Truthers and Debunkers Unite.

Originally posted by TrickoftheShade

Local government is partisan also, no?

You're missing the point. Your contention was that all activities of "the parties" were calculatedly damaging. But you seem to think roads are a good thing.

The point is this: you were using the notion that government never does anything good to infer the animus behind their activities. But it's plain that central government often does stuff - even if inadvertently - that helps people.

Yes, local government is now partisan although it was not originally intended to be. Remember the old saying, "the fish rots from the head back"? Federal policies impacted state elections and state politics in a number of ways, and that's just one.

I like roads, yes, even old forest roads are fun to drive but I do tend to avoid the major interstate freeways as they are so boring and you miss all the scenery and small towns along the way where real people still live.

It may be plain to you that the feds have done things that help people but so far you haven't demonstrated any of them. But I can demonstrate the reverse of your claim all day long.

Take the Homestead Act, for instance, the promise of land from the central government to help the people of America, right? A Nobel Act of Benefit to the People! That's how it was sold.

Speculators, monopolists, and others used the land laws to create giant farms. So instead of the Homestead Act promoting small farms, it ended up promoting the large western ranch. Of the some 1 billion acres of public land that the government owned in the nineteenth century, 183 million acres went to railroad corporations; 140 million acres to the states; 100 million acres to Indian tribes; and 100 million acres to free farmers (the total acreage given out in cash sales). (One half of the land had not been sold because it had been reserved for national parks or was totally unsuited for agricultural development.)

www.enotes.com...

If it sounds too good to be true, it usually turns out to not be true.

reply to post by frazzle


But you haven't demonstrated the reverse at all. If anytihng you agree with me that roads, which the federal government build, are good. You can say they do it badly, but the fact that they do it at all is evidence of at least some good intentions.

What about food and drug safety? I have a feeling you'll answer with some rote stuff about lobbyists being able to influence policy and those rules not ebing that good and so on. But the fact remains that there is an appetite in government to stop people dying from bad substances. Just like there is an appetite to provide at least some modicum of schooling.

You can claim this stuff has bad aspects, but that doesn't prove your thesis, which is that 100 per cent of everything done is intentionally evil. That's plainly nonsense.

Originally posted by TrickoftheShade
reply to post by frazzle

 

But you haven't demonstrated the reverse at all. If anytihng you agree with me that roads, which the federal government build, are good. You can say they do it badly, but the fact that they do it at all is evidence of at least some good intentions.

You apparently have a reading comprehension problem. I never said "they do it badly", I said they don't do it at all ~ they choose contractors to "do it". You pay those contractors for doing it whether its done well or badly so there is no upside for them in doing it well or cost effectively. That's the driving force behind the plus in cost plus.

What about food and drug safety? I have a feeling you'll answer with some rote stuff about lobbyists being able to influence policy and those rules not ebing that good and so on. But the fact remains that there is an appetite in government to stop people dying from bad substances. Just like there is an appetite to provide at least some modicum of schooling.

I'd say you could ask the thousands of people who die each year from e coli, salmonella and other food borne illnesses directly acquired by eating contaminated products that passed FDA inspections, but of course you can't ask them since they're dead. And their families shouldn't expect any condolences from the factory farms or the regulators. Or you either, apparently.

Government regulators have an appetite alright, but consumers don't fill their bellies half as well as do the food and drug producers they are paid to regulate. There's even a word for it: KICKBACKS. Somewhere around 350 thousand deaths a year are directly attributed to products created by drug manufacturers and approved by FDA, but I suppose as long as you didn't know any of those 350 K dead people its an easy thing to overlook.

As for education, I suspect you were a model student. Rote is the preferred method, not developing independent thinkers because they're just too hard to contain and restrain and they tend to disrupt the class with hard questions. Independent thinkers are also very tough to bamboozle with colorful books, brochures and pretty slogans. That's why almost a third of the young boys in this country today are systematically drugged senseless ~ with the approval of the FDA and the dept. of education.

You can claim this stuff has bad aspects, but that doesn't prove your thesis, which is that 100 per cent of everything done is intentionally evil. That's plainly nonsense.

Intentionally evil is such a harsh judgement and its one you make, not me. I don't believe I ever used the word "evil". But regulators who let unsafe products slide by as a favor to companies that pad those regulator's back pockets are lazy, grasping and self centered. But you pay their salaries anyway since you are given no choice in the matter, even if you objected. And those who die as a result of their actions ~ or inactions ~ and those who mourn the passing of 350 thousand loved ones because of someone's greed might call it intentionally evil and I probably wouldn't argue with them much about it.

Visit a factory farm someday that produces your green ham and eggs.

So what else do you have in your rah rah bag to convince me that we live in the land of milk and honey where government satisfies our every need and asks for nothing in return but slavish gratitude?

reply to post by frazzle


I don't live in America, by the way. So it's you who is putting up with all this, not me. I'm just not stupid enough to think that the answer to unfettered capitalism is more unfettered capitalism.

And it's not me with the reading comprehension problem. My contention is simple: that your notion that governments never do anything with the intention of improving people's lot is a sophomoric one. You keep giving examples of how they do things badly (your statistics are junk by the way, but that's not particularly germane to the discussion) but that's not the point. That they do them at all is what proves they are incompetent (and occassionally avaricous and indeed corrupt) but not conspiratorially wicked.

I know this is a popular view among a certain fringe of slightly batty US political thinking at the moment. But ask yourself - what actually broke federal government? Big business would have you believe that it is institutionally and theoretically corrupt. But who does this benefit? Big business, naturally.

Let's take your contention about the FDA. Your idea for fixing it is presumably to do away with it. To control food and drugs on a local level. This is plainly absurd and impossible. It would play into the hands of the exact corporations who have worked so hard to corrupt the FDA and make it ineffective in the first place, because if anything local politicians would be easier to control and local differences simpler to exploit.

I'm not suggesting that everything is rosy. Quite the opposite. And your attempt to construct that particular straw man speaks volumes about your level of argument. But how any reasonable person can assume that literally everything government does is premeditatedly venal, when examples of its well-meaning inefficiency are all around you, is beyond me. But what's really stupid is to believe that deregulation is the answer to the woes caused by a deregulated economy.

Originally posted by TrickoftheShade
reply to post by frazzle

 

I don't live in America, by the way. So it's you who is putting up with all this, not me. I'm just not stupid enough to think that the answer to unfettered capitalism is more unfettered capitalism.

And it's not me with the reading comprehension problem. My contention is simple: that your notion that governments never do anything with the intention of improving people's lot is a sophomoric one. You keep giving examples of how they do things badly (your statistics are junk by the way, but that's not particularly germane to the discussion) but that's not the point. That they do them at all is what proves they are incompetent (and occassionally avaricous and indeed corrupt) but not conspiratorially wicked.

I know this is a popular view among a certain fringe of slightly batty US political thinking at the moment. But ask yourself - what actually broke federal government? Big business would have you believe that it is institutionally and theoretically corrupt. But who does this benefit? Big business, naturally.

Let's take your contention about the FDA. Your idea for fixing it is presumably to do away with it. To control food and drugs on a local level. This is plainly absurd and impossible. It would play into the hands of the exact corporations who have worked so hard to corrupt the FDA and make it ineffective in the first place, because if anything local politicians would be easier to control and local differences simpler to exploit.

I'm not suggesting that everything is rosy. Quite the opposite. And your attempt to construct that particular straw man speaks volumes about your level of argument. But how any reasonable person can assume that literally everything government does is premeditatedly venal, when examples of its well-meaning inefficiency are all around you, is beyond me. But what's really stupid is to believe that deregulation is the answer to the woes caused by a deregulated economy.

Mind if I ask where you hail from? That might explain your ideas of what American government is all about and why you feel you're in a position to speak with any credibility about its good and bad points.

Unfettered capitalism. What a joke. Perhaps a dictionary would help.

unfettered - not bound by shackles and chains
unchained, unshackled, untied
unbound - not restrained or tied down by bonds

Capital, wherever you happen to live, is totally "fettered", that's the problem.

And there you go again, putting words in my mouth. YOU are the one who uses terms like conspiratorially wicked, and then apply them to me. That said, there are conspiratorially wicked people wherever you go, just as there are altruistic people wherever you go. But very few of the latter type last long in government or high finance. And by the way, do you know anything about the conspiracy behind the fettering of capital in the US? It wasn't good intentions that went bad, however it is, in fact, what broke the US economy. You can begin your learning process here: www.bibliotecapleyades.net...

You claim local food and drug inspectors would be easier to control and exploit, although you don't say which army of exploiters would be doing the exploiting, and you don't support that claim in any way. So what am I to take from your assurance that what you say is true? Because you said so?

But since you are so unhappy with my stats, lets hear a few of your own. What specific political policies or acts or laws do you feel have been honest attempts to correct the things that you believe "aren't rosy" in the US?

'debunkers' will never unite with anyone, they are not real debunkers, they have no reason be here except to sell and protect the official lies the government churned out...

This video makes all 'debunkers' look stupid, and shows the reason why they exist.

reply to post by thegameisup


This is a good movie. It clearly shows how much the White House were against the investigation.