“Maybe you’re going to have to suck it up and hang out with people that don’t meet your standards sometimes, if you want to win. To quote one of those eeeevile neocons, “The New Hampshire license plate says ‘live free or die’. It doesn’t say ‘live free or whine.'”
Look, I’m willing to work with anybody who wants to promote the cause of freedom. Those people have nominally been conservatives. I will continue to ally myself with conservatives if they share goals that get me closer to my goals which are: personal, cultural, political and economic freedom.
I am not throwing in the towel, but I am very frustrated at this point.
Midway through 2008, the free speech movement in Canada seemed to have a lot of momentum. Where are we now?
We thought the Conservative Party would be the beginning of the end of runaway social spending. Yet they increased spending at a faster rate–relative to inflation–that any other government in history… and that was before this bailout bullshit.
Just how much of this march towards statism and socialism will I have to endure before it gets better?
I find it absolutely amazing that “conservatives” are willing to accept socialist policies as long as they’re proscribed by a party called the “Conservative Party”. Somebody should notify the NDP just how far a simple name change could go for their cause.
“Any society that requires strong laws and a strong state is either tyrannical, or its citizens are childish…or both.”
I think yer onto something…just not what you thought you were onto..
real. he meant the freedom that people have under some political systems.
“It’s sad that ‘capitalism’ has that name. It makes it sound like it’s just another ‘ism’ in competition with socialism, facsism, communism, etc. It’s not.”
Yup. Capitalism is simply a human activity. It requires neither dogma nor ideology.
Also, “free market economy” and “capitalism” are not synonyms.
Any true capitalist wants to corner the market and control it. Capitalists operate in free markets because they have to, not because they want to.
JJM@6:46 “Any true capitalist wants to corner the market and control it”
Well, of course! And in a true free market, there are a hundred other guys attempting to do that same thing thus providing the consumer with “capitalist efficiency”. Conversely, we all know how much “consumer choice” one had under the commies!!
You then go on to say: “Capitalists operate in free markets because they have to, not because they want to”
Not really sure what you are saying here, but capitalism requires private ownership of capital. If you have anything other than a free market system, then that system ALWAYS work against true capitalism.
Either it is the state itself that tries to acquire that capital (usually via force) or powerful groups/individuals that may not represent the state but which have undue influence on the state. I guess in the latter, one could argue that the capital is still private, but as the state has been used to acquire it it hardly makes a difference.
Thus, truly private capital tends to flee NON Free-market economies.
So, is that what you are saying, that capitalism would prefer to operate everywhere but knows that it is only truly safe in the Free Market!!
The left is making “capatalist” into a bad word.
“All those other isms are fantasies made up in the minds of men. Capitalism is nature. It’s like physics, while the other above-mentioned isms are more like magic or superstition.”
WOW! This has to be the most ideologically pure statement I’ve read in a long time. I’m not suggesting I’m above ideology, I’m simply suggesting this statement is a rarefied and most distilled form of ideology.
I’m not going to get into a debate about capitalism on here. An honest discussion about capitalism around here would be tantamount to ripping your own hearts out to examine them. I might just humbly suggest that a capitalist economy is not reducible to the existence of trade or even markets. There are trading systems which are not capitalist. Might I suggest Karl Polanyi’s (1944) “The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time”. A true classic. In his analysis of the underlying assumptions of market economies he begins with the following insight. No greater misreading of the past (Adam Smith’s baseless notion that man’s propensity is to “truck, barter, or trade”; the basis of man is an economic animal) has been more prophetic of the future. That many believe that capitalism is eternal and natural, inevitable and incontrovertible is the result of an ideological victory not of human nature.
“Isn’t language wonderful? What would we do without it?”
Especially when the one using it is infatuated with it to the point were what is being said is secondary to language itself.
It’s, I think, worth noting that:
1. Professor Friedman stayed cool, didn’t accuse anybody of bad faith, and poked only the gentlest fun at Phil Donahue.
2. Professor Friedman didn’t say capitalism was perfect. He pointed out only that it was better than any other system that has been tried.
We conservatives would benefit if we had more Milton Friedmans and William F. Buckleys representing our views to the world and fewer Bill O’Reillys and Ann Coulters.
SVJ
Hmmm, egghead or packaging?
The real problem with Conservatism is that it hasn’t evolved. Same old boring shyte for the last 200 years.
Wake up Conservatives get down and get hip!
Something was being said, Herodotus?
Herodotus: You don’t get Vitruvius’s essential and highly-valued irony which people who appreciate him, including myself, GET.
Milton Friedman said: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
Friedman (I believe) told Charlie Rose — in answer to Charlie’s praise — that his ideas didn’t actually get drilled down into the culture. No kidding!
Me No Dhimmi: There’s no such thing as a democratic majority which believes there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Yup, the world runs on egoism. Nothing wrong with that. Every act, no matter how selfless it may appear, has an ulterior motive. And thank goodness – people would be so hard to understand otherwise.
Donahue is a hoot. This is the guy who once bought and then tore down a million dollar house because it was blocking his view of the ocean. Unbeleivable.
Fortunately for naomi klein, Friedman is deceased; she’d look even more idiotic debating him in real life.
But how typical of her to attack the man’s theories and philosophies when he’s unable to defend them.
She isn’t fit to shine Friedman’s shoes.
mhb23re
at gmail d0t calm
“Maybe you’re going to have to suck it up and hang out with people that don’t meet your standards sometimes, if you want to win. To quote one of those eeeevile neocons, “The New Hampshire license plate says ‘live free or die’. It doesn’t say ‘live free or whine.'”
Look, I’m willing to work with anybody who wants to promote the cause of freedom. Those people have nominally been conservatives. I will continue to ally myself with conservatives if they share goals that get me closer to my goals which are: personal, cultural, political and economic freedom.
I am not throwing in the towel, but I am very frustrated at this point.
Midway through 2008, the free speech movement in Canada seemed to have a lot of momentum. Where are we now?
We thought the Conservative Party would be the beginning of the end of runaway social spending. Yet they increased spending at a faster rate–relative to inflation–that any other government in history… and that was before this bailout bullshit.
Just how much of this march towards statism and socialism will I have to endure before it gets better?
I find it absolutely amazing that “conservatives” are willing to accept socialist policies as long as they’re proscribed by a party called the “Conservative Party”. Somebody should notify the NDP just how far a simple name change could go for their cause.
“Any society that requires strong laws and a strong state is either tyrannical, or its citizens are childish…or both.”
I think yer onto something…just not what you thought you were onto..
real. he meant the freedom that people have under some political systems.
“It’s sad that ‘capitalism’ has that name. It makes it sound like it’s just another ‘ism’ in competition with socialism, facsism, communism, etc. It’s not.”
Yup. Capitalism is simply a human activity. It requires neither dogma nor ideology.
Also, “free market economy” and “capitalism” are not synonyms.
Any true capitalist wants to corner the market and control it. Capitalists operate in free markets because they have to, not because they want to.
JJM@6:46 “Any true capitalist wants to corner the market and control it”
Well, of course! And in a true free market, there are a hundred other guys attempting to do that same thing thus providing the consumer with “capitalist efficiency”. Conversely, we all know how much “consumer choice” one had under the commies!!
You then go on to say: “Capitalists operate in free markets because they have to, not because they want to”
Not really sure what you are saying here, but capitalism requires private ownership of capital. If you have anything other than a free market system, then that system ALWAYS work against true capitalism.
Either it is the state itself that tries to acquire that capital (usually via force) or powerful groups/individuals that may not represent the state but which have undue influence on the state. I guess in the latter, one could argue that the capital is still private, but as the state has been used to acquire it it hardly makes a difference.
Thus, truly private capital tends to flee NON Free-market economies.
So, is that what you are saying, that capitalism would prefer to operate everywhere but knows that it is only truly safe in the Free Market!!
The left is making “capatalist” into a bad word.
“All those other isms are fantasies made up in the minds of men. Capitalism is nature. It’s like physics, while the other above-mentioned isms are more like magic or superstition.”
WOW! This has to be the most ideologically pure statement I’ve read in a long time. I’m not suggesting I’m above ideology, I’m simply suggesting this statement is a rarefied and most distilled form of ideology.
I’m not going to get into a debate about capitalism on here. An honest discussion about capitalism around here would be tantamount to ripping your own hearts out to examine them. I might just humbly suggest that a capitalist economy is not reducible to the existence of trade or even markets. There are trading systems which are not capitalist. Might I suggest Karl Polanyi’s (1944) “The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time”. A true classic. In his analysis of the underlying assumptions of market economies he begins with the following insight. No greater misreading of the past (Adam Smith’s baseless notion that man’s propensity is to “truck, barter, or trade”; the basis of man is an economic animal) has been more prophetic of the future. That many believe that capitalism is eternal and natural, inevitable and incontrovertible is the result of an ideological victory not of human nature.
“Isn’t language wonderful? What would we do without it?”
Especially when the one using it is infatuated with it to the point were what is being said is secondary to language itself.
It’s, I think, worth noting that:
1. Professor Friedman stayed cool, didn’t accuse anybody of bad faith, and poked only the gentlest fun at Phil Donahue.
2. Professor Friedman didn’t say capitalism was perfect. He pointed out only that it was better than any other system that has been tried.
We conservatives would benefit if we had more Milton Friedmans and William F. Buckleys representing our views to the world and fewer Bill O’Reillys and Ann Coulters.
SVJ
Hmmm, egghead or packaging?
The real problem with Conservatism is that it hasn’t evolved. Same old boring shyte for the last 200 years.
Wake up Conservatives get down and get hip!
Something was being said, Herodotus?
Herodotus: You don’t get Vitruvius’s essential and highly-valued irony which people who appreciate him, including myself, GET.
Milton Friedman said: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
Friedman (I believe) told Charlie Rose — in answer to Charlie’s praise — that his ideas didn’t actually get drilled down into the culture. No kidding!
Me No Dhimmi: There’s no such thing as a democratic majority which believes there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Yup, the world runs on egoism. Nothing wrong with that. Every act, no matter how selfless it may appear, has an ulterior motive. And thank goodness – people would be so hard to understand otherwise.
Donahue is a hoot. This is the guy who once bought and then tore down a million dollar house because it was blocking his view of the ocean. Unbeleivable.
Fortunately for naomi klein, Friedman is deceased; she’d look even more idiotic debating him in real life.
But how typical of her to attack the man’s theories and philosophies when he’s unable to defend them.
She isn’t fit to shine Friedman’s shoes.
mhb23re
at gmail d0t calm