Presidential Debate

[CajunJynx]

The issue with anarchy is that historically it creates a power vacuum which leads to dictatorship. The real cause of this is stupid people, and most of society being unable to govern themselves.

[cltrn81]

At least this conversation has progressed into sensible debate with a lack of trolling.  Gonna say my 2 bits and get back to work .

@Dudecore:  your ideas are aligned with my own and your references against everything to victimless crimes, government control, the housing collapse, etc are very much aligned with my own.  I do not agree with an anarchist state and you very well know it is a pipe dream to suggest it will ever happen.  Not being mean....that is just the truth.  Your anarchist point touts natural law and that is well and good in regard to criminalism but what about corporations and business in general in an anarchist government?  It would be completely laissez faire with no one to regulate them.....cuz natural law sure wont stop corporate greed.  Corporate greed is a lot like the group think effect or the mob mentality that has been proven when a large group of people get together they will collectively make decisions they would never make on their own......sounds like an executive board room with an agenda to make more money.  My point is those corporations will be the rape and pillagers not the citizens.  I can sum up the nations problems with two words "campaign financing" and I can suggest a solution that will solve a lot of those problems with three words "campaign finance reform".  For example, if I am a politician and a corporations gives me $$X million dollars towards my campaign....you better believe that corporation wants something in return.  Furthermore, I think the Supreme Court has too much power as well and they gave themselves the power to strike down legislation that has been passed through the legislative and executive branches.....now how is that checks and balances if one side of the triad has the say all do all?  Ultimately if we got rid of campaign financing and just funded those campaigns from government dollars that would get rid of a lot of corruption.  It would promote honest politicians and encourage them to run on the issues and not the agenda of their donors.  Their donors also would not be picking the Supreme Court Justices and that could get cleaned up as well.  I am not saying it is a silver bullet but I think it would help a great deal.  Either way my idea for "campaign finance reform" is as much of a pipe dream as your anarchist dream

[CajunJynx]

First of all, the fact that we can even debate this topic shows how lucky we compared to the majority of countries out there. That shows how much freedom we really have.
Second, anarchy is the worst idea ever. It relies on humans being fundamentally good. If we went back to anarchy we would basically descend back into the middle ages where various chiefs and self imposed kings ruled the land. Whoever controlled the weapons would controll the people,  brutality would run rampant.
3) Our government is horrible right now, but it's not the beginning of a totalitarian or communist state. Our government is too restricted to do anything of the kind, and neither candidate has anything to do with that. Nor will our individual rights be infringed upon.
4) The media is not at fault. Everyone blames things on the misinformed media. That's not true. It's the idiocy of the people who only watch or read biased sources who are at fault. Our media is the most reliable source of information in the world.

While I think anarchy is a brilliant theory, it has been proven to not work in implementation.

We really are on the verge of a totalitarian state, unless you want to ignore the secret police agency our current president has tried to start four times, the newest NDAA, the patriot act, etc. I really think you don't understand exactly what they are doing. Hit me with a pm with your email if you want to see some rather disturbing things.

[CajunJynx]

We should be thankful that our rights our upheld. This is the first time in thousands of years civilization has advanced enough to let this happen. We are extremely privileged to live in a state where this happens.
Also if you think anarchy will lead to anything but that is ridiculous. Look at history, name a single occurrence where natural law "worked". There will always be people more powerful than others, and that will always lead to exploitation.

False. There have been categorically similar civilizations through history, they are created, advance, then crumble.

Anarchy has worked before, but only on a very small scale, tribal communities etc. once it's much bigger than hamlet size someone manipulates the system to seize power.

[Dudecore]

The government ripped power from us, and have been using it since its inception. Campaign finance reform, term limits and ending corporate subsidies are fixes people come up with to repair a dying system. Government is not even consistent with human experience.

Corporate greed can be stopped with a free market. If you don't like the way someone runs their business, don't buy from them. Something costs too much? Don't buy it. Something is cheap and easy, then you purchase that. If you're a vegetarian like me, I don't wanna go to McDonald's and buy garbage with no nutrition.

A corporation wouldn't pay workers 3¢ an hour if the products they sold cost too much, they wouldn't make money. They couldn't exploit labor in china if the Chinese were able to organize and protest for workers rights. In each and every instance I brought up, the government was involved. In each and every instance they're looking out for the "rights" of a select group of individuals. It's never people being able to be free.

In every instance of "anarchy" leading to bad results, it's never because the people are "too free" or because natural law was subscribed to. It's dogmatic imperialists.

[cltrn81]

You are missing the point, how can you choose not to buy from someone when that product has an inelastic demand and inelastic supply.....and one company owns it?  You cant use the existing inefficient government as an excuse towards anarchism.  A true free market would turn the world we live in into a world ran by corporations.  You would not have the choice to just not buy medications you need, or food, or water for that matter.  A free market could easily allow corporations to assume control over our basic physiological necessities and bring it to the point there is one source to get your goods from and that is it.  Lets go back a hundred years when there was virtually no regulation on business.  Now lets just take a coal mining company for example.  What these companies did was create a community around a mine for the workers to live.  The company owned all the property, houses, stores, roads, buildings, and so on.  The workers got paid in company printed currency....meaning that money was only good in the stores in that community.  Many workers went into debt just to feed their families because the 80+ hours a week they were working was not enough to provide enough "funny money" to buy the goods that the monopoly was marking up.  That is exactly what would happen on a large scale if we had a true freemarket with no control whatsoever.

[Milo109]

What does Imperialistic things have to do with anarchism? People can't handle freedom.

[cltrn81]

You say just don't buy from them if you don't like the way they do business but take Wal Mart for example.  I bet 75% of Americans would say they don't like the way they do business but yet there is a Wal Mart, on average, 15 miles from everyone's home in America and I bet about 90% of Americans shop there. 

[Dudecore]

You are missing the point, how can you choose not to buy from someone when that product has an inelastic demand and inelastic supply.....and one company owns it?  You cant use the existing inefficient government as an excuse towards anarchism.  A true free market would turn the world we live in into a world ran by corporations.  You would not have the choice to just not buy medications you need, or food, or water for that matter.  A free market could easily allow corporations to assume control over our basic physiological necessities and bring it to the point there is one source to get your goods from and that is it.  Lets go back a hundred years when there was virtually no regulation on business.  Now lets just take a coal mining company for example.  What these companies did was create a community around a mine for the workers to live.  The company owned all the property, houses, stores, roads, buildings, and so on.  The workers got paid in company printed currency....meaning that money was only good in the stores in that community.  Many workers went into debt just to feed their families because the 80+ hours a week they were working was not enough to provide enough "funny money" to buy the goods that the monopoly was marking up.  That is exactly what would happen on a large scale if we had a true freemarket with no control whatsoever.

No company can own everything, because someone else will come along and do it cheaper. What incentive is there for 1 corporation to be able to own everything?

We've grown past the era of scrips and whatever coal mining shenanigans were going on. Workers and people being able to standup for themselves, and being able to freely travel to new jobs. We have the Internet now, we can communicate and are having this conversations miles away. If you don't wanna work 80 hours a week then move to a different company.

Competition makes these things possible. An informed free people make these things possible. Things the way they are now are because of a government state designed to pick winners and losers in business. Pick winners and losers in life.

[Dudecore]

You say just don't buy from them if you don't like the way they do business but take Wal Mart for example.  I bet 75% of Americans would say they don't like the way they do business but yet there is a Wal Mart, on average, 15 miles from everyone's home in America and I bet about 90% of Americans shop there.

People have to be able to make the decisions not to shop at walmart. Walmart sells cheap goods, that is why they force everyone out of business. They create jobs for people and don't give them any say in it. They can't organize, can't collective bargain get no benefits or long term retirement plan.

Walmart is a job you take on the way to another job. It's not a career. We need jobs like that. If you wanna buy Oreos for $3 a pack, or go up the street and buy Oreos for $4 (but the workers all get health benefits) then that is something people should do. It's informing the people, and then they're free to do what they want. We have that now.

If Walmart cornered the market on big box stores, and started raising prices, no one is obligated to shop there anymore. There would be no law requiring that you do.

[cltrn81]

Our nation is already turning into subsets of oligarchies and a true free market would only enable them further.  What is the incentive for a corporation to own everything you ask......money, power, take your pick.  They would not make it obvious they are trying to own/control everything.  They would slowly do it so no one notices.  Big companies would buy small ones, keep the small brand so no one knows any different.  Eventually one or a small group of companies would control major markets and they will set the price.  The argument that workers could band together under this system is a fallacy. Who would organize these workers to band together?  I suppose the companies will sit idly by and do nothing to stop them. You don't think an unregulated corporation could crush unions that much easier without regulation?  They will just fire any employee who attempted to bring the workers together.....and who would stop them under an anarchist state?

[Dudecore]

Our nation is already turning into subsets of oligarchies and a true free market would only enable them further.  What is the incentive for a corporation to own everything you ask......money, power, take your pick.  They would not make it obvious they are trying to own/control everything.  They would slowly do it so no one notices.  Big companies would buy small ones, keep the small brand so no one knows any different.  Eventually one or a small group of companies would control major markets and they will set the price.  The argument that workers could band together under this system is a fallacy. Who would organize these workers to band together?  I suppose the companies will sit idly by and do nothing to stop them. You don't think an unregulated corporation could crush unions that much easier without regulation?  They will just fire any employee who attempted to bring the workers together.....and who would stop them under an anarchist state?

That is in regards to non-essential, entry jobs like walmart. How would a big corporation stop a engineers union from forming? Mechanics and teachers unions. Things that require skilled labor? If my job said "were going to pay mechanics $3 an hour" I can turn around and say "well we're not working for that", and the industry would suffer because of it.

Even outsourced jobs are coming back (tech support) based on demands. Corporations are interested in money, marginalizing your consumer base does nothing to help that. The way government is set up now money = power. You can buy and sell elections, get favorable treatment, bypass natural law to get the things that keep you in power (money). It's already an unbalanced system that favors the rich.

In a free market goods and services favor the consumer. Is it perfect? No, nothing can be. Does it benefit the most amount of people? I submit that it does.

Could I be wrong? Absolutely.

[cltrn81]

I could be wrong as well my friend but I whole heartedly disagree with the assumption that business could be kept in check without regulation.  The only reason unions exist is because of government involvement forcing business to play ball.  Otherwise, like I said, the business can just fire the leaders and those followers who are too afraid will stay working for the greedy business cuz they have no alternative and/or they are to afraid of change to try.  I will admit that it does propose a challenge for business in regards to skilled workers; however, if 95% of the engineering companies were owned by one big conglomerate than where would that engineer who wants to fight the system go?  He can't just go somewhere else if this big entity had cornered the job market to that extreme.  Granted that is a worse case scenario but my overall point is that a true free market would enable this behavior from business.  I believe there is a happy median to most things in life and this is no different.  I think regulation has a place to keep business in check.

Lets switch gears a bit and look at the tragedy of commons scenario.  Do you not honestly believe business would decimate our resources, lakes/streams, forests, wildlife, etc if they were truly unregulated?  It would be a mad dash to see who controls what and the business with the most money would win.  They would suck the lifeforce from every piece of land and just leave it polluted and barren.

[Piotr]

All the unions of this world can't help you if the corporations go bust and move to countries with more economic freedom. The only real power you have as an employee is when greedy corporations compete for your skills on a free market. This is actually pretty much proven both theoretically and practically. People flee from socialism.

[Dudecore]

If they were to ravage the landscape, that would be all accounts infringe on our rights to person. An informed people acting in accordance to natural law would not desire these outcomes.

It happens now in Africa, illegal governments stole the resources from the people and sell them to industrialized countries. Where it's the opposite in places like Kuwait, where they share the oil sales with the people who live there. There are cases where it works, and cases where it doesn't. I've noticed the more government that's involved, the less power the people have.

If you don't wanna buy my wholesale "anarchy" thing, can we at least agree that you should be able to choose where your tax money goes? You've gotta fill out big forms every single year, why not add another list of checkboxes so individuals have a say in where their money goes? A 3 trillion dollar war on terror isn't doing anything.

The government isn't responsible for our well being if they don't want to be. We already let them take our money, so what is stopping them from just becoming "evil" tomorrow? Not elections, those are already rigged. Is it that they fear an uprising? No, they already have trillions of dollars in weapons.

They can take our freedom because they already took it. They misappropriate resources and keep us in debt. Does the government do good things, I think so. Can we as people achieve the things they do that are so great? I think we must, and we can.

Yes we can.