CrowEpistemologist

I meant that Romney and the Republicans will (to a small extent) will drive culture in their willful disdain for "fact checkers" or "math" or "reason", not that their political policies will.

The implication, however, is that electing the other guy will be oh-so-much-better (see the recent quote above). I don't see it. This whole thing smacks of wishful thinking to me. We have an entrenched welfare state here, with a voting majority having a vested interest in its continued existence. Virtually every single institution we have in our country today is based on what that socialist president (FDR) did to us 75 years ago. Fully unraveling this will take several generations. Remember Social Security being touted as a "ponzi scheme" but a certain Republican--Republican--presidential front-runner? He's history. One off-hand comment about messing with the welfare state and he's gone. Many people here want to believe that we can make radical changes in our society while ignoring the philosophical basis of the culture. Many people here want to believe that politics will drive culture when it's always been the other way around for all of human history. I am very thankful of the time and place in which I live. I'm not a pessimist. But I don't spend time being hopeful we're one election away from a second renaissance, and I find my life is a lot better when I treat the world as it actually is versus the way I hope it is. Romney will not move our country one millimeter forward in the direction of freedom, and will move it several inches backwards in the direction of unreason.

Here's today's "strawman": http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/10/romneys-tap-dance-around-obamacare/ From the article: Mitt Romney gave the appearance of taking a stunning new position Sunday when it seemed he was embracing parts of Obamacare, a law he's vowed – vehemently and repeatedly – to repeal if he wins the election. "So you'd keep that part of the federal plan," NBC's "Meet the Press" host David Gregory asked the candidate, referring to Obamacare's provisions about pre-existing conditions and coverage for young adults. Romney replied, "I'm not getting rid of all of health care reform. Of course, there are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I'm going to put in place." The Democrats want to make the welfare state work better. The Republicans want to have it and eat it too. I simply can't see why people are so darned excited about the latter, nor do I see any broad difference between these two besides the former being slightly more honest.

You going to continue to spit out mindless personal attacks meant to reinforce a world-view that will otherwise not be bothered with the facts?

It's a defense of the status quo. There is nothing in that statement that calls for an increase of the welfare state, only a maintenance of it in order to continue the infrastructure everybody is used to. He was, in essence, saying, "our complex system of government and trade etc. helped you get where you are and there's nothing wrong with that". Yes, it's a defense of the welfare state (and the rest of the current mixed economy of trade and specialization)--but such as it is. Moreover, Obama went on to apologize for the syntax in that talk, and later clarified that he never meant to denigrate individual effort. But that doesn't matter because we know he's a socialist and the republicans are going to end the welfare state if they are elected (because they did that before a few years ago when they had a majority in congress). Why is everybody suspending disbelief this year when it comes to the Republicans? Did you read Romney's comments about Obamacare today? That he wants to "keep the good parts" and remove the bad parts? Democrats and Republicans differ jack when it comes to basic premises on about the welfare state. They are both supportive of it, and neither question it. Demonizing Obama in this way seems to be nothing but displaced anger combined with wishful thinking.

It's awesome that the Republicans have built an entire campaign around a quote taken out of context. I suppose next election they'll just cut the corner again and just attribute a quote he never said at all in a speech that never occurred. Clearly what he actually said isn't important because we all know what he should be saying given his premises. Actual empirical facts aren't necessary when your abstractions already tell you what the facts are going to be ahead of time, right? Now, Romney has the same premises, but for some reason he isn't being assigned to say these things. Why is that?

Well, I think I read that they are the same since private schools are converting themselves to charters in order to get the free money from the state. As for quality, I'm not sure how this enters into this.... Per the article, certainly tax credits for private school is a much cleaner way to do this, and will send the entire problem going the other direction--toward that of more purely private schools and less public funding / lower taxes.

He didn't say, "impossible" but he stipulated it would not happen. I'm not sure how private schools are going to survive against companies that are government subsidized. The article, if I recall, talks about how private schools simply converting themselves to charter so they can get the extra money. It's like letting the devil in your house. The other interesting thing here is that many more fancy charters ask for "donations" which are a tax write-off. So basically a parent can compare $15k per year to a private school to $8k (after the "charter subsidy" kicks in) and then writing off the $8k meaning the real cost is more like $5k. That's a 2/3 discount. That's impossible to compete against. Understand that charter schools are private schools too in terms of the way they are owned--they are just more heavily regulated (which makes sense since taxpayers pay for them). Home schooling is not a significant part of the education mix here in the USA and I don't expect it to be. It's wildly inefficient. No, if allowed to continue I'm pretty sure the concepts of "private school" and "charter school" will be the same in about 10 or so years... The net-net will be that public funding for children's education will have expanded to the remaining 20% of the population and the private school industry will have moved itself to a more deeply regulated status where they are partially funded by the government. It will basically be the end of private schools. All in exchange for a model that... tell me again why it's better? Recall that "privatized" does not mean "private" and it can actually make things a lot worse from the standpoint of freedom... (Maybe that's a different topic).

Victor Hugo / Ninety Three. I just tried finding in on Google as well. No luck. Maybe I have the quote slightly wrong? It's been I while since I've read that one...

Well, it's not very clearly written I must say. But no, I think I did in fact get the gist of it correct. The author is saying that sacrificing private schools is okay since we're going to have publicly funded schools no matter what and charters are just a tweak within the system, presumably for the better (I don't share the undying optimism though). As such, he's saying that given that creating a fully privatized system is politically impossible, it's okay to sacrifice the last vestige of non-government control over schools. By the way, the "statist" he's talking about is a think-tank known as the Cato Institute...

Sooooo... you think that moving all of our private schools to pseudo-public schools with heavy government control is a good thing? Are you insane? The shift will cost taxpayers more money, aka raise our taxes. We're now going to be paying for people's chosen private school just like we've been paying for their public school for years. How is this a good thing? This smacks of short-sighted compromise to me. Trading away some short-term gains (which I don't understand to be clear) in exchange for wiping out the last vestige of non-government-controlled schools in the USA.

Well, this is the heart of the issue, indeed: what sort of form of control do you fear more? Clearly this is a judgement call, but right now I fear the awfulness coming from the right more than that coming from the left... Also, you might want to do some re-reading of a certain author's writing to understand how terrible ideas like the above directly lead to actions to destroy your life :-)... ("For every idiot who writes, there's a rascal who murders" -- [not Ayn Rand, but another author she admired very much ] ). Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think we're headed for a theocracy here any more than we're headed for a neo-Soviet state here anytime soon. Hence my interest is mostly philosophical when it comes to modern politics, not political.

How many seconds do you think it will take me to find a Republican explaining how every species of animal on the planet fit into one giant boat? Or that God spoke to his profit using a hat?

Yeah, yeah. There are anecdotes on both sides... Anyhow, I thought the side discussion above about whether choice with other people's money leads to less spending was interesting...

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/Charter-School-Paradox.pdf One thing that's amazed me recently was hearing that libertarians were pushing very hard for charter schools. The justification is all about compromise: since charter schools are supposedly "more like" private schools (they aren't clear on how), libertarians are all for them. Charter schools, for those who aren't familiar, are privately owned schools that get government funding roughly equivalent to public schools and operate to some extent like a public school. If it sounds like a really bad idea its because it is: it's an unholy union of Wesley Mouch-like private companies and public money. Now instead of just a plain old public employee union lobbying the government for more money, charters are moving us into the express lane where the brightest minds in for-profit companies devise new and exciting ways to get more money from the government. The above-linked Cato article tells of the punchline: that the last vestige of private education in the USA--private schools--are quickly being replaced with charter schools. Basically, a private school cannot compete with a local charter school that gets massive subsidies from the government, so they die. Or more likely, they convert themselves to a charter school and get some of that free money for themselves. The Cato study above points out an immediate problem with this as well: your taxes are going to go up since you are now going to start paying for a whole bunch of people's private school (before they were paying for it all now they are paying for only a portion and sticking taxpayers with the rest). Make no mistake, although they are sometimes touted as having "less regulatory burden", charter schools are heavily regulated as one would expect from something supported by taxpayers. So the plan is clear: first kill all true private schools in the USA in favor of pseudo-government controlled charter schools, and then slowly turn the ratchet on charter schools, eventually making them "privately owned" in name only.

Yes, one had to follow the context of my writing there carefully to follow along. Perhaps a better way of saying might have been, "in a state of war between two countries, property rights between the two becomes silly (or moot is a better term)". I was trying to convey the silliness of what paper contracts become in a truly military context, and why it's silly to be afraid be China because they "own" things here. There might be other reasons to be afraid of them, but this is not one of them...

Your analogy forgets that "ownership" is at the mercy of Country A's government. It's just a piece of paper in some government office somewhere in County A. Anytime Country A felt like it (viz. there was a military threat) then Country A could just write another name in on those ownership documents. (This is the standard response to, "what if the Chinese bought everything"). It's also unlikely, for instance, that every one of those companies (which presumably exhibit considerable control over Country A) are staffed significantly with citizens from Country B--obviously it will be mostly domestic workers. Now, on a moral level, presumably Country B bought those companies from somebody and those people were compensated for it. It would be wrong for all of those sellers to sell, get their money, and then want them back. However, if it can be objectively proven that B wanted to destroy or otherwise initiate force against A, to the point where the countries were effectively at war, then silly constructs like "ownership" don't matter. Another point to make here is that the above scenario would only have a chance of taking place in an extremely simple economy, such as a very small country that only had one real industry. History has in fact shown us some examples, to be sure, of countries having major problems when they heavily rely on a single industry, particularly a single commodity like oil. This problem, however, is just a tendency and is by no means deterministic.

This is an interesting side discussion... I would question the idea that choice is good, or even helpful, from the standpoint of reducing costs / increasing benefits when the money you are choosing with is not your own. Obviously, when it's your own hard-earned money, you tend to be more careful (and as Objectivists we don't care whether you are or not that's your problem). There seems to be an assumption here, however, that one will apply the same diligence to free money from the government as you do your own money. My guess is that it's radically different, but again, I'd like to see some data. Or, we can see how this would play out: 1. Everybody gets vouchers of X dollars to buy health insurance. 2. Several private providers offer various plans, some matching the voucher amount, others costing somewhat more (a "supplemental" sort of plan which is what they end up with in Europe a lot). 3. Insurance companies offer less and less in the "base" plan and move more and more of it to the "supplemental" plans and increase the price of those plans. This is particularly exacerbated by medical technology. 4. Hence every cut (or failure to increase) in the Voucher amount translates directly to increased costs for most voters. 5. They vote themselves increases in the voucher amount, with the various insurance companies turbo charging their political muscle and providing organization (for, you are creating another industry with a vested interest in higher spending which is always dangerous). *** Again, I'd love to see some hard data or an example of how this worked elsewhere...

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but... how? Why does changing the way the benefit is paid out save any money? I get the thing about choice, but what if people choose more expensive things and demand more voucher money? To me that is more likely when people "see the money in their own hands" than simply being handed a relatively static system. I think one fallacy with voucher schemes is that people compare--invalidly--spending your own hard-earned money, which you may do wisely, with spending somebody else's money, which you may not. They are not the same thing and I'd love to see some hard data on this because my intuition would be that this would change nothing or even cost more.

How? How do they change anything? They keep saying they will save money somehow, but they can (and probably will) spend just as much if not more through vouchers as they do the old way. Are people going to suddenly stop aging with vouchers? Will medical science suddenly reverse itself and make people die sooner? I mean, sure, if you convince people they should live with fewer benefits then you can cut their voucher amounts, but I'd submit that cutting benefits is easier when there's not a nice obvious top-line number to talk about.

Again, looking at the ideological spectrum, we're not much different than we were decades ago--better in a lot of ways. The programs put in place by FDR and LBJ are coming to their mathematical fruition because of demographics and the downturn. Obama didn't expand anything all he did was hold office while all this was happening. Regardless of who was elected, we'd still be in the same state. There have been absolutely no structural expansion of the welfare state. Obama--and none before him in decades--have done anything particularly novel. The $700b stimulus, for instance, was quite small in the history of these things--and this was not some sort of new novel expansion of government power, just a tool that had been used before. Obamacare is simply a tweak of the existing system: the decision to provide free medical care to all citizen was made in the 60s or before. The one thing that could have realistically changed in the last decade was taxes. Those have gone lower or stayed the same. If the country was itching to go communist, this wouldn't be the case. The Ryan plan to reduce the deficit depends on growth to produce deficit reduction. There's no explanation as to where this growth is going to come from, but if you put in robust growth into any projections then of course you'll get deficit reduction without cutting programs. It's rubbish--typical politicking, campaign promises, etc. Ryan is not rolling back the welfare state one bit. Ryan did talk about moving Medicare to a voucher arrangement. Again, this does not change anything. The implication is that these vouchers could be reduced as necessary when the politicians wanted to reduce the deficit--you know, just like they do now (not). Vouchers can (and probably will, if they are implemented) cost just as much as the current arrangement.

Remember that our votes and the votes we directly influence will not have an actual effect in terms of votes. The numbers are far too small. That's the bad news. The good news is that while we have virtually zero political influence, we have a good amount of intellectual influence (and that's the sort of influence we should be working to expand). There are those who write articles for papers and those who work at news media outlets and famous and lesser-famous pundits who pay attention to what intellectual leaders say. So when we, or somebody like the TOS or the ARI endorses a candidate, they are not pulling for votes in any direct or even indirect way. They are using a high-profile event to make a point. It's not important who they endorse therefore, but why they endorse them. Hence, questions like, "what about if so and so got elected?" or "a vote for so and so is throwing away your vote so why do it?" are pretty meaningless. But implied in an endorsement is an intellectual framework of some kind, and that is what you want to spread around. The election is but a carrier for the payload of philosophical points to be made. (Note that Ayn Rand herself, in the Nixon/McGovern timeframe, probably was popular enough at that point in time to make a small electoral difference. Small, though--and even then it might have been wishful thinking). So who we vote for doesn't matter. Who we say one should vote for--and why--does matter.

Yes, and that's in support of my point. The "nastiness" comes from the absence of real issues. Since both parties already agree on all essentials, and neither dare bring up anything deeply differentiating, all you have left is personalities and person attacks. In years past candidates would talk (more) about issues since they could in essence say, "my opponent is a nice, honest guy but he's wrong about his policy and I want to lead the country in the other direction". Besides pure personal attacks you often see a variant which is when a candidate simply lies about their opponent's being the same exact thing as themselves (viz. Paul Ryan Defends Medicare Plan, Accuses President Obama of 'Raiding It' -- Paul Ryan accuses Obama of trying to hurt Medicare which they both in fact agree should be defended at all costs and neither of their plans changes anything essential). There was a time when candidates told the truth about their opponents views and lied about how their own views where better. Now politicians don't even tell the truth in any case...

Then we won't get philosophical revolution. Both parties have the same basis premises despite one paying occasional lip service to freedom while actively working against it. Now, I personally think this is overly defeatist. An honest assessment of where we are and where we are going--and at what speed--shows us staying more or less status quo for a long time (recall our current Federal tax rates are the lowest in 40 years right now). We're not on some sort of brink of communism politically--thankfully, because if we were, there'd be nothing we could do about it.

If the Tea Party came to be lead by Ayn Rand (who sprang forth from the grave) then yeah, it would be... not the Tea Party... There's nothing wrong with dreaming a dream. It's not reality though. Nope, not okay with me. It would also be very bad, for instance, if the Democrats were actually aliens who planned to eat us all for dinner. I wouldn't be okay with that either. The "soviet threat" of Democrats is ridiculous scare mongering. They are middle of the road politicians. If they could actually do that, it would only be because the other party wanted to do that too. And they replaced them with people who do nothing since no politician on either side can oppose Medicare and Social Security and Defense--and those three make up 90% of the spendable Federal budget. I agree that there aren't any. That's my whole point. Trying to make a political revolution happen in this state is pointless. You will get exactly nowhere, and its quite possible you will push your goals out a lot further. The times we live in are only open to philosophical revolution not political revolution. Sure, the former will not be easy and will take a long time, but the latter presupposes the former. Huh? Because I think it will accomplish that for my grandchildren, and I think we will live in a slightly safer, more rational world in the mean time. The Republican "brand" is suspension of disbelief and willful evasion of facts. Romney and Ryan are "flip-floppers" on the deepest levels of their character. We are asked to ignore that fact that Romney wasn't, then was, then wasn't and now is pro-choice. We are asked to believe that Obamacare is socialism whereas the same exact programs touted by Republicans is just sensible governing. We are asked to ignore the fact that Ryan was, then wasn't an Objectivist--we are asked to believe that he never understood that Ayn Rand was an atheist or was pro-choice--asked to believe that somebody only recently pointed this out to him. I prefer honest socialists (Democrats) to dishonest socialists (Republicans). It's not a great choice, no, but the choice is clear anyhow.