourselves, its interesting how anyone discussing these issues tries to disassociate him/herself from "the people", or worse, "the masses".
 
About as close to the core values our country was founded upon.
http://www.lp.org/platform
The way I see it, the founding Fathers were, and would be Libertarians if alive today.

Just my opinion, right or wrong.
 
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I am actually quite tired about people complaining about the government. The majority of the people who are in power are real people just like us and are doing the best they can. The problem is the people and the lack of responsibillity of corperations and the private sector. How to solve that problem I don't know, but the problem is not the government, and I refuse to debate this matter any further, and I find it quite pathetic when people gripe about the government taking away "rights".
Actually most people dont' even understand what they're complaining about.

I agree with you, the majority of people are doing the best they can, my post was about attitude toward government. I don't really go for all that beating up on Obama, or Bush for this or that, because I think both are trying or have tried to do right by the American people. Most people get off by railing on some political party as "the problem" but both parties take this destructive attitude.

If there is, as you say, no problem at all with our perfectly clean, stellar government, then a stalwart defender of the Government like yourself, should have no problem defending the governments actions in just about every area against what really appear to be explicit and implicit violations of our own constitution, as well as explicit abuses of power, and massive examples of fraud... you know little things.

At any rate, "the problem" with the economy may be partially lack of accountability in the private sector, but a huge amount of that still stems from government regulation of private industry and special interests, etc. Take the government out of private industry and we solve a lot of those problems. The free market is a lot more efficient at holding bad business accountable than government is. That, however wasn't exactly what I was talking about.
 
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The government regulates freedoms, not rights. Those are either recognized, or not, but not regulated.

In any case, Oranguh got it. This shithole, or paradise, or whatever you want to call it, is of the people. For better or worse.


cheers,
Ian
 
That proposition is an entire political philosophy within itself, one that has been violated and ignored. You see we talk about regulating the economy a lot, and regulating this and that, and a lot of people throw out accusations of socialism, and fascism and all this, but even if we don't want to go that far, we've fundamentally violated our own ideals in the most critical way once we allow government to regulate our rights. That, however we've already done.

It really depends on the regulations; right now, many of the regulations were authored by corporations to limit competition, broaden profits, and otherwise protect their bank accounts... this invariably hurts the middle class.

But if you turn that coin around a bit, or observe some of the few surviving GOOD regulations still on the books (don't worry, "conservatives" are still trying to eliminate these too), the best way to examine them in terms of governments original role of acting as moderator, referee, and guarantor of an individual's rights to pursue health and happiness is to ask, in any given case, how one party's right/freedoms impinge upon anothers.

FOR EXAMPLE:

Factory Farming Corporation A wants the freedom to do anything they can to increase their profit margins. This is the current atmosphere in america, and has been so since Reagan's time. If we comply with this, there are consequences. FFCA can increase its margins in multiple ways: Reducing expenses on quality testing, reducing expenses by doing the same job on less territory (i.e., fields), reducing expenses by avoiding proper maintenance (read, massey and exxon and transocean and thousands of others), reducing expenses by dumping or ignoring waste rather than removing or cleaning it, reducing expenses by making fewer people work longer hours for less wages and fewer benefits, increase prices by eliminating competition, increase margins by avoiding your taxes, so on and so forth.

Now, if you examine these means individually, you can examine the consequences more directly:

  1. Less/No Quality Control -- In order for 'free-market' FFCA to make more money, they have lobbied congress and agencies to get rid of key regulations requiring them to expend time and resources making sure their product (in this case, for example, BEEF) meets a base minimum of quality (i.e., safety.) As a result, they gain the freedom to stop testing the meat, fill the meat full of industrial chemicals, and ship the meat via means that are intrinsically dirty... why? its cheap. The result, however, is that the end consumer loses the freedom to go to the store and buy untainted food. In many cases, this leads to the loss of freedom to be free of bacterial/viral diseases, carcinogenic chemicals, and other afflictions which, in turn, deprives them of the freedom to keep some of their money instead of having to spend it on avoidable medical/funeral expenses. On entity's freedom came at the cost of another's.
  2. Compacted Operating Space - Since real estate is increasingly more precious what with more and more entities (people, governments, militaries, and corporations) competing for it, another way for FFCA to keep a larger share of its profits is to do the same job in less space. This sounds efficient and often can be, and sometimes positively so... but in the case of factory farming, as one blatant modern day example, this comes at the cost of the health of the crops and/or animals involved. In some cases entire horizons are dominated by fields of animals pressed shoulder to shoulder standing in their own leavings, sometimes for the majority of their lives, eating from food sources they did not evolve to digest easily. While this increases the freedom of FFCA to keep more of it's money, it is still relevant to point #1, depriving the consumer the freedom to have a healthy food product to eat, the freedom to have their health, and the freedom to keep some of their money by not having to go so routinely to the hospital and/or delay unnecessary funeral expenses.
  3. Avoiding Maintenance - You should read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" sometime for exposure to a time when a business's freedoms trumped a worker's freedoms in terms of workplace safety, machine maintenance, et cetera... but then again, you can see modern day examples of this today. Coal mines exploding, oil rigs exploding, gas lines exploding, buildings collapsing, people falling into machines, et cetera. Given all the machination that FFCA has undergone in order to replace workers and make the few who remain all the more productive, the odds for workplace injuries increases, and exponentially so when, in order to avoid added costs, FFCA pursues its freedom to neglect maintenance. Granted, accidents can happen pretty much no matter what.. however, in decades in which workplace regulations are stronger, the is a strongly correlative decrease in workplace accidents such as these. So, yes, while FFCA gains the freedom to make more/keep more money, it's workers lose the freedom to work in a safe environment.
  4. Less/No Waste Control - Some parts of this were touched on in #2, but there are diverging examples as well. One of the easiest things for FFCA to do in order to keep more of its 'free-market' earned money (to say nothing of FFCA's CEOs keeping more of their take-home pay due to dramatically reduced high-tier tax rates)) is to reduce any expensive measure needed to limit waste creation, and then just to dump that waste wherever is most convenient. Because it is cheap, FFCA gains the freedom to make/keep more money... but all the locals (whether they work for FFCA or not) are losing their freedoms to have clean air and water, their freedom to be healthy, and their freedom to keep money that they'll instead have to spend desperately trying to fake the veneer of healthy and the local de-regulated for-profit hospitals who, also having 'freedoms' are gouging the hell out of a captive audience.
  5. Screw Your Workers - this can occur in so many ways. FFCA can, for example, gain a freedom to keep/make more money by giving less of it to their workers. Most are in no position to object, after all, since they're desperately trying to survive, at this point, what with their horrible lack of health. Further, the reduced pay and benefits further reduce that worker's power to stand up for themselves or opt to buy slightly more expensive but far more valuable alternative products. When this doesn't work, a more 'free-market' free trade and highly de-regulated system allows FFCA to export much of the labor (and factory) to far more 'free' (read, india, indonesia, and china) markets where workers can be properly abused. This dramatically increases FFCA's freedoms to make/keep more money, but at the cost of the native's freedom to, you know... work. Of course, with the dirty water, dirty air, and tainted meat to eat (assuming they can even afford it anymore), they might as well just go ahead and succumb to the carcinogens rather than seek obtusely expensive medical care from the local free-market hospital.
  6. Elimating Competition - Now, up until this point, you've probably been saying to yourself... 'vote with your dollar' and choose to buy other products from more reputable companies. It's a nice idea and was even true during the middle of the past century when regulations were at their strongest. You could do that. Now, though, FFCA's broadened freedoms in the free market have allowed them to buy congressman to get new bad regulations written that keep startup companies from surviving long, allow FFCA to buy out or murder their local competitors, and otherwise ship as much of their operations as they can over state or even national borders in order to dodge as many of their responsibilities as they can. This results in greater freedom for FFCA to keep/make more money, but it takes away the consumer's freedom to have choices to pick from. Right now, due to de-regulation, America's media, health and health insurance, energy, telecommunications, and food industries are hyper-concentrated and set up in cartels and blocs in such as way as even when there are more than one choice (and in some cases there aren't), you only have a choice between bad and worse. We're talking anti-trust monopoly stuff here.

Government's role is meant to be as MODERATOR when different regions/entities come into dispute with one another due to having differing needs (urban vs. rural, corporate vs. consumer, etc etc etc), REFEREE in the market (such that the players in the market are playing by proper rules, unlike now), DISTRIBUTOR of common resources (in terms of making sure that the things everyone needs (roads, fire/police protection, arguably health, protection from invasion, disaster, et cetera) get to everyone who needs them), etc etc etc.

Ever since Reagan really kicked de-regulation into gear, CEOs' pay has increased 10 (or more) fold, going from getting about 40x more than their lowest paid employees to more than 400x more today... meanwhile, that employee has actually had their pay DECREASE in the face of inflation, has fewer benefits, has in some cases had pensions they've paid into disappear entirely, have had their unions (i.e., their ability to fight back against unfair working conditions) destroyed, have had their buying options reduced to different low-quality and probably defective brand-names made by the same monopolistic/cartel company, and their health severely impaired at the same time, and their freedom to choose to quit one job to seek a better one almost entirely eliminated. The 'free' market so vigorously espoused today has come at the cost of freedom for the worker and is recreating he kind of feudalistic atmosphere common in the middle ages and that lead to dramatic events like the french revolution (in which case a great many people will lose the freedom to stay alive (on both sides of the fiscal divide.))

I'm sorry, but while I understand your angst here, I'm afraid you may be doing the work of the freedom-destroyers for them. Regulations (good ones anyways) are the rules of the game... they are what make something like a football game (and a marketplace) function in a meaningful way. They are the commandments by which people understand one another, cooperate, and have the best opportunity to prosper without doing harm to someone else in the process.

(apologies for the novel. this topic is just that important.)
 
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The government regulates freedoms, not rights. Those are either recognized, or not, but not regulated.

In any case, Oranguh got it. This shithole, or paradise, or whatever you want to call it, is of the people. For better or worse.


cheers,
Ian
Ah another stalwart defender of the government. Don't confuse the ideal with the reality.

At any rate, this isn't the government the people chose. You see, the Majority of the legislation passed the public is woefully unaware of. In fact, most of the legislation passed, is to sate the political appetites of special interest groups hungry for control, and their own nice juicy morsel of taxpayer funds.

The only thing we can fault the public with is being afraid that nothing that they do matters if they don't vote either democrat or republican, that and perhaps poor judges of character.
 
Ah another stalwart defender of the government. Don't confuse the ideal with the reality.

At any rate, this isn't the government the people chose. You see, the Majority of the legislation passed the public is woefully unaware of. In fact, most of the legislation passed, is to sate the political appetites of special interest groups hungry for control, and their own nice juicy morsel of taxpayer funds.

The only thing we can fault the public with is being afraid that nothing that they do matters if they don't vote either democrat or republican, that and perhaps poor judges of character.


You're kinda/sorta right... the problem is that you're attacking the real culprit's dummy meat shield instead of the culprit itself. I.e., the Uber-Rich/Corporation. They are the one's who are benefitting from de-regulation or mal-regulation by destroying the good regulations. They've rewired the game so thoroughly that the cost of getting elected to government is so incredibly high that only the already rich or easily corruptible can even GET elected (which essentially guarantees a bought seat and thus a bought and paid for set of regulations.) You're blaming the hammer rather than the wielder of said hammer.
 
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  1. Less/No Quality Control -- In order for 'free-market' FFCA to make more money, they have lobbied congress and agencies to get rid of key regulations requiring them to expend time and resources making sure their product (in this case, for example, BEEF) meets a base minimum of quality (i.e., safety.) As a result, they gain the freedom to stop testing the meat, fill the meat full of industrial chemicals, and ship the meat via means that are intrinsically dirty... why? its cheap. The result, however, is that the end consumer loses the freedom to go to the store and buy untainted food. In many cases, this leads to the loss of freedom to be free of bacterial/viral diseases, carcinogenic chemicals, and other afflictions which, in turn, deprives them of the freedom to keep some of their money instead of having to spend it on avoidable medical/funeral expenses. On entity's freedom came at the cost of another's.
If there is a demand for certain kinds of meat, (in this case untainted) such meat will be produced for profit.

While this increases the freedom of FFCA to keep more of it's money, it is still relevant to point #1, depriving the consumer the freedom to have a healthy food product to eat, the freedom to have their health, and the freedom to keep some of their money by not having to go so routinely to the hospital and/or delay unnecessary funeral expenses.

This is already done anyway, and there is plenty of organic meat avialable. In fact there is probably less of a demand (hence less groups focusing on this particular category) due to the fact that people trust government regulation to protect them.

Screw Your Workers -
This actually causes more people to go into business for themselves. Rather than trust your typical "too big to fail" corperation to take care of them. To add a little historical perspective, this was the way things were before the industrial age hit hardcore, and it seems to me things are tending in that direction again.


What you seem to be missing is the self-correcting nature of the Free-Market.

Again though, I wasn't initially talking about the economy. I was talking about actual rights, freedoms, etc.

Maybe I should give an example.

Property. Is it yours? You pay a property tax or the government comes and takes it away. If they decide they want it, they seize it (emminent domain) and give you only what they feel it is worth, furthermore, you have to get a "permit" in order to build pretty much anything. So they will (if you apply and meet all the qualifications) permit you to build on your own land, or maybe do some landscaping.

Originally the text of the DofI said "life liberty and property" although property was taken out and replaced with pursuit of happiness, because people would have used it in defense of slavery, and for the sake of prose. It was clear that this was seen by our founders as an inalienable right, yet, in terms of land, we don't really own our property at all. More appropriately we're renting it from the government. (Typical of the old feudal systems. Our founding Father's concept of property was alloidial. They probably would have gone to war again for an income tax, or a property tax)
 
The Founding Fathers had a rather different set of problems than we do. You have to really consider whether many of our current problems even fall within the scope of their idealism. Today, weapons exist that can eradicate cities, pollution may be changing our very climate, the global economy is more integrated than could have even been conceived just 20 years ago, and the internet has made it possible for groups of people who have never met to communicate intimately across vast distances. How do you incorporate such a modern world into a post Enlightenment ideal?
 
Ah another stalwart defender of the government.

Based on this feedback, my sense is that you do not understand me—but how would you, since I didn’t speak to this issue?

Don't confuse the ideal with the reality.

I would appreciate it if you would not advise me on what to do, especially when that advice is based on what seems to me to be a presumption.

My sense is each and every has a perspective on reality, and that none may perceive it in full, or without the bias of their perspective.

At any rate, this isn't the government the people chose. You see, the Majority of the legislation passed the public is woefully unaware of. In fact, most of the legislation passed, is to sate the political appetites of special interest groups hungry for control, and their own nice juicy morsel of taxpayer funds.

I disagree. My sense is this is precisely the government the people chose.

Some people chose to remain unaware—perhaps most, even. Some people chose to organize in groups — those who seek control, those who don’t mind being controlled, those who engage in politics, and those who don’t (save their choice to not engage), those who seek to take money from one and give it to the other, and those who seek to live by "what is mine, is mine."

The government only exists as a function of the people who create it, by their choices to action and inaction.

The only thing we can fault the public with is being afraid that nothing that they do matters if they don't vote either democrat or republican, that and perhaps poor judges of character.

I don’t see a need to judge the public as being at fault, or not, much less judge them at all.

---

My sense is the human situation is created by humans. I believe that is true of governments as much as it is true of one’s own personal responsibility.

My sense is people do the best they can at all times, with the resources available to them. That value serves as a model for my understanding of how people live their lives day to day. The government comes out of that living, out of their best efforts to meet their own needs, varied as they are.

Your values may differ from others’, and that which they have worked for. I live that experience every day! That doesn’t make me, or anyone else, better or worse, nor more (or less) privy to that "reality" you mentioned earlier.


cheers,
Ian
 
The Founding Fathers had a rather different set of problems than we do. You have to really consider whether many of our current problems even fall within the scope of their idealism. Today, weapons exist that can eradicate cities, pollution may be changing our very climate, the global economy is more integrated than could have even been conceived just 20 years ago, and the internet has made it possible for groups of people who have never met to communicate intimately across vast distances. How do you incorporate such a modern world into a post Enlightenment ideal?

Probably the best and most direct response yet, but I fail to see exactly how these new technological developments alter the value of their ideals.
 
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Based on this feedback, my sense is that you do not understand me—but how would you, since I didn’t speak to this issue?



I would appreciate it if you would not advise me on what to do, especially when that advice is based on what seems to me to be a presumption.

My sense is each and every has a perspective on reality, and that none may perceive it in full, or without the bias of their perspective.



I disagree. My sense is this is precisely the government the people chose.

Some people chose to remain unaware—perhaps most, even. Some people chose to organize in groups — those who seek control, those who don’t mind being controlled, those who engage in politics, and those who don’t (save their choice to not engage), those who seek to take money from one and give it to the other, and those who seek to live by "what is mine, is mine."

The government only exists as a function of the people who create it, by their choices to action and inaction.



I don’t see a need to judge the public as being at fault, or not, much less judge them at all.

---

My sense is the human situation is created by humans. I believe that is true of governments as much as it is true of one’s own personal responsibility.

My sense is people do the best they can at all times, with the resources available to them. That value serves as a model for my understanding of how people live their lives day to day. The government comes out of that living, out of their best efforts to meet their own needs, varied as they are.

Your values may differ from others’, and that which they have worked for. I live that experience every day! That doesn’t make me, or anyone else, better or worse, nor more (or less) privy to that "reality" you mentioned earlier.


cheers,
Ian
So to shorten your post if I understand you correctly (as you suggested I did not), "things are what they are because people chose them to be that way" and "to each their own".

Typically, there is a level of tyrrany and oppression that 'we' as a society hopefully never arrive at.... generally its a good idea not to get there.
 
I fail to see exactly how these new technological developments alter the value of their ideals.

Values are derived from the contextual relationships between and among people and things.

When those contexts change, so does the value of ideals. They may no longer adequately address peoples
 
It is our responsibility to keep the government in check.

Clinging to this attitude that dismisses critics as petty whiners is quite sad.

This kind of thinking is so detrimental.
See how our conversation is stunted before it ever started?

Very well, this is where we must start from.

If one has closed their mind to the existence of a problem,
how can they correctly asses their own situation?

To be so extremely opposed to the possibility that our gov't has a problem is naive.
Such passionate naivety is simply dangerous.

This kind of thinking must change, as we all must work together for solutions.

We dont know what we dont know, so let's train ourselves to be open minded.

Everyone is served best when we take an honest look at the issues.

Let's walk side by side, rather than fight against each other.

It will take a real effort for each of us to put down the old way of doing things and adopt a new one.

Certainly, there is a better way.

Can we all agree that there are some problems in the world today?
Let us open our eyes and see what is going on.

We must look at ourselves as much as we talk about the gov't.

If we allow this madness to persist, we are the ones to blame, not the gov't.

We should take responsibility, rather than give it up.

This system we have been given has taught us to fight each other.
We must let this go.

Left vs Right is sideways energy.

We must look forward and up.

The political game is a distraction.
People get emotionally invested in their team winning the game.
We get to come out and support the games with our vote, every 2-4 years.

All the money used to campaign with ads is such a waste.

And how many educated voters are actually in existence anymore?

Most people vote for the popular guy, for sex appeal, for name recognition.

And if you dont cast your vote for one of the Repubs or Dems, everyone knows it's a wasted vote, because third party is never going to win.

We have a system that allows the masses to participate just enough so that it feels as if we are included.

Reality is, the elected officials are there because they had enough money to pay for their campaign.

We are only given information from the media, which serves up a good dose of drama to stir our emotions and keep us angry and afraid.

We must stop getting so offended and distracted with these petty things.

Let's think again.

What would be so bad about thinking?
 
So to shorten your post if I understand you correctly (as you suggested I did not), "things are what they are because people chose them to be that way" and "to each their own".

Indeed.

Typically, there is a level of tyrrany and oppression that 'we' as a society hopefully never arrive at.... generally its a good idea not to get there.

Fair enough. To that end, I live my life by my values, I change that which I can change (predominantly my own person), and recognize that which I cannot