Libertarians should oppose the Arizona Immigrant Laws

No, it isn't the people born there's fault. It's the parents of those peoples' fault for knowing that there isn't enough food to go around in their tribe and still deciding to bring a child into a life of starvation, poverty and disease. You can try and make me out to be some bad guy but I'm not the bad guy, the irresponsible parents of those children are.

I just don't see the point in supporting people who will NEVER be able to support themselves.

 

So what you're asking is for people to never have sex? Abstinance education doesn't work in the United States, why in god's name would it work in sub Saharan Africa.

The main point is too when you're poor, you have more kids. Aside from the fact if Africa one of your children has a good chance of dying, teenagers can work, they can work land, they can work in factories, and more importantly kids support you when you're too old to work anymore. Social security doesn't exist in these places. Ever notice how pre 1920's/30's Americans and other people living in the industrialized world also have huge families despite most people being pretty poor back then too.

 

just because that's how things happen doesn't make it the smartest solution, if you can't survive on your own in a place you should pack up and move to a place you can. While more kids equals more work it does not equal more food.

if I were starving to death it wouldn't matter how much I love my country I'm going somewhere I can find food.

 

This isn't an option for a lot of people. Americans are rich beyond the wildest dreams of Africans and most Americans can't even move without a long time of planning. And Americans actually have prosperous places to go, where is someone in rural Africa supposed to go. They can't go to the cities otherwise they'd just wind up a beggar with no land, can't leave the country, don't have a car, ect.

Actually it generally does, people don't live where it's impossible to live. People go hungry because of droughts, famine, blight, war, civil unrest. But in good times the more hands you have, the more acres of land you can plant, the more crops you can harvest, the more projects you can get done, the more people in a house you can have earning a paycheck. Plus again, kids are the social security for people in most of the world.

Your country is irreverent, you live in one of the richest nations on Earth, bordered by another nation just as rich, and another, despite how Mexico seems, relatively middle income nation that together make up an entire continent worth of land. There's always somewhere to go. Try picturing yourself as a rural person in Africa with almost no money, no car. Tell me where are you going to go?

 

Okay can you tell me exactly how this plan of throwing money at problems is ever going to work?

Give me a detailed step by step. I'm mostly concerned with the step where the people that live there become self sufficient but I would like you to tell me every step if you can.

 

It helps by giving people a helping hand to stay on their feet. How is any different than unemployment, food stamps, WIC, ect here. You can rag about how they shouldn't have kids but the fact remains almost every middle and lower class American family has gone through a spot in their lives where without the social welfare systems we have in place in our first world country would not have been able to pay their bills and lost their house and been living on beans and rice. As it stands nearly 1 in 4 American children live in a family on food stamps.

Not to mention do you understand how foreign aid works? Some of it is in fact food aid, but most government aid is not. In fact as it stands 1/3 of foreign aid is military aid. The other 2/3 we don't just give out, it has to generally go into infrastructure projects that can return on investment.

*edit*
The question is do you have a better solution, especially considering the money you say we're just throwing at a problem, i.e. food aid, mostly goes to people living in refugee camps or in war torn regions.

 

I'm not too fond of unemployment, welfare, foodstamps in the us. Makes people lazy and co-dependent so they never have to work a day

and you didn't answer my question, when is enough help enough? Describe the process of them becoming self sufficient.

 

How do they make people lazy an co-dependent. Can you imagine what the world wide economy right now would look like if they didn't exist?

And they become self sufficent by helping them build infrastructure projects so goods can get around the country, be imported and exported. You build schools so people know how to read and have more skills than building. You build irrigation projects, fertilizer plants, teach soil conversation methods, bring in modern farming equipment so crops are not at the whim of weather and blight and can produce larger yields. You help build hospitals and bring in medical supplies so rampant disease stops. Lower trade barriers so they goods aside from resources have a chance in the western markets. All those little things we take for granted living in the cushy first world. And this is exactly what foreign aid, the IMF and world bank do.

 

Very well written, good point.

I'm still not too keen on trading between countries and relying on things traded though

 

All of human civilization has always depended on trade though. I mean the computers we're on right now were probably built in Japan, with rare earth materials from China, with other metals and resources from Africa, by power plants fueled by uranium from the US or Australia, shipped over on a freighter built in South Korea, powdered by oil from the mid east or Canada ect. Trade is why we have food in the winter, most people in the United States live in areas where crops can't be sustained all year, only southern California and Arizona(which is now a fertile region from government programs to build irrigation canals from the Colorado river), Texas and the very deep south can make it through the year without hitting the freezing point.

 

I consider myself a far left libertarian, perhaps social anarchist, etc.
and this is how I see it.
On the one hand, yeah, they're breaking the law.
On the other hand, who can blame them, and its nearly impossible to do it the legal way. They're just trying to improve their lives.

 

I can't believe so many can't tell the difference between international trade agreements and a sovereign nation's libertarian political party. There is no party of any kind that can be elected in the U.S.A. that would have authority over the politics of another nation. Influence, yes. But sovereignty is sovereignty.

 

Except when defined by the 10th amendment.

 

The question I find yet to be answered is "Can both the Left and the Right coexist?"

 

Of course they can. They do all over the world. They're called countries with mixed economies...like the USA.

America isn't strictly a capitalist country. Union legislation, Social Security, the military, and the welfare state are all forms of socialism, just to name a few. (*Edit*) And Sweden and Germany aren't strictly socialist countries. The best form of government, or at least the best form most widely employed, is that of a mixed economy government. Were the more economically libertarian policies of the USA in the early 1900s better than what we have now? Strictly on an economic standpoint, was the authoritarian communism of the USSR preferable to the freer markets Russia now has today? Of course not, on both points.

The only question is to which side does that mixed economy government leans closer. I for one think this movement should be more fluid: For example, during the recession Western Europe would be wise to cut back on social spending. But at the same time, center-right countries like the USA might benefit from increasing social spending. America seems to be in an ideological gridlock or, more accurately, dominated by corporate and wealthy interests: We say, "NO! THE ONLY RATIONAL COURSE OF ACTION IS TO KEEP TAXES ON THE WEALTHY LOW SO THEY CAN CREATE JOBS...EVEN THOUGH THE BUSH TAX CUTS ARE ALREADY IN PLACE AND THE WEALTHY STILL HAVEN'T CREATED MANY OPPORTUNITIES!" America seems to be stuck permanently on the free market side of the spectrum, and we're suffering because of it.

Meanwhile, there are riots in Europe because the government wants to scale back on domestic spending and entitlement. And, of course, the Western European social safety net is much larger than ours here in America. Yet their public is stubborn, not realizing that curbing some entitlement spending (but surely not a level where their safety net would be as a pitiful as ours) will probably benefit them in the long run.

Leaning to either side has its benefits. Starting or operating a business is easier in the United States, which spurs growth, but the working-class and poor have a better quality of life in Western Europe, which can also spur growth since the working-classes save money on shit like healthcare and can thus spend it elsewhere. Of course, those are both broad descriptions. I'm just throwing them out there as examples.

It kind of bugs me how Americans, especially of the Tea Party variety, tend to see economies through a black-and-white spectrum. I.e., America is super duper capitalist while the French are a bunch of socialist weenies. It simply isn't true and anyone who thinks that way is ignoring a very massive gray area.

I think our government needs to be reorganized in order to reflect the need for more fluid shifts in policy -- from leaning right to leaning left, and perhaps back again -- when it's necessary. Fareed Zakaria, writing in Time Magazine, said: "(The American Government is) an 18th century system determined to check and balance the absolute power of a monarchy. It is designed for gridlock at a moment when quick and large-scale action is our only hope."

Zakaria hits the nail on the head. Of course, reorganizing the US government would be impossible because doing so just might cost corporate America a fraction of its profits. So yeah, we're basically fucked.

 

As do Israeli's and Palestinians coexist, but can they coexist without imposition or force?

I feel government has taken far too much responsibility in the application of economic and social controls of society and that the "best" form of government has yet to be achieved, and would be one which produced the least amount of debate over what government should do.

Center-right? I think those days are long gone as a means of defining the U.S. Now we seem to be entering into a discourse over rich vs poor, and using governments power to redistribute wealth with government taking on the responsibility of reducing inequality by eliminating the results of individual failure. It needs to be recognized that it is NOT just the wealthy who create jobs, but often the poor who take great financial risks and as a result may enter into the ranks of the wealthy if successful. I see the free market as the primary reason for the success that has been achieved by the U.S. and the movement to greater and greater government rules and regulations, along with more punishing taxes to be the cause of the suffering that appears to be on an increase currently. Jobs are not being created, and are unlikely to be created in the amount needed currently due to the uncertainty faced by those who create jobs. What new and costly rules may become applicable, adding to the cost of each employee not to mention new employees? Businesses are created as a means of making a profit, and not just to provide society with something it needs or wants. True, the needs of a society make good areas to begin a business, but only when it can be done profitably. Any business which runs at a loss will and should eventually fail, even when run by a government, and in fact more so when run by a government as shown by the rapidly increasing national debt. We seem to have come to accept government as a business model which can perpetually run with its financial records in red, and still consider it to be successful, ignoring the effects upon the society as a whole which have nothing to do with reducing the division between rich and poor but actually exacerbating it and allowing it to be used as a tool for even greater need of government control and intervention upon business and the free market system.

So you see the solution to be greater spending and indebtedness in order to reduce their debt? Just how have we come up with the concept of entitlements?

Do they really have a better quality of life? And if so, why are they having such problems now, are the problems unrelated to what government has been providing?

The emphasis is being placed on the form of government instead of the economic well being of the country.

I, on the other hand think we would benefit by returning to a government with less involvement except in the areas given it in the Constitution.

That's one point of view, but I agree that corporate America will be unaffected by either the Left or the Right.

 

I don't know what you mean by that. You speak of "left and right" as two opposing factions. They aren't. They're just ideas across a broad spectrum. Now, if you were to say, "Corporate America versus the working class", I might understand your analogy.

What do you mean, specifically? And how is the 'debate' about what government should do a bad thing? I believe the 'debate' you speak of is democracy.

Big paragraph. First, let's forget about the idea that the poor can "enter the ranks of the wealthy" if they're just more responsible or harder working. When has the working-class truly prospered in America? I'd say after WW2, when the federal government had its nose in the private sector to a greater degree and the GI Bill allowed a lot of men, most of whom would probably just be low-skilled blue collar workers, to get a college education. It wasn't capitalism that helped the American worker prosper, it was help from the government.

Mind you, I'm not talking about the government legislating the working-classes into "wealth". I'm talking about a realistically comfortable standard of living for working people. Today, the American Right speaks of socialism and ushers in images of 1980s Poland. But really, socialism in America helped the working-class buy a decent house in the suburbs.

Okay, you're looking at this the wrong way. Cutting entitlement in America won't be all that effective in reducing the national debt. There's just not enough there to truly put a dent in it. Also, you speak of life within the free market system as a largely competitive affair. That sounds wonderful, until you realize that those people who "fail", as you mentioned earlier, are going to live miserable lives.

Entitlement ensures those people can afford dinner, and maybe a house. Is there nothing to say for providing measures of security for the weak? Or is that Marxism?

Also, yes, I do believe providing a single payer healthcare system along with a bolstered social safety net to be extremely important, especially now. Then to address the debt, we simply have to look realistically at our military spending. We've spent enough. We spend more on defense than any other country in the world. You want to talk about reduced spending, you focus on national defense. (And let's not get bring in the "Red Chinese Menace" as justification for our defense spending. We will not go to war with China in the near future, or possibly ever. In the global economy, why would China want to attack us, their greatest trading partner?)

Um, yes they do have a better quality of life. Better health care on the whole for working-class folks, easier access to education, lower stress levels and a longer life expectancy. They're also not as fat, which to me, speaks volumes. Crime's lower. I can go on.

Yes, European socialism is having problems. You must have ignored my point on Europe, in which I said they should curb some entitlement programs. But saying Europe would be wise to curb some entitlements is NOT a condemnation against the idea of entitlement as a whole. The point being -- It's a gray area. Europe should cut some programs while America should create more. France can raise it's retirement age. But, in the end, even after they make certain cuts, their safety net will still be better than ours. They're not dismantling their welfare state, although Tea Partiers like to paint that picture. (Tea Party types who claim "European socialism is dead" are just being disingenuous. Or stupid. Either way, it's not a surprise.)

What do you mean by that? Are you saying you'd rather see a more capitalist system than a system that benefits a country as a whole? That sounds very Rand-ish.

Score 3 points for a meaningless Tea Party platitude!

 

Opposing ideas, in relation to the application of government. Corporate America is not a form of government, and a large portion of the working population depend on Corporate America for both their livelihood as well as the products and services they consume.

What I meant was that good government is exemplified when its actions are consensually accepted by all the governed, not by just a margin which exceeds 50%. And yes, that would be in reference to Democracy, which is not exactly what the Constitution set out to produce as a form of government for the United States.

That may be true for some, but I think the war itself had more to do with putting people to work earning money, reducing the population, and ending the depression.

The debt will only be reduced by cutting spending. Not just entitlements, but services, government wages, benefits, employees, etc.

You want to cut/eliminate the military? That would be fine with me, and less of a threat to where I now live. Healthcare should be paid for by those who receive it. What would be more desirable for the Chinese to acquire, more diminishing value U.S. dollars or more property? I'd take the property when given such a choice.

Why then does the U.S. have so many more people trying to immigrate to the U.S. instead of one of the more utopian societies elsewhere. Reduce fat, cut out food stamps.

Just what is it that justifies entitlements in which there is no equitable exchange?

I have no problems with Capitalism, or Rand (Ayn or Rand Paul). What most benefits a country is a population in which all members contribute to its success.

Yes, the Constitution has become irrelevant to most citizens and politicians today, and it probably won't be long before only a few people will even know that one exists.

 

Aw geez. You're tickling my funny bone here. I'll reply in depth tomorrow. (Several beers deep, just got done a long shift.) But for now...

Can we at least agree that the American people have been duped by a corporatist system dominated by wealthy interests into buying into an 'American Dream' which has really been a myth for several decades now?

Can we agree Social Darwinism is a bad thing?

Because I'm not going to assume anything about you personally, or your financial situation or anything like that. I'm just going to say this: Most Tea Partiers and economic libertarians are not people who've scraped out a meager living on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder.

And the scary thing (at least to corporate America and it's Tea Bagging buddies) is that all of us -- who are either "irresponsible and lazy" or "anti-American elitist lefties" -- can vote. Our poisonous fucked up system full of corporate handjobs that so effortlessly destroys the lives of so many of our fellow citizens at least gives us that much.

 

Aw gee, can't we all just submit and get along? Is that the direction you are about to get off on?

I don't know what you might define to be the "American dream", but it appears to be a society of equals for most on the Left. Corporations have had no negative effect upon me at all, but government has.

When you say Social Darwinism is a bad thing are you referring to competition?

Your claim is meaningless, and short sighted. Everyone, at some point in their genealogical history began at the bottom rung of the ladder. Not all of us progress at the same rate, and that is no reason for government to intervene.

Certainly you can vote, but please end my curiosity, which of the choices are you a member of, the "irresponsible and lazy" or the "anti-American elitist lefties", when you used the term "us"?

As it appears to me that this site is comprised of predominantly those with views of the Marxist, Socialist, Communist, or other Leftist philosophies, I've yet to determine the relationship desired between the government and the governed, and the definition of what would be considered freedom.

I find it most productive to determine something that can be agreed upon exclusively if progress is the intent of a discussion in which agreement is the desired final result.