[KrytenKoro]

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How about equal as in groups having access to rights and privileges without any particular group being singled out and denied? Gay marriage is an example of this. (Though, personally, I think legally recognizing the religious institute of marriage in the first place is a violation of the Establishment clause, and support civil unions for same and opposite-sex couples. There's some equality for you.)

I fully support this as well - any tradition that is intended to be a show of love or similar should not be in any way mandated by the government. The only thing the government should be involved in is whether two people, for any reason, are living together to pool resources or even raise a child - cases like Terri Schiavo illustrate, at least for me, that there's no magical reason that a husband or wife should solely hold powers like power of attorney, and not someone that you've specifically selected for the role. Tax breaks for marriage, as well, really only make sense if they're raising a kid - and then, why can't same-sex unmarried couples also get that tax break?

The whole rights and privileges that same-sex couples can't get now really shouldn't be de facto given to married couples in the first place, in my view. There should be a reason for why it's needed, such as raising a child, and that should be given out equally, whether it's a heterosexual couple raising a child, a single parent, or even something like "three men and a baby".

[Les-R]

Social Conservativism, I do not think that means what some in this thread think it means.

Respect for the Constitution and Bill of Rights? That's Political conservativism. As is the idea that Government should just back the hell off of peoples private and buisness lives. Social conservativism is the idea that the status quo is right and good and should be maintained whenever questions arise reguarding where society and/or culture are going. Today Social Conservativism largely is seen to cover the anti-abortion, anti gay-marriage, pro-creationist movments...

In the past, Pro-Slavery Was a Social Conservative platform.

Wanna have your mind blown? The Republican Party Used to be the U.S. Progressive party, then LBJ signed the civil rights act and hordes of southern social conservatives who voted Democrat purely to spite the party of Abe Lincoln all jumped ship for the GOP.


As for free-markets and monopolies..
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2 ... of_ro.html

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In many ways, Vanderbilt was the Southwest Airlines of his day, and, just like with Southwest today, towns begged for him to serve them because they knew he would bring down rates. In fact, there is actually another parallel with Southwest Airlines. In the early days of Southwest, most of the airline industry was regulated such that new entrants competing at lower prices were pretty much excluded by government rules. Southwest got around these rules by flying only in Texas, where interstate rules did not apply. Their success in Texas was a large reason for the eventual demise of government regulation that effectively protected fat and inefficient incumbent airlines, with drastically lower fairs the result.

When Vanderbilt first entered the steamship business, most routes were given as exclusive charters to protected monopoly companies, most run by men with friends in the state government. Vanderbilt took on the constitutionality of these government enforced monopolies and, with the help of Daniel Webster, won their case in the Supreme Court. Within a decade, the horrible experiment with government monopoly charters was mostly over, much to the benefit of everyone. While private monopolies have always proved themselves to be unstable and last only as long as the company provides top value to customers, publicly enforced monopolies can survive for years, despite any amount of corruption and incompetence. Vanderbilt, by helping to kill these publicly enforced monopolies, did more than perhaps any other man in US history to help defeat entrenched monopolies, yet today most would call him a monopolist.


My other featured industrialist here on hug-a-robber-baron day here at Coyote Blog is John D. Rockefeller. At one point of time, Rockefeller controlled 90% of the refining capacity in the country via his Standard Oil trust. He was and is often excoriated for his accumulation of wealth and market share in the oil business, but critics are hard-pressed to point to specifics of where his consumers were hurt. Here are the facts, via Reason

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Standard Oil began in 1870, when kerosene cost 30 cents a gallon. By 1897, Rockefeller’s scientists and managers had driven the price to under 6 cents per gallon, and many of his less-efficient competitors were out of business–including companies whose inferior grades of kerosene were prone to explosion and whose dangerous wares had depressed the demand for the product. Standard Oil did the same for petroleum: In a single decade, from 1880 to 1890, Rockefeller’s consolidations helped drive petroleum prices down 61 percent while increasing output 393 percent.

By the way, Greenpeace should have a picture of John D. Rockefeller on the wall of every office. Rockefeller, by driving down the cost of Kerosene as an illuminant, did more than any other person in the history to save the whales. By making Kerosene cheap, people were willing to give up whale oil, dealing a mortal blow to the whaling industry (perhaps just in time for the Sperm Whale).

Eventually the Standard Oil monopoly weakened as most private monopolies do. Monopolies seldom if ever engage in the price-increase games everyone expects them to, but they do get risk averse and lose vitality over time without serious competition. This indeed did happen to Standard Oil, and it missed a number of key market turns, such as the Texas oil boom. By the time is was broken up under the Sherman anti-trust act, Standard’s market share had already fallen to 60%. As would be the case many times in history, the government acted on the economic "threat" of Standard Oil at the very time the market was already doing the job.

The most destructive monopolies arise from Government manipulation of the market rather than the ascension of wily entrepreneurs, most tightening of regulations in industry are in fact not lobbied for by environmental or consumer-rights groups but by leaders of the industries in question to help shut-out new competitors. Some sensible regulation is advisable, but giving government too much broad authority over the market with it's perverse incentives isn't the way.

[Firekite]

Scape wrote:

Steele Pwns Colbert

There may be hope for the GOP yet.

"Sorry, the video you are trying to watch is not available in your region"

Psudo wrote:

I defy your "identity by upbringing" paradigm.

The occasional anecdotal exception does not invalidate the rule.

KyleEverett wrote:

give me a party that is socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and agrees that there should be some state then I'll be happy.

That's pretty much you're everyday Libertarian. The problem with the Libertarian party is that, much like the Democrats and the Republicans, the fringes seem to wield the most power, but while people are used to the looney left and the ridiculous right, they're not used to the "everyone STFU and leave me alone" fringe, those that nearly border on advocating anarchy.

CanadianJeff wrote:

I do know that tax cuts right now are NOT the answer when the government spends billions of dollars in bailouts when they SHOULD have cut taxes to get people spending.

The national debt has just ballooned and it will need to be paid for the US to survive the coming years.

One problem a lot of people have is the fallacious assumption that high tax rates equals high tax revenue. What you're looking for is high tax revenue, not necessarily high tax rates. There's a balance in there where lower tax rates means much more commerce which means much more tax revenue, smaller slices of many more pies. It's finding that balance (in the face of soccer mom math) that's difficult. It's especially important NOW, as it takes away less of people's money before they ever even see it, which directly stimulates consumer confidence and everything that's based on that (i.e. the entire economy).

Then again, it's made a lot easier when we take an axe to the incredible layers of fat on Jabba the Federal Hutt.

[Psudo]

Gelmax wrote:

Or maybe no one can find a way to improve on GM's prices and quality because, unlike GM, they don't have dozens of skilled engineers and scientist of every type working in their own offices next to their massive auto parts factory.

Anyone can hire scientists and engineers. Even if they couldn't, the guy starting a company could study up and become one, even a leader in his field.

Gelmax wrote:

Funnily enough, strategies don't do much for a massive, massive advantage.

The nature of US special ops begs to differ. Besides, an upstart only needs to survive the temporary under-cutting tactics of the monopoly; no company can sell at a loss forever. After that, what was once survival is enough to gain market share.

Gelmax wrote:

And counterstrategies, much like the original strategies, cost money

Using your money for more effect is the definition of "corporate strategy". The whole point is to get the big guy to have to respond with more money than it cost you to invoke the response. The military equalivant is called "attrition warfare". It has worked time and time again.

Which reminds me of another point: if it's so impossible to rise against a monopolies, how is it that history is littered with examples of people doing just that?

Gelmax wrote:

As for your brand recognition examples, you gave several examples of companies starting at about the same time and advancing at similar paces so that one was never so much ridiculously bigger than the other that it could be relevant to this discussion.

Microsoft (est 1975) rose against IBM (incorporated in 1911). Nintendo (first console in 1974) was tossed out of the console industry by Sony (first console in 1994). Wal-Mart (est 1962) pushed Ben Franklin Stores (est 1927) out of the industry. Give me another excuse.

Gelmax wrote:

Yes, but if there's no competition and the entry barriers have been built up to the point of being insurmountable (which should be indicated by the lack of competition, but I'm specifically stating it as a reminder) there's nothing to stop the company from hurting the customers

That's ridiculous logic. I own a gun and bullets, thus there's nothing to stop me from shooting pedestrians on my street. Ability is insufficient to prove crime.

Gelmax wrote:

indeed, according to some free-market theories, under such a set of circumstances it would be that company's duty to abuse its customers as much as possible without stopping them from buying entirely or being so ridiculous that they destroy the entry barriers.

Again, ridiculous. If they abuse customers, non-abusive companies rise to take their place. Then they have to (temporarily, you claim) pander to customers with less-than-cost prices or whatnot to destroy that competition. They can't abuse customers and remain monopolies unless government has made competition illegal.

Gelmax wrote:

You haven't given any, and when you do I expect it to be a bunch of companies who were caught unawares by a major shift in the nature of their industry

Why are such examples invalid? Industries always change, and companies are always caught unawares by some of those changes. Either your definition of "a major shift" is inclusive enough to include a constant of such shifts in any industry, or it is narrow enough not to be true for every example of up-and-coming companies.

Gelmax wrote:

Psudo wrote:

Why is it that you're perfectly willing to criticize that subset of monopolies that do no harm to customers but have no criticism for the government-established monopoly on education?

What? You're approaching this from a completely incorrect and biased direction which shows a fair bit of ignorance about what technology was actually like ten years ago.

Way to dodge the question. Public education is a monopoly on education that you don't mind at all. If government were to provide a lousy education (heh heh, "if"), only a tiny minority of people could actually afford the high-priced alternatives. Students (customers) are easily abused, and yet you complain not at all.

Gelmax wrote:

you would say that Microsoft presented a more attractive product to the business while locking out its competitor completely via incompatibility, and thus the business buying entirely Microsoft was a success of the free market

But you wouldn't because you believe no monopoly is good for the customers, right? So what's your reasoning?

For clarification, government should be influential in industry as little as possible. If compatibility were really so harsh an issue, the federal government could have contracted for some software that networked Macs and Windows boxes together and avoided influencing the fates of those companies. In actuality, though, Novell had networking software in the 90s that allowed both Windows and Mac computers to gain access to the internet over the same broadband line, so the competition issues are exaggerated. I got my certification in such software circa 1998, as it was becoming obsolete due to the rise in inherent networking compatibility between the two. This moment is the first time that certification has ever been useful to me. =]

Gelmax wrote:

Drawing some sort of distinction between business and government is deceptive anyway; a government isn't too much different from a national business, except that it values the well-treatment of its employees over raw profit-mongering driven entirely by market forces.

That is the scariest philosophy I've ever heard. Government is about law and order. Industry is about trading things you want for things you have. If industry writes or enforces law or if government starts uses law for reasons other than pursuing order you quickly have an Orwellian nightmare.

Government doesn't care about people because it's an institution. People who work in government may care about the citizens, but it's not a job requirement. There's no reason to inherently assume government is doing anything for human best interest. Also, not all private industry is for-profit. Private, non-profit education would break up the government monopolies without giving in to the profit-mongering of which you so harshly disapprove.


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Out of time again. I don't think I'll ever catch up in this thread.

[Zipperfish]

Psudo wrote:

Anyone can hire scientists and engineers. Even if they couldn't, the guy starting a company could study up and become one, even a leader in his field.

Hey, easy on the scientists and engineers there, buddy. My brother is a CFO type and he likes to remind me that he can go to India and get tech types like me for a dime a dozen. I wonder why it never crosses his mind that if they can do that for scietnists and engineers, why can't they do it for accountants and CFOs.

Sure you can hire scientists anywhere, and sure you're theoretical example could jsut become whatever kind of scientist he needed to be, but not all scientists are the same. Like any field there's good ones and bad ones. And, as I tell my brother, my ultimate security (and satisfaction, for that matter) comes not from my credentials but from doing a good job.

Psudo wrote:

Gelmax wrote:

Drawing some sort of distinction between business and government is deceptive anyway; a government isn't too much different from a national business, except that it values the well-treatment of its employees over raw profit-mongering driven entirely by market forces.

That is the scariest philosophy I've ever heard. Government is about law and order. Industry is about trading things you want for things you have. If industry writes or enforces law or if government starts uses law for reasons other than pursuing order you quickly have an Orwellian nightmare.

I have to ride with Psudo on this one. Viewing a government as an extension of the monetary free market concept is philosophically suspect.

[Psudo]

Gelmax wrote:

What are you doing here? You are trying to make this out as some ridiculous abuse of government power when it isn't, nor is it any different from what a business would do!

I admit those anecdotes from my high school career were rather off the point. I guess I just wanted to offer some personal background, to help you get to know where my ideas were coming from.

Gelmax wrote:

Would I, as the President or Secretary of Education or whomever, mandate that every district of the school system use Windows except for positions requiring specialized software/hardware better catered to by Apple or Linux? Sure, and that would be perfectly within my rights

It is legally within your rights, sure. But for government to in some small way choose who wins and loses in industrial competition is exactly the kind of support for monopolization that my whole argument was intended to criticize.

I'm willing to criticize both corporate and government influences on the economy, and have. Why are you only willing to criticize corporate influences? Is government behavior somehow infallible?

If the federal government dictated that all military vehicles could only run on gasoline and diesel purchased from Shell franchise stations, wouldn't you see that as government favoritism over other gas companies? Why, then, is it not so when the education department does it?

Gelmax wrote:

Why is it okay for business but not okay for government? Because government is bigger?

The best oversight over government is people via popular vote, independent press, and other private oversight. If government and businesses are so similar, why is it unreasonable to expect businesses to be best overseen by the democracy of customers choosing to buy or not, either independently or by organized boycotts or other planning?

I don't have any great criticism of corporate transparency, but I advocate government transparency much more passionately. Corporations can fail if they merely provide a bad product no one wants, but government can provide bad laws and corrupt enforcement for generations and without failing. You're only required to give money to corporations if you want their stuff in return, whereas you are universally required to give money to governments whether you want their services or not.

KrytenKoro wrote:

For gender - I'm not sure, I'm not very much of a history buff to know who did what with that.

The first places in the USA to allow women the right to vote were the territories of Wyoming (1869) and Utah (1870), followed shortly by Idaho and Colorado. These places today are all red states, though I'm not sure about their party alignment back then. Pres. Taft (Repub) started pushing for woman's suffrage during his tenure, a practice Woodrow Wilson (Dem) continued. The 20th Amendment to be signed in 1920, which gave suffrage to all women in the USA.

(Oddly, the federal government blocked many Utahn women from voting between 1888 and 1920 because they insisted on voting to legalize polygamy.)

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Hopefully, I'll finish catching up after work tonight. I'm on my lunch break now.

[Psudo]

Kjorteo wrote:

How about equal as in groups having access to rights and privileges without any particular group being singled out and denied?

What limits, if any, are there to that principle? Does it defy that principle to deny women access to the men's bathroom? Does it defy that principle to deny smokers access to a government-run asthma center? To deny convicted child molesters access to school grounds? Clearly, there do exist cases where certain groups should be singled out for the denial of rights and privileges. Some other principle needs to distinguish between when one should and when one shouldn't be granted equal access.

If I may, I propose that one's past behavior be used a distinguishing characteristic. All people are created equal, but they create inequality in themselves by acting with unequally. The child molester should be denied access to school grounds because school grounds contain children, the target of his past crimes. That's a very specific connection with a very clear danger to it. When similarly direct threats can be proven, it is acceptable to prevent rights and privileges.

My principle, stated as it has been, does not explicitly support nor oppose gay marriage.

Firekite wrote:

The occasional anecdotal exception does not invalidate the rule.

It proves the rule has exceptions. I assert that one can choose to be one of those exceptions through by altering one's habits.

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Holy cow, I'm caught up! Will miracles ever cease?