Govt is corrupt, so why do liberals want bigger govt !?!?

[Avalar]

God we're confusing.

Also elevators are lifts and lifts are elevators. And we drive on the left side of the road. Abandon hope all Yanks who enter.

We drive on a parkway and park on a driveway

[Forster Keys]

Also elevators are lifts and lifts are elevators. And we drive on the left side of the road. Abandon hope all Yanks who enter.

We drive on a parkway and park on a driveway

Combine the two and you get a metal band.

[Simon Cowell of the RR]

I love how Americans say government is corrupt. Go to any country not in Western Europe and see what happens. Ever been to India? In the course of obtaining the paperwork to own a food stand, the average person has to give 10 bribes.

[Avalar]

We drive on a parkway and park on a driveway

Combine the two and you get a metal band.

Hooray for Driveway Park!!

[Disserbia]

I think its a troll guys...

No, trolls have better grammar and sentence structure.

So its just an idiot then? NSG should have an IQ test as criteria for membership.

[Ashmoria]

Who knows?

Probably they are just following the indoctrination that they have received from leftwing educators, pop culture, and the main stream media who are all proponents of big government.

If I could deprogram leftists, I would enlighten them to the fact that government is a market for corruption.

Essentially, it is a place where special interests go to get something by coercive means that they couldn't get in a free, voluntary, and competitive society.

For example, the reckless and irresponsible financial institutions that engaged in questionable business practices prior to the 2008 crisis successfully went to Washington to get bailed out by Bush, RINO republicans and virtually every democrat in Congress (including obama).

Not surprisingly, these same banks contributed generously to both obama and bush in their respective elections. Moreover, the these same failed bankers have figured prominently in both the bush and obama cabinets.

Using the 'logic' of the Left -- obama, bush, and democrats in congress were required to divert scarce resources from productive sectors of the economy to bailout the very negligent and reckless firms and individuals who helped cause the crisis or in the very least were clueless on how to mitigate its impact.

They don't really know why --just that the same fools and crooks who caused the crisis must be bailed out AND the politicians and elites in finance told them that a bail out was necessary ??!! How 'surprising' and convenient for these same elitist politicians and bankers.

In reality, the purpose of government isn't to promote sustainable and beneficial economic policy -- it is for self-serving politicians and their corrupt cronies in the public and private sector to 'game' the system to their benefit at the expense of productive individuals and firms in the private sector (who by definition don't need government help).

This is the preamble of ECO 101 for progressives.

In sum, if any liberal/progressive/leftist thinks that government is not corrupt and coercive -- then you cant proceed further and we need to resolve this impasse.

Please ask questions.

regardless of the existence of corruption there are things the government needs to do. the bigger the country the bigger the government. we get bigger every year.

[SaintB]

Hmm... that's a lot of words to use to say "Anyone who disagrees with my stand is a liberal"

OP does not seem to understand what liberal or liberalism actually mean, OP does also not understand the difference between a big government and a bigger government.

[SaintB]

I love how Americans say government is corrupt. Go to any country not in Western Europe and see what happens. Ever been to India? In the course of obtaining the paperwork to own a food stand, the average person has to give 10 bribes.

Western Corruption is more efficient because it takes place in the form of siphoning off people's tax money.

[Jari Head]

In Australia:

Liberal= Conservative

Nah, Big L Liberal = Conservative. Small l liberal = socially liberal, economically conservative.

Unfortunately we don't have them around here. We're stuck with Liberal liberals and Conservative conservatives and they see each other as 'the enemy'. We do have a middle ground known as 'moderates' who can occasionally get both side to agree on something.

[Des-Bal]

Unfortunately we don't have them around here. We're stuck with Liberal liberals and Conservative conservatives and they see each other as 'the enemy'. We do have a middle ground known as 'moderates' who can occasionally get both side to agree on something.

Also Libertarians who hate everyone.

[Jari Head]

God we're confusing.

Also elevators are lifts and lifts are elevators. And we drive on the left side of the road. Abandon hope all Yanks who enter.

Star Trek calls their elevators 'Lifts' and it's been around for 40 years so it's clear they are the same thing, it's this driving on the 'wrong' side of the road in a car with the steering wheel on the 'wrong' side of the car that are the 'spot of bother'

[Blakk Metal]

And firms have every incentive to ensure that they do not. When there are external costs to a transaction (which is nigh universal), market discipline can't do anything.--trots

I dont understand your statement,

Externalites are the results of a action that effect people that didn't agree to it.

try opening a business and screwing the customer and see how far and how big you get.

Apple chuckles.

The basic premise behind the argument is this: if a company sets up shop, selling rat poison in a capsule labeled "cancer cure", we don't need government to tell them they can't do that. We don't need government to require them to test the drug to ensure it ACTUALLY treats cancer. We don't need government to make them jump through all these beurocratic hoops.--neo art

I got news for you dude. the only rat poison salesman is the FDA

the highest cause of accidental death in the USA is from prescription drugs approved by the FDA (with healthy bribes from these very same pharma companies).

Indeed, more Americans die from prescription drugs than from heroin, marijuana, and cocaine combined !!!!!

essentially, private sector unregulated drug dealers are selling billions of dollars worth of illicit drugs and killing less Americans than those peddled by the FDA.

ponder that and reexamine the fallacious framework of your argument.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

I must disagree. LogiChristianity is even worse.

[REDACTED] and The Richard Branson Republic were even worse.

[The Terragon Isles]

While you should be lauded for actually trying to make an intelligent argument, (even if you are horribly failing in the process) you are, predictably, failing to do so here, I expect because you are trying to imitate the logical arguments you have seen being met with success, without actually understanding how or why a logical, intelligent argument is respected, where the irrational, essentially faith (not in the religious sense) based arguments that seem to have convinced you, typically fail to convince intelligent people, and will generally get you laughed out of the room. So allow me to show you what you did wrong:

First, you start off by essentially saying that all people on the left side of the isles are indoctrinated by the media and popular culture. This is, under the best of circumstances, a reckless opening since you are making a wild claim, that is sure to offend a large part of your audience, liberal and conservative alike. If you will recall your High School writing classes, the introduction to an essay, (which is typically just an extended argument), you are supposed to pull your audience in, not make yourself hostile to them. Now, it is possible, in theory, to get away with such a claim, but you absolutely must immediately follow it, either with a thesis that will prove it as such, or at least strong evidence or logical demonstration of fact, in order to back it up. In this way you win back the audience's attention, even if begrudgingly. You do neither. Your topic is about something else entirely, and you end up just taking this as a given. This means that, as a result, the only people that are going not be offended are essentially those that think this exact thing already, as you have already alienated everyone else. So then why write this? The only people liable to by sympathetic to your writing are those who already think the exact same thing, so clearly they don't need to be convinced. Therefore, unless you are just wanting to sit around wanking off to each other in written form, your argument has already failed.

The second place where you misstep is the third paragraph and onward, your main thesis and body paragraphs to go back to the High School writing courses (which I'm sure you didn't just blow off because you thought it wasn't important, or knew better). You start off by stating that the government is corrupt, then citing the influence of special interest groups and the recent financial crisis in America as evidence. The problem here is that this is not evidence, as you do not say what the logical link is between the two. You don't show how the presence of these special interest groups are corrupting our government, you don't show how the recent financial crisis is evidence of this. It is true that often someone constructing a logical argument might cite a historical or current event as evidence of their position with very little explanation and move on, but the reason they can do this and sometimes get away with it is that it is already commonly accepted that X event is an example of Y. (For instance, the continued aggression of Nazi Germany that eventually lead to WWII being an example of the failure of appeasement, to use a commonly accepted, if not particularly historically accurate, example) Even when people do this, it does not make for a particularly strong argument, and is really only socially allowed to occur because people understand that a person might be rushed for time or space.

But in this case, the influence of special interest groups is NOT accepted as always making a government corrupt, and the recent financial crisis is NOT commonly accepted as being evidence of this. Indeed, the general, though by no means uncontested, view in America is that the financial crisis resulted from NOT ENOUGH government regulation of these financial institutions. Therefore, you needed to actually give fairly objective evidence, or a sound explanation of how exactly this is evidence of government corruption, which you don't do. This is echoed over and over again throughout your argument here, such as where you say the purpose of government is just for the material gain of the politicians (for which you give no evidence), that democrats are diverting scare resources (what resources, and how are they scarce) away from important sectors of the economy (what sectors of the economy, and why are they important?) just to bailout reckless firms and individuals (how are all the firms and individuals who benefited from the stimulus reckless?), for which you have also offered no logical proof. So, because you refuse to actually give proof for your claims, there is no reason your audience should accept them as legitimate.

The third problem is that you don't give us an alternative. Sure, your implied alternative is that if big government is bad, smaller, or no government, should be good, but this is not enough because, again, you are assuming most people agree with you, when in fact not even a plurality (read: biggest minority) of people agree necessarily agree with you. You haven't explained how a smaller government would solve these problems, how taking power away from the government would keep the already tremendous power of the special interest from crowding out any ability the government would have to fight back, or even how less government involvement in the affairs of these special interest would decrease their power. I suspect the reason for this is that you don't know yourself, but even if I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you do, you have not given it, so there is no reason your audience should accept your alternative as better than the status quo, when indeed for all they know (since you HAVEN'T EXPLAINED what your alternative is) it is worse.

Your final blunder is simply the fact that you are being petulant and obnoxious. You are using a bunch of words and phrases that people other than yourself have uttered, in much better context and with much better justification, that appear to be intelligent, popular and edgy, with the apparent ability to rile people up (after all, they probably riled you up when you first heard them). For instance, you use "Obama, Bush, and the democrats", since you perceive that all three are unpopular, but without the contextual knowledge to know that, at the very least, Bush, his failures, and his unpopularity, are not allied with the democrats or Obama (or, on a slightly more complex note, that clumping the actions of congressional democrats with Obama is not entirely accurate either). You call this diatribe about how government only exists to benefit the politicians and this cronies the "preamble to Economics 101", as if you are trying to add some academic legitimacy to your work, when really it just ends up making you infuriating to anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of economics, as this has absolutely nothing to do with it, and patronizing to everyone else. You seemingly randomly break up your statement with diatribes against Obama and the democrats, which while in an intelligent discussion or essay might pass as humor, are just as baseless and petty as the rest of your argument, making your argument clunky, and making yourself appear petty and dishonest, as it make the audience question why you taking petty shots at people you don't like instead of explaining your argument, which in turn makes it look like you are trying to pull a fast one on them by insulting people instead of explaining yourself.

So basically, the problem with this topic, and your argument in general comes down to this: it isn't doing anything to make anyone more sympathetic to your position. You, in essence, don't make a case for yourself, you just sit there and throw out words you hope will get people as riled up as they got you. Your topic will not be sympathetic to anyone, except those who already agree with you, which makes it somewhat less useful than preaching to the choir, as in this case you are likely you are likely to alienate some of the choir. So really, I do applaud you for trying to make a logical, sympathetic argument, but this only makes it worse when you fail so horribly. And for the love of God, don't say you didn't fail, you failed to make a logical, sympathetic argument by every definition of the term. This is no reason you shouldn't keep trying, but for the love of God, make sure to learn from the mistakes you made here for next time.

you do seem to have paragraphs, but for some reason there's no line separation and it makes it pretty hard to read ):

Sorry about that, I just saw that when I looked at the post again today.

[The Terragon Isles]

Thank you, it would be much easier to read now if it were worth reading. Go read the news instead. You'll be glad you did.

Oh I'm sorry, what's this? No response? Trying to pass off a lazy dismissal as legitimate are we now?

[Neo Art]

Thank you, it would be much easier to read now if it were worth reading. Go read the news instead. You'll be glad you did.

Oh I'm sorry, what's this? No response? Trying to pass off a lazy dismissal as legitimate are we now?

You get used to it.

[Socialdemokraterne]

Let's review what we've seen so far, since we appear to have meandered a bit and the topics have become mixed.

OP Argument 1: Government is always corrupt, and increasing its scale increases the scale of corruption.
I provided three metrics illustrating that no fewer than four first-world, industrialized, globally-trading countries with massive welfare states were nigh unto devoid of corruption. The OP responded to this criticism of Argument 1 by accusing me of comparing apples to oranges, citing the difference in population between these countries and the USA as evidence.

In so doing the OP has failed to realize that this point is absolutely, positively immaterial to the question of whether or not extensive government influence belies extensive corruption. As a consequence, I argue that the OP has failed to actually defend Argument 1 against my criticism and has further failed to provide a metric illustrating a direct, causative relationship between the act of increasing government spending and the increase of corruption, which would actually provide a defense of Argument 1. Another method would be to demonstrate that the governments of those four countries are actually "small" governments (the population is irrelevant to the argument). To take this second route would require quantification of what constitutes a "big" and "small" government, something else we have yet to be provided. Yet a third method would be to substantiate a claim that these four governments are actually very corrupt.

OP, you have to understand that you have made a universal argument. If I can find even one example of a large-scale government which is not rife with corruption your argument loses its quality of being universally applicable. To continue to assert that government is inherently corrupt and becomes more corrupt as its scale increases in spite of this counter evidence (as you have) is logically invalid. You have provided no evidence to substantiate that your claim is universally true and you have not actually defended your argument from my counter examples.

OP Argument 2: The USA bears a higher standard of living and quality of life than Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark thanks to its higher GDP per capita PPP. Furthermore, most US states outperform the GDP per capita PPP of all the Scandinavian states.
First things first: the claim that the USA overall has a higher GDP per capita PPP than all the Scandinavian states is demonstrably false. Simply shrugging one's shoulders and saying "Meh, it's the Norwegians' oil" doesn't invalidate that fact, and such an argument is an act of deflection rather than an act of refutation. It is not a proper defense of the OP's claim therefore.

Let us next address the claim that since the GDP per capita PPP in many US states is higher compared to those of the Nordic countries, the standard of living and quality of life in those states is better. This is a complete misunderstanding of how GDP per capita figures are used to infer standards of living, and in fact it's a failure to even fully grasp what a GDP per capita figure is measuring in the first place.

As I have already said several times, changes in GDP per capita over time are what is used to approximate changes in the standard of living in a given location throughout a given time frame, the figure is not a direct measurement of the standard of living or the incomes of the people in the area of interest. It is therefore absolutely worthless, in the context of a discussion on relative standards of living, to point at a US state's GDP per capita PPP figure for a given year in an effort to assert that the state of interest has a higher standard of living than that of whatever Nordic country you want to compare it to. The best you can do is compare the rates of change in their figures within the same time frame to determine whose standard of living was improving or decreasing more strikingly over that period of time. I have already done this for Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and the USA as a whole and illustrated that the standard of living, as inferred by GDP per capita PPP alone, is improving at a much higher rate in Sweden and Finland than in the United States. The standards of living in Norway and Denmark are relatively static, with Denmark's slightly increasing year to year.

In order to more reliably comment on the standard of living you must, in addition to GDP per capita, examine several factors such as per capita income, cost of living, infant mortality rates, literacy rates, proportions of the population completing each level of education, life expectancy, and so forth. You cannot simply rely on GDP per capita PPP figures to make an argument about standards of living and quality of life. These figures are wonderful for an inference about shifts in standards of living, but they are not direct measurements thereof and should thus not be used as the OP has used them.

It is thus that I again conclude that the OP has failed to adequately defend their argument. Argument 2 stands contested.

Argument 3: The United States is doomed to failure thanks to 100+ trillion dollars in debt owed to entitlements.
The OP finally provided a source for this claim, but the source does not say what the OP says. There is not projected, even at current taxation and funding rates, a 100+ trillion dollar entitlement liability by this date in 2015. The OP has miscalculated.

[Acroticus]

Let's review what we've seen so far, since we appear to have meandered a bit and the topics have become mixed.

OP Argument 1: Government is always corrupt, and increasing its scale increases the scale of corruption.
I provided three metrics illustrating that no fewer than four first-world, industrialized, globally-trading countries with massive welfare states were nigh unto devoid of corruption. The OP responded to this criticism of Argument 1 by accusing me of comparing apples to oranges, citing the difference in population between these countries and the USA as evidence.

In so doing the OP has failed to realize that this point is absolutely, positively immaterial to the question of whether or not extensive government influence belies extensive corruption. As a consequence, I argue that the OP has failed to actually defend Argument 1 against my criticism and has further failed to provide a metric illustrating a direct, causative relationship between the act of increasing government spending and the increase of corruption, which would actually provide a defense of Argument 1. Another method would be to demonstrate that the governments of those four countries are actually "small" governments (the population is irrelevant to the argument). To take this second route would require quantification of what constitutes a "big" and "small" government, something else we have yet to be provided. Yet a third method would be to substantiate a claim that these four governments are actually very corrupt.

OP, you have to understand that you have made a universal argument. If I can find even one example of a large-scale government which is not rife with corruption your argument loses its quality of being universally applicable. To continue to assert that government is inherently corrupt and becomes more corrupt as its scale increases in spite of this counter evidence (as you have) is logically invalid. You have provided no evidence to substantiate that your claim is universally true and you have not actually defended your argument from my counter examples.

OP Argument 2: The USA bears a higher standard of living and quality of life than Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark thanks to its higher GDP per capita PPP. Furthermore, most US states outperform the GDP per capita PPP of all the Scandinavian states.
First things first: the claim that the USA overall has a higher GDP per capita PPP than all the Scandinavian states is demonstrably false. Simply shrugging one's shoulders and saying "Meh, it's the Norwegians' oil" doesn't invalidate that fact, and such an argument is an act of deflection rather than an act of refutation. It is not a proper defense of the OP's claim therefore.

Let us next address the claim that since the GDP per capita PPP in many US states is higher compared to those of the Nordic countries, the standard of living and quality of life in those states is better. This is a complete misunderstanding of how GDP per capita figures are used to infer standards of living, and in fact it's a failure to even fully grasp what a GDP per capita figure is measuring in the first place.

As I have already said several times, changes in GDP per capita over time are what is used to approximate changes in the standard of living in a given location throughout a given time frame, the figure is not a direct measurement of the standard of living or the incomes of the people in the area of interest. It is therefore absolutely worthless, in the context of a discussion on relative standards of living, to point at a US state's GDP per capita PPP figure for a given year in an effort to assert that the state of interest has a higher standard of living than that of whatever Nordic country you want to compare it to. The best you can do is compare the rates of change in their figures within the same time frame to determine whose standard of living was improving or decreasing more strikingly over that period of time. I have already done this for Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and the USA as a whole and illustrated that the standard of living, as inferred by GDP per capita PPP alone, is improving at a much higher rate in Sweden and Finland than in the United States. The standards of living in Norway and Denmark are relatively static, with Denmark's slightly increasing year to year.

In order to more reliably comment on the standard of living you must, in addition to GDP per capita, examine several factors such as per capita income, cost of living, infant mortality rates, literacy rates, proportions of the population completing each level of education, life expectancy, and so forth. You cannot simply rely on GDP per capita PPP figures to make an argument about standards of living and quality of life. These figures are wonderful for an inference about shifts in standards of living, but they are not direct measurements thereof and should thus not be used as the OP has used them.

It is thus that I again conclude that the OP has failed to adequately defend their argument. Argument 2 stands contested.

Argument 3: The United States is doomed to failure thanks to 100+ trillion dollars in debt owed to entitlements.
The OP finally provided a source for this claim, but the source does not say what the OP says. There is not projected, even at current taxation and funding rates, a 100+ trillion dollar entitlement liability by this date on 2015. The OP has miscalculated.

[Aleckandor]

They do it to troll conservatives for teh lulz.

[Galiantus]

No, trolls have better grammar and sentence structure.

So its just an idiot then? NSG should have an IQ test as criteria for membership.

No, just an IQ test score everyone else can see.

[Yandere Schoolgirls]

No, trolls have better grammar and sentence structure.

So its just an idiot then? NSG should have an IQ test as criteria for membership.

So should political seats

[Trotskylvania]

So its just an idiot then? NSG should have an IQ test as criteria for membership.

So should political seats

Intelligence has never been a defense against being wrong, corrupt or evil.

Case in point, Leon Trotsky, Richard Nixon and Josef Stalin respectively. They would have had, by any reckoning, certifiably genius level IQs.

[Jari Head]

River, you been running off at the keyboard for several (dozen) pages on how the government need changing so I propose a bit of 'what if' here. What if you had THE POWER to change the make up of the government any way you want with the following exceptions, it must consist of the President, Congress, and the Judiciary. It also must have the original four cabinet departments and any dept. or agency that was brought into being by constitutional amendment. This means you can't get rid of the IRS, you can alter it but you can't get rid of it. You must also explain why you got rid of <name> agency or dept.

Think you can handle that?
I have another 'What If?' dealing with a national emergency/disaster after you've changed your government.

[Disserbia]

So should political seats

Intelligence has never been a defense against being wrong, corrupt or evil.

Case in point, Leon Trotsky, Richard Nixon and Josef Stalin respectively. They would have had, by any reckoning, certifiably genius level IQs.

I never said it was...

[Hibernicus]

[Beiluxia]

River, you been running off at the keyboard for several (dozen) pages on how the government need changing so I propose a bit of 'what if' here. What if you had THE POWER to change the make up of the government any way you want with the following exceptions, it must consist of the President, Congress, and the Judiciary. It also must have the original four cabinet departments and any dept. or agency that was brought into being by constitutional amendment. This means you can't get rid of the IRS, you can alter it but you can't get rid of it. You must also explain why you got rid of <name> agency or dept.

Think you can handle that?
I have another 'What If?' dealing with a national emergency/disaster after you've changed your government.

I followed this thread up until page 14, the OP seems borderline troll so I doubt he'll answer you directly. Consider me gone from this thread 4EVA!