You miss the original point, which is that other governments ARE investing, because they don't have our military and foreign war costs. We spend our (federal credit card) money overseas; other countries are spending their revenue building infrastructure and education. They are passing us by.
I don't miss your point I disagree with it. I don't think we are being passed by, but if we are it is not because the level of government investment, and if we are being passed by, greatly increasing the level of government spending, even spending targeted at investment, is not the answer.
re: Lately you have responded to statements like that by pointing out existing government intervention and then arguing that we already have social engineering. Its true we have a lot of it but that doesn't mean we should have a lot of it, or that increasing it would be a good idea.
We have huge government intervention. We have unique taxes, tariffs and credits on food, clothing, gasoline, owning a house, earning money, raising crops, drugs, gasoline, telephone, Internet, dieing, toll roads, getting a passport, getting a drivers license, getting a license plate, taking an airline flight, renting a car, stock ownership, bond ownership, investment property, inheritance, having babies, contributing to charities, buying SUV's, buying Hybrids, installing solar energy... that's off the top of my head. We are anything but libertarian.
If you search the statement you quoted, or my entire post, or any of the many of the posts I have made on SI, you won't find me making an assertion that the US is a libertarian country.
You made an argument. I responded. You don't really respond to my response, you just repeat the original argument with greater detail. Yes there are many ways the government intervenes and performs social engineering. I never said otherwise. We are in agreement on that point. But the existence of such social engineering is not an argument for additional social engineering.
The essence of our difference of opinion is that your support a libertarian view of the federal government... that the free market should make every economic (moral?) decision.
I don't think every decision, or even every decision that has an economic effect should be decided entirely by the free market. I do believe we should move in that direction.
My belief is that there are competing interests and our democracy and the rule of law will achieve the best policy for the good of the citizens.
The rule of law is not the issue here. I support it, apparently you support it. There is no controversy. Democracy is also not the issue. Again we both support it. We also have certain ideas, not all of which can command a democratic majority. You would like large taxes on cars that get poor gas mileage. I don't think that you would get majority support on that. The fact that you aren't with the majority doesn't make your idea wrong, or make you undemocratic. Similarly the fact that I have ideas that differ from the majority doesn't make my ideas wrong or make me undemocratic.
We both support democracy and the rule of law, we just have different policy ideas we would like to see implemented.
One major difference in our opinions is that mine is realistic and yours is an intellectual fantasy, far removed from current reality.
Reducing the amount of government intervention in the economy is not an "intellectual fantasy". Eliminating government intervention probably is, but resisting a high tax on vehicles with poor mileage, or disagreeing with a massive government investment in high speed internet connections is not the same as eliminating all government intervention in the economy.
In the real world you have conflicting ideals. It is unrealistic to expect one ideal to eclipse all others, but that doesn't make it a fantasy to hope that one particular ideal or a few ideals (freedom and the rule of law are two that I have been pushing lately) have a more prominent role in society.
Tim |
