Trump is winning

CT Phipps said:
I don't subscribe to the "government is the enemy" school of thought. I think of the United States government as a machine which is designed to maximize the good of its citizens by providing cash, protections, and services. When there's a problem, the US government should be able to be like an ATM to go up to and get help for it or the guy you can call to remove a stump in your lawn. You have to pay for the privilege but at its worst, you're kind of its family and it has to help anyway.

However, the problem with the US government is the general sense of treating it as more than just a machine which provides services and allowing it run wild. Checks and balances to keep it in place is the best thing we can do for it and limit the individual power of its members and branches whenever possible. I favor a relatively large but weak government versus trying to make States or the Federal government massively powerful juggernauts.

People should have faith in the system but it should also be out of sight, out of mind for the most part.
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Thanks. Two lines really didn't show me what you meant.
 
CT Phipps said:
The United States can produce a great deal more wealth with businesses that are incentivized. We're wasting vast amounts of money on various broken systems which don't serve our needs when centralized ones are better. The United States when properly taxed and its citizens being encouraged to make WEALTH can afford this. Certainly, it costs us more in the long term that we have people trapped in poverty and lack of education that can't escape to become contributing members of society.
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Ok but you haven't explain how you're going to pay for the education. What system are currently broken that would be better centralized? Certainly you don't mean Obamacare and it's constantly rising premiums? You're going to encourage people to make wealth? How? Businesses are already leaving America to go to China and Mexico so certainly raising taxes on them isn't going to "incentivize them". How the hell is any of this going to be paid for?
CT Phipps said:
How to get it enshrined so they can't just threaten to remove them or give them as a bribe to the American people is a question I have no answer to, though.
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There is a way but it will (and never should) go through.
Crni Vuk said:
The point is, when you're dealing with very important matters, like water, education, and such it is better to have something that is at least SOMEWHAT in public hands. No one ever said that this is a perfect system, you know. But privatisation of those sectors have often lead to worse results in the end.
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I do agree basic necessities like water and basic education up to the High School level (although I think private schools should still be an option since public schools, especially with CommonCore are so fucking garbage right now) should be taken care of by the public sector but so far other things like healthcare has been a total disaster. People are paying way more for worse coverage with Obamacare than when it was left to the free market. The government trying to make college free for everyone is only going to put further economic strain and lower the quality of those colleges and a degree even further. So far further government intervention has lead to things getting worse. Obamacare sucks, Common Core is making kids retarded, federal student loans cause young students to go into decades long debt, incentivizing inactivity and other bad behaviors with giving people reliance on the welfare state has all made the country way, way worse. Again considering how stagnant our economy and stretched the national budget is I don't think adding on more unfundable government programs and further increasing federal power is the answer.
 
Of course! The option for private schools should be there. I also never said that Obamacare or what ever it is called, was a good thing. I know way to little about that subject to make any statements about that specific topic. However, It should be pretty obious to anyone, that the current system in the US is very expensive and very ineffective for a lot of people.
 
Vergil said:
The Founding Fathers did not build the US Government to have such a huge amount of power centralized to it as it does now and as far as things like the welfare state and trying to give the government control of healthcare whether either of those things are doing a lot of good is debatable.
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Debatable, sure. But I'm not certain how the Founding Fathers fit into this. They were mostly remarkable men (even if a product on their time on some issues such as slavery) but they weren't prophets. The America you see today is not one they foresaw, but well, they lived 250 years ago. With the amount of social, political and technological development that has transpired since then, not counting stuff like wildly divergent demographics and historical/international context, I freaking hope society is unrecognizable. A society that wouldn't change over more than two centuries would be a stagnating beast indeed.

Also, I'm really doubtful that the debate is private vs public. These days, the two coexist so much they are sometimes almost one and the same, especially in a democracy like the US where businesses can have huge influence on public policies thanks to their contacts in the spheres of power, the favor trading that is currency in Washington, and the raw power they wield thanks to moving around untold billions of dollars and/or employing thousands of people. To say nothing of stuff like Super PACs of course.

Government needs to be regulated, obviously. But I have a hard time seeing it as an enemy of any sort. Same for businesses. A modern State needs both to prosper.
 
Just to say this, we're also not saying that every business and all corporations are the devil! They certainly can do a lot of good as well. It's just that a corporation is simply run very different from a government. Naturaly this has advantages and of course disadvantages. It would be crazy to believe that a government could provide you with everything that a corporation or private organisation can, and it would be just as asinine to believe that private corporations could do everything a government does.

But I guess if your only tool is a hammer, you start to see every problem as a nail. Corporations are no holy grail, and governments are not always a perfect solution.
 
Didn't the Founding Fathers found an un-democratic system because they feared that the average stupid commoner would vote for a clown and ruin the country, hence they put a disproportionate amount of power in the hands of a few politically experienced men? I may be talking out of my ass here.
 
Dr Fallout said:
Didn't the Founding Fathers found an un-democratic system because they feared that the average stupid commoner would vote for a clown and ruin the country, hence they put a disproportionate amount of power in the hands of a few politically experienced men? I may be talking out of my ass here.
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That's pretty blunt and overly simplistic but yes there is a reason we have a Republic and not a Democracy.
 
Vergil said:
We're obviously not following what the Founding Fathers wanted either.
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Then again, there's debate on what they wanted. I mean the gun laws at the time were obviously centered on militias, but now they're used as an excuse for private ownership and there are groups who think the founding fathers were more religious and wanted a country based off Christianity.
 
Dr Fallout said:
Then again, there's debate on what they wanted. I mean the gun laws at the time were obviously centered on militias, but now they're used as an excuse for private ownership and there are groups who think the founding fathers were more religious and wanted a country based off Christianity.
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Yea, some people certainly have different views indeed.
 
Vergil said:
I was not agreeing with your views on the matter btw
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'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'
Either they're just using a buzzword (militia!) or they actually mean something with that.
 
Vergil said:
That's pretty blunt and overly simplistic but yes there is a reason we have a Republic and not a Democracy.
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A Republic is a Democracy, Democracy is simply the umbrella term for a couple of political systems, the US is simply one with representatives, senates and the like. What you mean is a direct democracy, which is a very rare type of democracy, for obvious reasons.
 
Dr Fallout said:
'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'
Either they're just using a buzzword (militia!) or they actually mean something with that.
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The right to a well regulated Militia AND the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.

"A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined..."
- George Washington, First Annual Address, to both House of Congress, January 8, 1790

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
- Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776

"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787

"What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
- Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774-1776
 
Vergil said:
"A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined..."
- George Washington, First Annual Address, to both House of Congress, January 8, 1790
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I fail to see how this disproves my point. Only in militias does a modicum of military discipline take place.

Vergil said:
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
- Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776
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Really vague. But yeah okay.

Vergil said:
"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787
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....
Vergil said:
"What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787
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Militias are the most common areas of resistence and rebellion so this doesn't disprove my point.
Vergil said:
"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
- Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774-1776
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Okay this is the one that convinces me.
 
You know, the problem I have with this is that when ever such a situation would come, it certainly won't be against a dictator like Stalin or Hitler ruling over the nation with an iron fist. It would probably happen in a situation that is a 'gray' area. At which point, is the opression high enough that it warants the use of weapons to overthrow your government? And at which point are you just a mere terrorist? The line here, can be very often pretty blurry, as history has shown very often. I mean look at the whole history of the indepdence and the revolution, it never was this clear black and white, good vs evil, the opressed vs the big cruel empire. It is a lot more complex then just that.
 
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