Faber on Big Government and Individual Rights

[Master Shake]

06/10/09 Hong Kong, China I seldom become depressed, but when I consider that prosperity is created by “peace, easy taxes and a tolerable administration of justice” I really think that the U.S. and other Western governments are doing their very best to impoverish their countries.

A friend of mine, Michael Berry, whose missives I always read, could not have phrased this better than in “Importance of the Individual”, a recent report in which he quotes Milton Friedman (whose views I fully share in this particular instance) in an interview with Phil Donohue

According to Berry, “On February 11, 1979 Milton Friedman took 2-1/2 minutes to explain the critical importance of the individual and choice in the free enterprise system to a doubting Phil Donohue. I wonder what Dr. Friedman would say 30 years later about our current predicament and the role government is assuming in our lives? The individual’s freedom and ability to choose and take risks to create value are, of course, all important life elements and a cornerstone of our country.

http://dailyreckoning.com/the-frame-...makers-part-i/

The transcript of the Friedman interview was a good read.

[mcgurme]

Re: Faber on Big Government and Individual Rights

Change the word "government" to "large corporate interests" and I agree fully.

The government has simply become a tool for those "large corporate interests" (like banks and the fed, to name but a few).

Thinking that killing government is going to solve the problem is a bit delusional. If you create a power void, it will be filled.

The framers of our constitution, particularly Jefferson, realized this. They disdained the vast accumulation of wealth that represented the European nobility of their day. They believed that that was what suppressed individual freedoms, and that the US needed to avoid ever developing such "nobility" for that reason.

And so here we are, with rich banking oligarchs running the show, with government as their sock-puppet. The result of 30 years of neocon policies.

You can kill the sock-puppet (gov't), and the masters will still be there, with nothing to impede them.

That's why I think all the anti-government rants are so silly, they miss the real underlying problem and danger to individual liberty: the desire of a rich and powerful few to dominate over us all, who have managed to use gov't as a tool to that end. What we need to do is recapture that tool and turn it back on them, to use it for our own ends, which include the recovery of individual liberty.

06/10/09 Hong Kong, China I seldom become depressed, but when I consider that prosperity is created by “peace, easy taxes and a tolerable administration of justice” I really think that the U.S. and other Western governments are doing their very best to impoverish their countries.

A friend of mine, Michael Berry, whose missives I always read, could not have phrased this better than in “Importance of the Individual”, a recent report in which he quotes Milton Friedman (whose views I fully share in this particular instance) in an interview with Phil Donohue

According to Berry, “On February 11, 1979 Milton Friedman took 2-1/2 minutes to explain the critical importance of the individual and choice in the free enterprise system to a doubting Phil Donohue. I wonder what Dr. Friedman would say 30 years later about our current predicament and the role government is assuming in our lives? The individual’s freedom and ability to choose and take risks to create value are, of course, all important life elements and a cornerstone of our country.

http://dailyreckoning.com/the-frame-...makers-part-i/

The transcript of the Friedman interview was a good read.

[metalman]

Re: Faber on Big Government and Individual Rights

Change the word "government" to "large corporate interests" and I agree fully.

The government has simply become a tool for those "large corporate interests" (like banks and the fed, to name but a few).

Thinking that killing government is going to solve the problem is a bit delusional. If you create a power void, it will be filled.

The framers of our constitution, particularly Jefferson, realized this. They disdained the vast accumulation of wealth that represented the European nobility of their day. They believed that that was what suppressed individual freedoms, and that the US needed to avoid ever developing such "nobility" for that reason.

And so here we are, with rich banking oligarchs running the show, with government as their sock-puppet. The result of 30 years of neocon policies.

You can kill the sock-puppet (gov't), and the masters will still be there, with nothing to impede them.

That's why I think all the anti-government rants are so silly, they miss the real underlying problem and danger to individual liberty: the desire of a rich and powerful few to dominate over us all, who have managed to use gov't as a tool to that end. What we need to do is recapture that tool and turn it back on them, to use it for our own ends, which include the recovery of individual liberty.

libertarian fundamentalists don't want to hear this. they prefer a fantasy world where the clever, ambitious & greedy never try to use accumulated wealth to influence gov't to pass laws in their favor to let them make even more money... take insurance co. for instance.

no, in this magical world those with an insatiable appetite for money and power quietly sit on their hands and watch all the simple folks trade goods in a free market tax free.

the roads fix themselves. fires put themsleves out. or maybe a private corporation puts the fires out. used to be so... but insurance co. lost too much money on that deal. turned out that if joe didn't pay his insurance and his house caught on fire, it burned down and took the rest of the neighborhood with it. the insurance co. lost money. very bad! :eek: that's why towns have public fire dept.

the world can be as simple and clear as a glass of water if one only ignores history, facts, details... these do not appeal to fundamentalists of any sort, libetarian or otherwise.

[Mashuri]

Re: Faber on Big Government and Individual Rights

libertarian fundamentalists don't want to hear this. they prefer a fantasy world where the clever, ambitious & greedy never try to use accumulated wealth to influence gov't to pass laws in their favor to let them make even more money... take insurance co. for instance.

In a Libertarian fantasy world there would be no government to influence. These corrupt companies need an entity with a monopoly on coercive power to force their mercantilist laws upon us.

no, in this magical world those with an insatiable appetite for money and power quietly sit on their hands and watch all the simple folks trade goods in a free market tax free.

There will still be plenty who would have no problem violating our personal and private property but, without a powerful government to exploit, they will have a much harder time doing it.

the roads fix themselves. fires put themsleves out. or maybe a private corporation puts the fires out. used to be so... but insurance co. lost too much money on that deal. turned out that if joe didn't pay his insurance and his house caught on fire, it burned down and took the rest of the neighborhood with it. the insurance co. lost money. very bad! :eek: that's why towns have public fire dept.

Since there is a strong demand for roads and and for fires to be put out, there will be people who compete to offer these services and people who pay for them.

the world can be as simple and clear as a glass of water if one only ignores history, facts, details... these do not appeal to fundamentalists of any sort, libetarian or otherwise.

That argument cuts the other way as well. The real fantasy world is one of a benign government that exists to serve its people. History has certainly proven that!

[Mashuri]

Re: Faber on Big Government and Individual Rights

Change the word "government" to "large corporate interests" and I agree fully.

The government has simply become a tool for those "large corporate interests" (like banks and the fed, to name but a few).

Thinking that killing government is going to solve the problem is a bit delusional. If you create a power void, it will be filled.

The framers of our constitution, particularly Jefferson, realized this. They disdained the vast accumulation of wealth that represented the European nobility of their day. They believed that that was what suppressed individual freedoms, and that the US needed to avoid ever developing such "nobility" for that reason.

And so here we are, with rich banking oligarchs running the show, with government as their sock-puppet. The result of 30 years of neocon policies.

You can kill the sock-puppet (gov't), and the masters will still be there, with nothing to impede them.

That's why I think all the anti-government rants are so silly, they miss the real underlying problem and danger to individual liberty: the desire of a rich and powerful few to dominate over us all, who have managed to use gov't as a tool to that end. What we need to do is recapture that tool and turn it back on them, to use it for our own ends, which include the recovery of individual liberty.

Interesting way to frame it, as if the government is some innocent entity that's being controlled by the greedy corporations. They are one and the same and both are culpable for this mess. I am anti-monopoly more than anything, with the monopoly on violence being the worst of them all (people tend to value their lives more than anything else). This monopoly on coercion -- or "tool" as you call it -- is what empowers governments and the special interests they favor and will always be used by the elite to rule over the commoner. If we use it to overthrow the current elite we'll just create a new elite class that will end up doing the same thing. Decentralizing power is the only real solution.

[metalman]

Re: Faber on Big Government and Individual Rights

In a Libertarian fantasy world there would be no government to influence. These corrupt companies need an entity with a monopoly on coercive power to force their mercantilist laws upon us.

fine, then the corrupt companies can run the country without the middle men. even better, for them. what is a warlord but the ceo of the few commercial enterprises that remain after gov't falls and, unprotected from violence and theft, everyone who can leave does so?

if that's the libertarian fundamentalist nirvana, plenty of 3rd world shitholes with weak gov't they can move to... somalia, etc... no need to try to turn the usa into one.

There will still be plenty who would have no problem violating our personal and private property but, without a powerful government to exploit, they will have a much harder time doing it.

backwards. try it the real world sv the fanasy world way...

'There will still be plenty who would have no problem violating our personal and private property but, if government is too weak to prevent it, they will have a much easier time doing it.'

of course, on the other extreme is gov't that is too strong and exploitive. again, fundamentalists don't want to be bothered with such nuances. it's either all or nothing.

Since there is a strong demand for roads and and for fires to be put out, there will be people who compete to offer these services and people who pay for them.

fantasy land. the hallmark of the fundamentalism is that it discourages curiosity.

they may wonder... why does no town on earth have competing private fire companies, even in somalia? in the usa we discovered that competing private companies fighting over a fire to get the insurance money resulted in burned down buildings. doesn't work. we learned this, oh, around the time of the civil war. libertarian fundamentalists haven't got around to it yet... those pages were torn from their history books.

That argument cuts the other way as well. The real fantasy world is one of a benign government that exists to serve its people. History has certainly proven that!

history can be selectively sifted, like the law, to find the precident one wishes to see. if one is searcing for cases of gov't oppression it can be found in the soviet union or hitler's germany, etc, where large state bureaucracies crushed the will of the people and stole their liberty. if one is looking for oppression from private enterprise unfettered by gov't, one can look to love canal, or 1000 cases of corporations poisoning and exploiting citizens.

but the fundamentalist does not seek to understand that the choices are not one or the other... not all gov't or all free enterprsie... but how to get the right balance.

our nation's founders understood that but they did not anticipate that some day private corp. could manage opinion and elections to get around all of the checks and balances they built.

argue left vs right!

argue utopias! small gov't! big gov't! no gov't!

abortion!

gays!

school prayer!

guns!

whatever you do, do not argue about us the guys who run your country.

[blazespinnaker]

Re: Faber on Big Government and Individual Rights

i always laugh at republicans who complain about big government.

Aren't republicans the ones that are always trying to outlaw same sex marriages and abortion?
Don't they have this long list of social conservative agendas on other people's lives that they are always pushing?

How much more invasive into personal lives can you get?

I'm all for libertarianism, but don't claim for a minute that this is a republican versus democrat issue.

[metalman]

Re: Faber on Big Government and Individual Rights

i always laugh at republicans who complain about big government.

Aren't republicans the ones that are always trying to outlaw same sex marriages and abortion?
Don't they have this long list of social conservative agendas on other people's lives that they are always pushing?

How much more invasive into personal lives can you get?

I'm all for libertarianism, but don't claim for a minute that this is a republican versus democrat issue.

i'm libertarian but not fundamentalist. i'd say 'pragmatic' but that word's taken. :mad:

[Master Shake]

Re: Faber on Big Government and Individual Rights

i always laugh at republicans who complain about big government.

Aren't republicans the ones that are always trying to outlaw same sex marriages and abortion?
Don't they have this long list of social conservative agendas on other people's lives that they are always pushing?

How much more invasive into personal lives can you get?

I'm all for libertarianism, but don't claim for a minute that this is a republican versus democrat issue.

I don't think Faber's a Republican.

And as far as same sex marriage goes, whenever there's been any kind of referendum on the issue, the American people have said that marriage is between one man and one woman.

[Master Shake]

Re: Faber on Big Government and Individual Rights

libertarian fundamentalists don't want to hear this. they prefer a fantasy world where the clever, ambitious & greedy never try to use accumulated wealth to influence gov't to pass laws in their favor to let them make even more money... take insurance co. for instance.

no, in this magical world those with an insatiable appetite for money and power quietly sit on their hands and watch all the simple folks trade goods in a free market tax free.

the roads fix themselves. fires put themsleves out. or maybe a private corporation puts the fires out. used to be so... but insurance co. lost too much money on that deal. turned out that if joe didn't pay his insurance and his house caught on fire, it burned down and took the rest of the neighborhood with it. the insurance co. lost money. very bad! :eek: that's why towns have public fire dept.

the world can be as simple and clear as a glass of water if one only ignores history, facts, details... these do not appeal to fundamentalists of any sort, libetarian or otherwise.

I don't believe that Faber is a "libertarian fundamentalist." That being said, I agree that there is a libertarian fallacy that, in the absense of government, people will work things out to preserve liberty and we'll all get along with each other. I don't think the issue is anarcho-capitalism v. socialism, however, but whether government should be limited or unduly intrusive. I side with the former, but maybe I'm an anachronism.

Do you take issue with anything written in the article?

[metalman]

Re: Faber on Big Government and Individual Rights

Do you take issue with anything written in the article?

no... faber is taking the right side here, given what he does for a living.

[aaron]

Re: Faber on Big Government and Individual Rights

Change the word "government" to "large corporate interests" an
The framers of our constitution, particularly Jefferson, realized this. They disdained the vast accumulation of wealth that represented the European nobility of their day. They believed that that was what suppressed individual freedoms, and that the US needed to avoid ever developing such "nobility" for that reason.

And so here we are, with rich banking oligarchs running the show, with government as their sock-puppet. The result of 30 years of neocon policies.

.

I was wondering how Paris Hilton (etc.) can have so much money? Why are the Waltons, several of them, listed as a few of the richest people in the U.S? Correct me if I am wrong, but when you die, aren't you supposed to be taxed to death?

Perhaps the easy solution is to go after the trusts, which I assume is where all this unearned wealth hides out. I understand being able to leave your kids a million or two.. but come on. The U.S. gives you an opportunity to make billions. By allowing vast amounts of wealth to be passed down through generations, you get Kennedy's, Bush's, etc... etc. You get an "oligarchy".

[metalman]

Re: Faber on Big Government and Individual Rights

I was wondering how Paris Hilton (etc.) can have so much money? Why are the Waltons, several of them, listed as a few of the richest people in the U.S? Correct me if I am wrong, but when you die, aren't you supposed to be taxed to death?

Perhaps the easy solution is to go after the trusts, which I assume is where all this unearned wealth hides out. I understand being able to leave your kids a million or two.. but come on. The U.S. gives you an opportunity to make billions. By allowing vast amounts of wealth to be passed down through generations, you get Kennedy's, Bush's, etc... etc. You get an "oligarchy".

buffett and all those super rich geezers say the same thing... but their kids are not so sure...

[cjppjc]

Re: Faber on Big Government and Individual Rights

I was wondering how Paris Hilton (etc.) can have so much money? Why are the Waltons, several of them, listed as a few of the richest people in the U.S? Correct me if I am wrong, but when you die, aren't you supposed to be taxed to death?

Perhaps the easy solution is to go after the trusts, which I assume is where all this unearned wealth hides out. I understand being able to leave your kids a million or two.. but come on. The U.S. gives you an opportunity to make billions. By allowing vast amounts of wealth to be passed down through generations, you get Kennedy's, Bush's, etc... etc. You get an "oligarchy".

Speaking of the Kennedy trusts:

The New York Daily News, a tabloid paper, has estimated that Caroline Kennedy is worth around $100 million.
The former First Daughter is seeking Hillary Clinton’s vacant Senate seat. The Daily News had to estimate relying on property holdings and the minimal information available on the Kennedy family trust due to the fact that Kennedy has thus far refused to release tax records, an orthodox move in American politics.




Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) $47.62 million Much of Kennedy’s wealth stems from family trusts, and the Massachusetts Senator reported almost no change in 2007, with an increase of less than 1 percent. Kennedy lists one family trust valued from $25 million to $50 million, as well as four trusts worth at least $5 million each and a blind trust totaling at least $1 million.


And just to pile on.
The Kennedy Pork


It’s outrageous–a bill that was supposed to be free of earmarks not only is riddled with them, but contains millions to “help preserve the legacy of the Kennedys.” What?!?!

More than one out of every five dollars of the $126 million Massachusetts is receiving in earmarks from a $410 billion federal spending package is going to help preserve the legacy of the Kennedys.
The bill includes $5.8 million for the planning and design of a building to house a new Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate. The funding may also help support an endowment for the institute.
The bill also includes $22 million to expand facilities at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum and $5 million more for a new gateway to the Boston Harbor Islands on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, a park system in downtown Boston named after Kennedy’s mother and built on land opened up by the Big Dig highway project.

[tombat1913]

Re: Faber on Big Government and Individual Rights

libertarian fundamentalists don't want to hear this. they prefer a fantasy world where the clever, ambitious & greedy never try to use accumulated wealth to influence gov't to pass laws in their favor to let them make even more money... take insurance co. for instance.

no, in this magical world those with an insatiable appetite for money and power quietly sit on their hands and watch all the simple folks trade goods in a free market tax free.

the roads fix themselves. fires put themsleves out. or maybe a private corporation puts the fires out. used to be so... but insurance co. lost too much money on that deal. turned out that if joe didn't pay his insurance and his house caught on fire, it burned down and took the rest of the neighborhood with it. the insurance co. lost money. very bad! :eek: that's why towns have public fire dept.

the world can be as simple and clear as a glass of water if one only ignores history, facts, details... these do not appeal to fundamentalists of any sort, libetarian or otherwise.

You're taking swings at a philosophy which you clearly don't understand. You've described anarchism and labeled it libertarian. This ‘roads aren't going to build themselves’ explanation completely misses the point.

Here's the CRAZY libertarian philosophy. We need a government that stays within the confines of the law. We are supposed to have a limited federal government which protects our self evident rights from the states and other entities, and leaves the rest up to the people to figure out through local government. Yes, roads would still be built, fires would be extinguished, and children would be educated. What we wouldn’t have is a Department of Education which wastes over 50% of its tax revenue on bureaucracy, leaving well under half to actually distribute to the school systems. No more of this ridiculous money pit war on drugs or DEA agents kicking in cancer patients doors for consuming plants. No more FEMA to screw everything up or poison packed trailer parks for the displaced.

Local governments are better suited to deal with these issues. Central planning is wasteful, slow and bureaucratic and ends up being destructive to our personal liberties when not kept within the confines of our laws.