I took the hammer to The Washington Times the other day for a dumb story on a report that says terrorists may have caused the financial crash of 2008.
Now the best thing I can say for The Washington Times’s is that it isn’t known for its business journalism. Neither is Glenn Beck, and as predicted, Fox News loaded the financial-terrorism story into its puke funnel yesterday.
Actually, this is the perfect Fox News story: based on innuendo rather than fact, fear rather than reason, and swarthy terrorists are to blame instead of ruddy capitalists. The icing on the cake: Reporting the story sows confusion, misdirecting attention from Murdoch-supported policies like deregulation that actually caused the crisis and onto our enemies, including Al Qaeda, Iran, China, and even Hugo Chavez. Hey, maybe George Soros is involved? See: You can report anything when you put a question mark after it and say you were just asking a question.
CNBC, like Beck and The Washington Times is (mostly, anyway) a right-wing outlet. On the other hand, it portrays itself as sophisticated business journalism. So it has no such excuse to recycle this nonsense.
Yesterday, though, Maria Bartiromo brought on the report’s author Kevin Freeman to talk about his report. Okay. Probably not the best idea unless the idea is to push back hard against the silliness.
But here’s how she introduced the segment:
The economic meltdown of 2008 could have been more than what we know. Was it caused by overleveraged borrowing or soaring real estate or something else? Outside forces may also have something to do with it, apparently. That’s the theory behind the new uncovered report, which was commissioned by the Pentagon several years ago.
She asks Freeman some not-very-aggressive questions about his “uncovered report,” but too late. She’s already lent credibility to it by, well, treating it as if it’s credibile. It’s not.
Bartiromo further gives it cred by even quasi-endorsing Freeman’s argument as she ends the segment:
Really good information. We’ll be watching this story.
I’ll bet you will. The “good information” included gems like this from Freeman:
I didn’t find proof that it happened but I found proof that it could have happened.
I wrote yesterday that the “terrorists did it” thing by my count is now the third leg of the Look Over There stool. First came blame-the-borrowers. Then came blame-the-gubmint (mostly via Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, de-emphasizing, of course, that these were New York Stock Exchange-traded corporations pushing for Countrywide and Ameriquest-style profits for their multimillionaire executives and shareholders).
CNBC has had a leading role in purveying both those angles, which serve to deflect attention from Wall Street and the government philosophies that let it run roughshod over the economy. CNBC’s very own Rick Santelli kicked off the Tea Party with a blame-the-borrowers rant, for crying out loud. So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that it’s throwing the financial terrorism “story” against the wall.
You never know what’s gonna stick.
(many thanks to David Gaffen for pointing this out to me on Twitter)
"CNBC Pushes the Financial-Terrorism Nonsense"
CJR Pushes the Blame-Capitalism Nonsense
#1 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Thu 3 Mar 2011 at 03:01 PM
This is, by far, the biggest load of BS I have ever seen CNBC "report" on. Its nothing more than an attempt to cleanse the blame from the reckless over leverage and deregulation.
The parties that caused the meltdown are still at the helm making things worse than before.
#2 Posted by Michael, CJR on Thu 3 Mar 2011 at 07:43 PM
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/03/01/the-protocols-of-the-learned-elders-of-opec/
#3 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Fri 4 Mar 2011 at 01:01 AM
This is pathetic since, even if there is any truth to the naked short share inflation angle, it wasn't Al'Qeda or some other swarthy investor who played the system. If there is any truth to it, it was Wall Street a-holes taking advantage of insider knowledge and loopholes for profit.
The guys who made money on these collapses had the puts on the institutions ready when they collapsed, rigged or not. Osama Bin Laden did not use his Ameritrade account to cause the 2008 collapse.
This is blatant misdirection and propaganda.
Speaking of which:
"CJR Pushes the Blame-Capitalism Nonsense"
Don't be an idiot. You're better than that. Capitalism is not capitalism when the majority of its profits are derived from fraudulent transactions.
#4 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 4 Mar 2011 at 02:18 AM
"Don't be an idiot. You're better than that. Capitalism is not capitalism when the majority of its profits are derived from fraudulent transactions."
You should be addressing Ryan; he's the one abusing the language. And, speaking of "blatant misdirection," Ryan and CJR have habitually omitted the central role of monetary policy and the FedRes. (Let me guess: only "conservative" and "right-wing" "idiots" would consider the "gubmint" or its enabling money-monopoly to be culpable.) Aren't YOU "better than that," Thimbles?
#5 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Fri 4 Mar 2011 at 03:35 AM
The monetary policy of "inflate the bubble and watch it pop" Greenspan as a culpable agent has never been in doubt.
But Alan Greenspan's monetary policy did not force Wall Street to be a bunch of loansharks and criminals. In fact Greenspan and the FedRes's regulatory policy of "nothing" was more responsible for the disasters we've seen than his monetary policy.
Capitalism isn't to blame, criminals are. Unfortunately, they both are motivated by the profit motive so it's easy to confuse the two, but Ryan and the Audit are not guilty of that confusion. In fact, Ryan holds "government philosophies and Wall Street" guilty in the very paragraphs above. Oversimplifying his statements to "anti-capitalist collectivism" or what not makes you look simple. You're not, right? So use your head before commenting.
#6 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 4 Mar 2011 at 04:27 AM
"Osama Bin Laden did not use his Ameritrade account to cause the 2008 collapse"
Nice, Thimbles! Wish I'd written that one.
#7 Posted by Ryan Chittum, CJR on Fri 4 Mar 2011 at 10:11 AM
Again, I don't know about all the naked short Byrne pushed stuff is legit:
http://www.deepcapture.com/
and there's a large consensus that says it isn't, but if you are going to cover it as a serious controversy, then this is the way it's done.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/wall-streets-naked-swindle-20100405
Matt Taibbi writes a piece on it. No Hugo Chavez, no mad Iranians, just some put options and some suspicious trading activity done by traders with the power to do these kinds of trades. It's an interesting read at any rate.
#8 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 4 Mar 2011 at 10:51 PM
Ryan — uh, I mean Thimbles,
It takes real chutzpah (to put it nicely) for you to lecture me on intellectual honesty, simple-mindedness, idiocy, and what not.
"Wall Street and the government philosophies that let it run roughshod over the economy."
Exactly, as in: Keynesianism, regulatory cartelization, central planning, monetarism/inflationism, interventionism, corporatism, etc. (i.e., not free-market capitalism).
"Rick Santelli kicked off the Tea Party with a blame-the-borrowers rant"
That is an awful distortion. Rick was stating the obvious: those who made bad decisions should not have been bailed out on the backs of those who did the right thing or had nothing to do with it. Your logic in so accusing Santelli is like accusing DOEd opponents of being against teachers or children.
"But Alan Greenspan's monetary policy did not force Wall Street to be a bunch of loansharks and criminals. In fact Greenspan and the FedRes's regulatory policy of "nothing" was more responsible for the disasters we've seen than his monetary policy."
You call the creation of trillions of dollars of artificial money and credit (by Greenspan AND BERNANKE) "nothing"? You call the subsequent, artificial lowering of interest rates to zero (by BERNANKE) "nothing"? You call regulations (sic: sanctioned fraud) aimed at increasing home-ownership to the least-creditworthy borrowers "nothing"? (E.g., see: http://www.bos.frb.org/commdev/closing-the-gap/index.htm) Etc., ad nauseum.
Your argument here amounts to a claim that Wall Street malfeasance just reared its ugly head this past decade or so, out of nowhere and for no other reason than greed. As if greed never existed before. As if govt and FedRes policies neither encouraged nor coerced businesses into investments that otherwise would not have been undertaken for the insane risks they posed.
The tendency to focus on the symptoms is quite conducive to the delusion that more regulation will cure the problem of too much cartel-aggrandizing regulation. Bravo. The corporatists in D.C. and on Wall Street have done quite well by peddling the same "government philosophies."
#9 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Sat 5 Mar 2011 at 02:59 AM
How's it going, Dan?
"Ryan — uh, I mean Thimbles"
Ryan and I have our differences. For instance, Ryan wishes he were me whereas I don't have to.
"That is an awful distortion. Rick was stating the obvious: those who made bad decisions should not have been bailed out on the backs of those who did the right thing or had nothing to do with it. Your logic in so accusing Santelli is like accusing DOEd opponents of being against teachers or children."
Yeah, except remember what I was talking about before? The whole criminality isn't capitalism thing? Rick Santelli pretends there are no criminals in his industry, which was why he had the balls to lecture us about moral hazards of bailing out losers while being surrounded by his bailed out, amoral, loser buddies.
Look at how he acts when someone brings up "Ahh guys? A lot of these -ahem- losers -ahem- were victims of criminals. Banker criminals."
http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/cnbc_millionaires_dont_believe.php
"Hey Rick Santelli. Date rape is a terrible thing."
"Only if you're a LOSER and let yourself get raped!"
"Yeah but in cases where rophenol is..."
"Rophenol?! Rophenol!? Nobody forced her to take the rophenol! Free markets! Buyer beware! Billions with a B!"
How people can listen to that loser, Ida know.
"You call the creation of trillions of dollars of artificial money and credit (by Greenspan AND BERNANKE) "nothing"? You call the subsequent, artificial lowering of interest rates to zero (by BERNANKE) "nothing"? You call regulations (sic: sanctioned fraud) aimed at increasing home-ownership to the least-creditworthy borrowers "nothing"? "
*facepalm* No... I call that monetary policy. And yeah, I'm not a fan of Bernanke AT ALL, as I've made clear in the past. I don't know why you're capitalizing it. Are you trying to use it as an accusation?
"Your argument here amounts to a claim that Wall Street malfeasance just reared its ugly head this past decade or so, out of nowhere and for no other reason than greed. As if greed never existed before. As if govt and FedRes policies neither encouraged nor coerced businesses into investments that otherwise would not have been undertaken for the insane risks they posed."
Last decade? Try the last four decades, each one with accompanied with one or two financial crashes. Previous to that, we had 40 years of nice managed capitalism which had fluctuations in the business cycle, but none of the mass life savings destruction of the last 40 years. We also had a growing middle class, affordable houses with safe mortgages, and institutions capable of doing things other than ignoring problems and acting as a social club/job networking club for those who like to rotate between the various sides of the graft industry.
You see bad rules and you infer all rules are bad.
Part of the reason why the rules are so bad these days is because people who believed that all rules were bad suspended many of the good ones so that now you have not a market place, praised for its stability and transparency like it was during the first 40 year period, but market anarchy, feared for its volatility and secrecy. The federal reserve sucks at its job because of the people who are appointed to it, the Bush administration and the Clinton administratiopn sucked because they appointed those sucky people, but these people are not responsible for the activities that caused the crash.
And incompetent cop doesn't rob banks, he just ignores the people who are doing so. That's what the federal reserves did, they ignored the consolidated financial institutions as THEY robbed our banks.
Unless you are willing to point some of your fingers at the "capitalists" who robbed us, you are not serious.
#10 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 5 Mar 2011 at 07:57 AM
The leftists insist that capitalism (synonymous with "greed" to lefties) is responsible for all of our ills.
The reality, of course, is that the dependence upon the government has caused or exacerbated every major societal problem.
Of course, there is corruption and criminality to found in the corporate world (as opposed to pure and uncorrupted realm of organized labor, where criminal activity and malfeasance are never found in the union halls).
From the financial meltdown, to the decline in education, to the decline of our standing as a world power... All can be blamed in large part on misdirected government regulation.
The laws were in place to stop Madoff.. The government signed off on Enron's creative accounting.. Same with the subprime collapse.. The government was put on notice about Madoff during the Clinton administration. The government just did what it does best... Nothing. Enron?.. The SEC signed off on Enron's Ponzi accounting scheme in 1992. And for the next ten years did... Nothing. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?.. John McCain called out the government's Ponzi scheme in 2006-and the government did... Nothing. As always.
There are two things I will never understand in the leftists' demands
1. A faith in the government- a belief that the government can administer anything or operate anything more efficiently or fairly than private industry. The government can't deliver the mail without losing money. The government couldn't stop 9/11 when a flight school reported one of the terrorists directly to the FBI. The government couldn't get a space probe to Mars without blowing it up because someone forgot to convert inches to millimeters on the blueprints. The government couldn't keep the private cables of the Secretary of State secure, thus engendering widespread murder and mayhem in the Middle East. Etc. Etc. Etc.
What makes liberals think that the government is the solution to ANY problem, when history has conclusively shown that our Founders (smart men who deliberated in anguish in the School of Hard Knocks for nearly 15 years) knew more than 200 years ago that government was a necessary evil - an institution to be feared, distrusted and limited to those particular powers required to keep a safe and orderly free society?
2. The schizophrenic argument insists upon a legally cognizable property right that organized labor holds in maximizing their salaries, benefits and working conditions, but finds no legitimate right of shareholders or investors to maximize the return on their investments in the free market.
Why don't investors have the same rights as labor to get the most money they can?
#11 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 5 Mar 2011 at 09:41 AM
"The laws were in place to stop Madoff.. The government signed off on Enron's creative accounting.. Same with the subprime collapse.. The government was put on notice about Madoff during the Clinton administration. The government just did what it does best... Nothing. Enron?.. The SEC signed off on Enron's Ponzi accounting scheme in 1992. And for the next ten years did... Nothing. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?.. John McCain called out the government's Ponzi scheme in 2006-and the government did... Nothing. As always."
See? Even comrade paddy agrees. The government should have been more active. "In fact Greenspan and the FedRes's regulatory policy of "nothing" was more responsible for the disasters we've seen than his monetary policy."
"Why don't investors have the same rights as labor to get the most money they can?"
Labor doesn't have that right. If they demand more than gross profits can sustain, then they crash the company and hurt the local economy. If investors and executives demand more than gross profits can sustain, then they take big risks, build up phantom profits, crash themselves - their partners - and the national economy, and demand the tax payer bails them out.
People shouldn't maximize their short term profits if it bankrupts the long term future. That goes for labor, banks, and tax policy.
Do we agree?
#12 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 5 Mar 2011 at 07:10 PM
Thimbles - If your master plan involves making the government do something right.... Then I think it needs a major rework.
One of the biggest problems with the government is that nobody is accountable, and therefore, nobody will ever do anything more than show up for work and collect a paycheck. (I speak generally, of course - there are exceptions).
An even greater problem is lack of a merit-based system. To the extent that merit recognition exists in the federal government, it is implemented in manner that revolves around spending money, not making it, as bonuses in the private sector are generally structured. Consumption versus production. Nobody has any incentive to risk anything or to produce anything in public employment.
None of the SEC people who sat on the Madoff mess for nearly 10 years will be held accountable in any substantial way. None of the SEC people who greenlighted Enron's and Worldcom's accounting will ever be held accountable. Neither will the FBI agents who ignored the 9/11 terrorist information, the NASA guys who forgot to convert inches to millimeters, etc.
The government is inherently corrupt, inherently inefficient, and inherently evil..
My question thus remains... WHY do liberals believe that increasing the government's role in the administration of anything is a good thing? Given the fact that the government was on notice regarding nearly every facet of the recent financial meltdown, and did nothing but exacerbate it, WHY does it make sense to expand government's role further?
Sure, thievery and fraud exist in the private sector (as well as in the public sector), and there is no question that the government has a duty to investigate, prosecute and punish any criminal activity. History has proven that unbridled free enterprise won't work. I will also concede that the government has a responsibility to maintain free and competitive markets (including the collective bargaining rights of labor) and a duty to manage natural resources and the environment.
But that's a far as it needs to go, in my opinion. I'm just trying to get a handle on exactly why you guys have any faith that expanding the role of government is (i) a desirable objective, and (ii) a remote practical possibility.
#13 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 5 Mar 2011 at 08:51 PM
"The government is inherently corrupt, inherently inefficient, and inherently evil.."
:rolls eyes:
Every human institution on earth is corrupt, inefficient, and evil. Whenever you take a collection of human beings and try to organize them about a set of group interests, you run into conflicts between the interest of the individuals and the interests of the group. The groups that are the most efficient often best sublimate the desires and needs of individuals for the sake of the organization. The groups that are the most corrupt often prioritize the needs of the individual above the sake of the organization. The groups that are the most evil follow one or the other of these extremes, either pursuing their own interests or pursuing the interests of the group, to the detriment and destruction of innocents.
These issues are endemic to any organization in which sentient parts make up the whole. What is needed is to ameliorate these problems are individuals, organizations, and institutions who are outside the whole who can critique and oppose the whole when it succumbs to these problems.
Corporations require unions, government, shareholders, consumer groups, and a strong press in order to function as stable and responsible economic actors.
Unions require government, a motivated yet independent labor force, company representatives, and the daily paper to function as a protector of workers.
Government requires unions, corporations, a strong press, an active yet independent electorate, and a strong colonic in order to function as a protector of its citizens and a regulator/penalizer of unstable and irresponsible economic actors.
Liberals, conservatives, hare krishnas, etc... shouldn't believe in one sainted institution being better than the rest and that the world would be a better place if that one institution dominated. Institutions, and the human beings who make them up, need opposing powers because, when no one opposes, power used thoughtlessly holds no consequences. And thoughtless power is the substance which flows through evil's black heart.
I don't want winners. I want stalemates which force people to think about what they are about to do before they act. I want strong unions, strong corporations, and strong governments motivated by the desires of strong civilians.
We don't have that now. We have a strong one percent and a strong financial sector from which no one, not you, not me, not the unions, and not Dana Milbank:
http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/03/05/a-liberal-is-a-villager-whos-been-screwed-by-a-mortgage-servicer/
are safe. And everybody who's anybody is getting along, going to the same clubs, talking in the same salons, seeing things from the same perspective - the 1% view. No one is opposing that view - and its killing the country.
American democracy was founded on an oppositional framework. For 40 years, there was an oppositional framework (unions, regulatory government, business) which managed capitalism, increased the middle class in both numbers and standard of living, without devastating financial crashes. We need a return to an oppositional economy.
#14 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 6 Mar 2011 at 10:14 AM
Government is inherently worse and inherently far more dangerous than any other aggregations of inherently corrupt individuals, because it comes at gunpoint.
If you don't do what the government says to do, then ultimately a gun comes out to make you do it. Just ask Wesley Snipes about this process.
Government operates solely to restrain liberty and to mandate individual behavior in the interest maintaining order. If a corporation or a union gets out of line, then the government exists to straighten it out (in theory, at least - although the examples I provided prove that the government isn't competent in fulfilling this duty). If the government gets out of line, however, then..... what?....
There is no "oppositional" force (aside from armed insurrection) that can correct a corrupt government.
I don't know what you mean by claiming the existence of an "oppositional framework"which somehow "managed capitalism" for 40 years, unless you mean racking up a huge public debt, ruining public education and losing market share to foreign competitors in order to finance a government expansion that has failed to accomplish any societal good whatsoever (at least by any quantifiable measure in comparison to other nations).
How exactly was capitalism "managed" as the government expanded?
The middle class expanded, alright, but only by burning through the capital of American industry - capital that had accrued since the Industrial Revolution.
Anyone can raise a standard of living by selling off assets and racking up credit card debt (as our Great Society did) - but how can it be claimed that this kind of fiscal irresponsibility successfully "managed" anything?
I still wonder at my unanswered question... What makes liberal think that expanding the role of government is (i) a desirable goal and (ii) a practical possibility?
#15 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sun 6 Mar 2011 at 03:14 PM
:Rolls eyes again:
It's easy to see we have different ideas about the effectiveness of the democratic process with in a democratic government. And if I bring up countries in which the government, business, and unions produce successful economies (Germany, Japan, Denmark, etc..) you will go back to your blind faith argument that a government "by the people and for the people" is inherently evil.
What I would like to now is why is the right so radically unpatriotic? No one hates fundamental American institutions like you guys. Some of your guys blew up buildings in Oklahoma because you hated government so very much; America is inherently evil, after all. How can you be so unpatriotic and not pay a public price for it?
#16 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 6 Mar 2011 at 05:56 PM
The economies of Germany and Denmark were produced by the Marshall Plan, on our nickel. These countries (along with Japan) have no significant defense budgets. The prosperity of these countries has come courtesy of the American taxpayers and the American soldiers who died fighting the fascist governments that nearly took over most of the developed world.
There is nothing unpatriotic in "hating government"... The founders hated government - they knew that it was to be distrusted and limited to narrowly defined powers - any they took great pain to subdivide these powers through a system of checks and balances by splitting government into three branches, and by further splitting the legislative branch into two houses. You can't seriously argue that the founders weren't patriots.
You're just building another straw man, by conflating the actions of a couple of criminal terrorists with a political stance you can't otherwise rationally criticize.
Acting on hate in committing terrorism is pure evil. The anti--government motivation of McVeigh and Nichols did not justify their terrorism, any more than the anti-American sentiment of the 9/11 terrorists justified their heinous crimes, or any more than the animal-loving or environment-loving sentiment justifies acts of left-wing terrorism.
Notice how you just can't answer the question? Namely WHY do liberals believe that expanding the role of government is a good thing or even a practical possibility?
Note here that I am not asking for an attack against the Tea Party. Or Republicans. Or the NRA. Or anyone.
I am just asking for a defense of your side of the argument.
#17 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sun 6 Mar 2011 at 08:49 PM
"There is nothing unpatriotic in "hating government"... The founders hated government - they knew that it was to be distrusted and limited to narrowly defined powers - any they took great pain to subdivide these powers through a system of checks and balances by splitting government into three branches, and by further splitting the legislative branch into two houses."
Yes, they built an oppositional system which is answerable to a democratic electorate, and you hate it. You love power structures based on top down ownership control, like those within a corporation, in which there is little democratic input, rampant corruption, a great deal of coercion, and quite a bit of waste and inefficiency as we've seen in recent months. There is also a large amount of secrecy and limited means for the public to address the faults in the system, and that's assuming the public can afford to buy shares in the system to begin with.
Even with all that, I don't make the brain dead claim that this system is "inherently evil", since it isn't, but it needs watching. If you neglect the system, it will evolve towards evil since evil produces maximized benefits within a minimal time frame.
Human beings, left unmonitored and untethered, become "evil". It is our nature to maximize our individual benefits to someone else's cost. Opposition produces consequences, feedbacks which prevent people from acting out the way they'd be tempted to if no one was looking.
Governments, corporations, unions, every human being needs this. Nobody needs opaque monopolies or elevated individuals who are above oversight and gravitate towards abuses of power. Naive people believe in unchecked and unmonitored activities. They believe stupid things like "the market is self correcting, let the market handle itself" or "trust the government to do the right thing, even though it maintains secrets and assumes privileges for national security's sake". I don't pretend either is true, but many conservatives do and they have a legislative record that proves so.
Do I believe in expanded government responsibility, transparency, and activity? Yes. Do I believe government should be unaccountable to the people which empower it? No. Do I believe in market fairies that will make the world a more equitable, beautiful, and prosperous place without oversight? No.
That's because I'm not an effin' child. Maybe one day someone can say the same about the conservative movements and their followers.
"You're just building another straw man, by conflating the actions of a couple of criminal terrorists with a political stance you can't otherwise rationally criticize."
Who brought up armed insurrection again?
"There is no "oppositional" force (aside from armed insurrection) that can correct a corrupt government."
Oh yeah, that wasn't me. That was someone who hates the democratic process.
"Notice how you just can't answer the question? Namely WHY do liberals believe that expanding the role of government is a good thing or even a practical possibility?"
I did answer your question. Just because you refused to accept that answer for stupid reasons does not mean the answer wasn't given. I even predicted you'd refuse it.
"And if I bring up countries in which the government, business, and unions produce successful economies (Germany, Japan, Denmark, etc..) you will go back to your blind faith argument that a government "by the people and for the people" is inherently evil."
You are as predictable as a wall, brick upon brick upon brick.
#18 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 6 Mar 2011 at 11:59 PM
"There is nothing unpatriotic in "hating government"... The founders hated government - they knew that it was to be distrusted and limited to narrowly defined powers - any they took great pain to subdivide these powers through a system of checks and balances by splitting government into three branches, and by further splitting the legislative branch into two houses."
Yes, they built an oppositional system which is answerable to a democratic electorate, and you hate it. You love power structures based on top down ownership control, like those within a corporation, in which there is little democratic input, rampant corruption, a great deal of coercion, and quite a bit of waste and inefficiency as we've seen in recent months. There is also a large amount of secrecy and limited means for the public to address the faults in the system, and that's assuming the public can afford to buy shares in the system to begin with.
Even with all that, I don't make the brain dead claim that this system is "inherently evil", since it isn't, but it needs watching. If you neglect the system, it will evolve towards evil since evil produces maximized benefits within a minimal time frame.
Human beings, left unmonitored and untethered, become "evil". It is our nature to maximize our individual benefits to someone else's cost. Opposition produces consequences, feedbacks which prevent people from acting out the way they'd be tempted to if no one was looking.
Governments, corporations, unions, every human being needs this. Nobody needs opaque monopolies or elevated individuals who are above oversight and gravitate towards abuses of power. Naive people believe in unchecked and unmonitored activities. They believe stupid things like "the market is self correcting, let the market handle itself" or "trust the government to do the right thing, even though it maintains secrets and assumes privileges for national security's sake". I don't pretend either is true, but many conservatives do and they have a legislative record that proves so.
Do I believe in expanded government responsibility, transparency, and activity? Yes. Do I believe government should be unaccountable to the people which empower it? No. Do I believe in market fairies that will make the world a more equitable, beautiful, and prosperous place without oversight? No.
That's because I'm not an effin' child. Maybe one day someone can say the same about the conservative movements and their followers.
"You're just building another straw man, by conflating the actions of a couple of criminal terrorists with a political stance you can't otherwise rationally criticize."
Who brought up armed insurrection again?
"There is no "oppositional" force (aside from armed insurrection) that can correct a corrupt government."
Oh yeah, that wasn't me. That was someone who hates the democratic process.
"Notice how you just can't answer the question? Namely WHY do liberals believe that expanding the role of government is a good thing or even a practical possibility?"
I did answer your question. Just because you refused to accept that answer for stupid reasons does not mean the answer wasn't given. I even predicted you'd refuse it.
"And if I bring up countries in which the government, business, and unions produce successful economies (Germany, Japan, Denmark, etc..) you will go back to your blind faith argument that a government "by the people and for the people" is inherently evil."
You are as predictable as a wall, brick upon brick upon brick.
PS. the first submission appears to have kerfuffled the cgi (ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE). I am attempting a resubmission. Please delete the duplicate if it exists.
#19 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 7 Mar 2011 at 12:04 AM
Here's this "oppositional system" thing again. What the Hell is this?
The Founders created an "oppositional system" alright. But this system or checks and balances was designed to limit and curtail the power of the federal government, by opposing the force of the federal government with the greater power of the states and of the people. Witness that "Bill of Rights" thing, which unequivocally reserved all unspecified governmental power to the states and to the people".
How on Earth can you credibly justify an expansion of the federal government on the stated intent of the Founders, Thimbles?
#20 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 7 Mar 2011 at 10:29 PM
"But this system or checks and balances was designed to limit and curtail the power of the federal government.."
Without obstructing its ability to execute its legitimate functions, the regulation of national institutions and the setting of national standards for health, safety, and civil liberties being some of those functions.
Which does not mean citizens should cede these functions to the federal government and forget about them, but that they should take active interest in how these powers are applied and demand that they be used wisely and fairly, you know, the opposite of what you saw under the conservatives:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR2007042503046.html
#21 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 7 Mar 2011 at 11:10 PM