Ann Coulte on Libertarians

[Einsteinium]

I suppose that some is inevitable but not in the middle. Maybe 10% or so. I could see a government supplied safety net or more like Gore's Lockbox with some gawd awful amount, say $1 Trillion that is available to those in need for whatever purpose. The catch is that as soon as you pull from this lockbox, you become responsible for paying it back or perhaps Pay-it-forward. Now if you are unable to pay it back, then it passes to your offspring and they become responsible.

I think that the things that should be socialized to at least some extent are infrastructure, emergency healthcare, police/firefighters, basic education, and national defense. I disagree with the passing of the amount onto offspring. This social safety net you speak of should be like credit card debt. today only without interest or very little interest. It should be a loan to the people and only to a certain amount depending upon the cost of living in your area and the size of your family, income of your spouse, and so on. I do not think that this loan should be passed on to your children after you die.

One argument against this Administration is that it is putting future generations in debt with its tax and spend Socialism. A solution as I've mentioned would make it individual responsibility. What kind of parent puts their children into debt? Ultimately, this may not be Socialism, but it's as close as I want to be. I do not like being in the position of having the government force itself on me and having to *accept* it as normal.

Yes, this administration, and the last administration at least are both responsible for the present state of things. I also do not like being in the position of having government force itself on me either, but unfortunately some government intrusion into our lives is necessary in order to live in a civilized society- that is unless you can figure out a way to properly educate EVERY single human in that society and rid that society of all mental illness, hatred, and unhealthy greed.

No not necessarily. Prosperity does not always lead to monopolies. You even acknowledge as much by CYA with the pseudo-monopoly comment (a monopoly is a monopoly). What leads to monopoly is a lack of competition.

Yes you are correct that prosperity does not always lead to monopolies, the free-market itself does not lead to monopolies. But what does lead to monopolies in a purely free market is a competing company becoming the top dog (as they should if they are the best) That company then buying out and stomping out through price gouging and aggressive tactics the other competition, leaving only that one company left. Then that company now lacking competition and being the sole provider for said product/service can just sit on top, using its profit to crush competition even though the competition might be better than it. This is how a free market can fail, government regulation is needed to prevent this from happening. We cannot rely on the consumer, if you study modern marketing you would know this. Consumers are being manipulated all the time and can be controlled to some extent using marketing. If there was a way to properly educate everyone to guard against this then the Utopian theory of a perfectly free market would work, but in practice it does not work like this. There are far too many ignorant consumers out there that refuse to educate themselves and refuse to learn how to think empirically. These are the people that are the true enemy of the free market. Government merely exploits these people and their weaknesses to grab more and more power. It is the failure of the people that leads to authoritarian governments.

I don't think you understand what a free market is. It's not about *just selling things*. Its nature alone encourages competition. It's the basis of Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations". It's when government infringes via heavy regulation that causes it to not be competitive. Government infringement makes people lazy. East Germany before the wall came down is probably the ultimate example. The thing that controls monopolies is the consumer. If there is a monopoly that runs amok, it's the fault of the consumer. It's the well informed and well educated consumer that drives the market and therefore controls what business does. Last year the credit card companies were instituting extra fees. When the public became aware, the credit card companies were inundated with negative comments, so much so that they rescinded those fees. That's how the free market works, not government regulation. So the best thing that government can do is to educate the public on the free market. Encourage the people to be entrepreneurs. This will allow the best to rise and the rest to follow, all at their own rate. That benefits a nation better than forcing everyone to fit a certain mold. A nation whose individuals do things for themselves is a stronger nation than one in which it nannies its people. Socialism is just an indicator of narcissistic leadership.

Mostly agree with you here, but it is not only government that can make it not competitive. Very aggressive and power hungry corporations can also become too powerful (ie too big to fail) without any regulations and we have seen this in the past before unions when firms would have people working 12 hours a day 7 days a week, child labor, etc. Exploiting the people, who are unable to fight back because they are kept hanging off a financial cliff whereby if they lose their job they lose everything. So government must play some role and there must be some kind of regulation otherwise it is just corporate anarchy and the one with the biggest stick, not the best product, becomes top dog. A Utopian perfect free market does not exist, just like the liberal Utopian communism or socialism do not exist in reality.

A monopoly is not the trademark of free enterprise. The only regulation that is needed is that of the well educated consumer. Monopolies are not always the best way to organize things. The chaos of a free market is usually the best.

Agreed that monopoly is not the trademark of free enterprise, it is more of a tumor on the side of a free enterprise market. Many monopolies are a direct result of government regulation and government interference in the market. Agreed that the only regulation that is needed is that of the well educated consumer, BUT we are not a nation full of well educated consumers, we are a nation of many differing opinions, many people do not use logic and reasoning to make decisions. So if you are relying on well educated consumers to regulate the market then we need to totally reform and re-do our education system in this country. If you rely on that then be prepared for corporations to spend those billions of dollars that they now spend on lobbying the government, to be spent on more and more invasive forms of marketing to change our opinions. They already spend billions on marketing to influence the mass perception of their corporations, and it works. The well educated consumer...that would be nice! What an idea! If we could educate everyone to such a high degree of free thinking, why then we would not need any laws, because well educated people would simply make the best choices for themselves right? They would not use drugs, or rape, because they would just know better right? This is another libertarian fantasy ideal that looks great on paper, but in reality does not exist.

That will never happen. People need to work to live. We were made to toil. Not just work to provide sustenance but the work itself is what we need. To build things ourselves, with our own two hands. To accomplish, to succeed. You don't get that if something is just handed to you.

I could not agree more with you here.

Have you seen what happens to the humans in Wall-E? That is what happens in such a utopia. That is not the ultimate goal of man. I know there are heavy religious aspects here but I don't want to go in that direction.

I love that movie and I think it does an excellent job of showing the end result of a society in which all work is done by machines.

As the quote goes, greed is good. When problems arise is when greed goes amok. Greed is nothing more than you looking after your family and wanting the best for them. Want is good if you can fulfill it. Man is build to be able to fulfill want and need. That is what builds community.

Healthy greed is good yes, the greed of wanting to make your life better, do more, have more, that is good. It is envy and unhealthy greed that is bad for society.

Tradeoffs have to be made, A utopian purely free market society that relies on educated consumers to regulate it does not exist and it can not exist in reality unless we somehow can educate all consumers up to a certain standard, but given our education system and how some people will never learn no matter how hard you try, this system is just another idealist system that can not exist in reality as stated. Communism and socialism in their pure forms also can not exist in real life, people are just too different and too corruptible for these systems to work as intended.

I don't know what the best answer is, but in my opinion it lies on the free market side of the spectrum, with more power in the hands of individuals and less power in the hands of government, with reasonable regulations and a reasonable social safety net of some kind.

[AsteroidX]

A constitutional attorney she was. Hopefully she itleast gets that bit right in her rantings.

[Gunn]

Have you seen what happens to the humans in Wall-E? That is what happens in such a utopia. That is not the ultimate goal of man. I know there are heavy religious aspects here but I don't want to go in that direction.

I think you've misinterpreted that movie, RavenHawk. That's not what it's about at all. Has to do with the so-called Global Warming trend and the possible future of mankind. It's a movie that was probably influenced by Al Gore, if anything.

[Gromdor]

I didn't really see any global warming parallels in Wall-E. The downfall of earth was rampant consumerism. The Buy-n-Large megacorporation basically covered the planet in garbage and had to evacuate everyone into space. Humans then basically became fat consumers while the robots did all the work.

[Gunn]

I didn't really see any global warming parallels in Wall-E. The downfall of earth was rampant consumerism. The Buy-n-Large megacorporation basically covered the planet in garbage and had to evacuate everyone into space. Humans then basically became fat consumers while the robots did all the work.

Oh yes, that was part of it as well. But here is the gist about all of the societal problems in the movie, as stated in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia....ann.2C_2009_6-1

WALL-E, besides being entertaining, is also seen as a critique on larger societal issues. This film addresses consumerism, nostalgia, environmental problems, waste management, and the immense impact that humans have on the earth. There is also a rather major overarching theme through this movie, which is issues of human nature, and the direction that the human race is headed. WALL-E is seen as a movie that appeals to both conservative and liberal audiences.

It's also ironic they would say "WALL-E is seen as a movie that appeals to both conservative and liberal audiences".

Indeed, apparently so.

[MysticStrummer]

Conservatives might sound a little less off the rails if they'd stop trying to connect US liberals to socialism. Just a thought.

[Indiogene]

Ann Coulter gets on my nerves! I don't like what she stands for or what she says, the kind of conservative commentators who spouts a bunch of hot air (and enough bull to fertilize a golf course). Rush, Beck, Hannity, Savage, Dr. Laura, etc. are not worth listening to and its' hard to agree with their ideas (unless you're a true-to-the-core Conservative), then everyone has a right to an opinion...make sure it makes sense.

However, I'm doubtful on the effectiveness of Libertarian ideals, the good thing about Libertarianism is to "think out of the box" radical solutions to serious problems and controversial issues that Liberals and Conservatives might not have best ideas to resolve them. I'm for a more progressive direction of politics, not wanting a reactionary U-turn on government policies and parts of Libertarian thought is akin to classical Liberalism not wanting a socialist influence.

Never thought of Wall-E as a socio-cultural commentatory, a children's film should teach valuable lessons on life without scareing them into submission of a political agenda. I hadn't seen the film, yet I like my children to view it someday.