You gloss over post #2 again. I went into fair detail about the other things he said, and the reasoning behind them.
You may have "questioned" it but you didn't ask a question. You made a statement: It doesn't bother me. Maxiep is the one who worked for Goldman, not me. I don't agree with your statement, but that's hardly news, I don't agree with much of anything you say. I see - you meant the government contracts give them an advantage in competing for private contracts. There's something to that view, although if the government bidding process is open and fair, the other companies would have an equal opportunity at gaining that advantage. barfo
There are few companies that provide weapons to the govt., and the size of the contracts are enormous compared to what these companies would get in the private sector alone. The govt. money funds their research and development which is a distinct advantage. The govt. as a client will not go out of business - well it's headed that way in a hurry these days...
Uhm, no. You didn't. You gave a long-winded explanation of why you thought the free market would take care of desegregation, and of how the actual problem was something else. It's fine that you have reasons for why you (and Paul) believe the way you do. But I don't know why you aren't willing to admit what those actual beliefs are. Does Rand Paul believe government desegregation of lunch counters was a good idea? Yes or no. It's an easy question. Every argument you make says "no", but for some reason you aren't willing to admit the answer is "no". Why not? barfo
I wrote nine paragraphs detailing what our actual beliefs are. You are fixated on the process and not on the result, which makes your confusion understandable. Put another way, if the goal is to have desegregated lunch counters and it can be accomplished 100 different ways, why is the one you are in love with the only one?
Again, if it were a fair competition (and I don't mean to suggest it is, there are lots of problems with government contracting), what's the problem? It's the same effect as competing for a big private contract. The winner has a big advantage in either case. There are gonna be winners and losers, that's capitalism. You aren't one of those commie pinkos are you Denny? Trying to level the playing field? barfo
And yet you can't answer a yes-or-no question. Interesting. I'm fixated on Rand Paul's fixation. Civil rights is not my battle. I didn't bring it up. Me? It's not about me. I'm not the one running for senator. Given that the goal has been accomplished in one of those 100 different ways (I'd like to see that list, by the way), why does Rand Paul object to the way it was done? It seems an act of political idiocy and cluelessness on multiple levels. barfo
If it were a blind bidding process, would you be ok with it? The government picked, anonymously, the bid that best suits them? Or does government money itself taint the purity of capitalism? Obviously that's not practical for something like a fighter jet, this is just a hypothetical question. barfo
You may be right, as it regards the Libertarian party. I haven't studied their platform. I'm really going by what many of the libertarians I've talked to/debated with. And articles from libertarian sites. What I've often found them espousing is a government that is limited almost entirely to defense, international treaties and enforcing "property rights." No FDA, many of them even feel there should be no police, that police forces should be privatized. But you're right, that's probably not the stance of the actual party. Just explaining what I was thinking about when it came to "Libertarians."
I'm confused a bit...companies like Boeing and LockMart lose money on the R&D phase of systems contracts, to be made up in production. For instance, for the P-8 program Boeing won the contract award of somewhere around 4.8B -- deliverables being a 9-year program to develop 6 fully-tested prototypes that fly, 2 that don't (for static load testing and destruction) and 3 full-side mock-up labs (as well as the associated training manuals, flight pubs, etc). That part of the contract isn't profitable. The profit comes when the government orders 100 of them, based on the prototypes working. Which is risk. How are you going to delineate what's for "commercial" vs. "government" use? If Boeing designs a winglet that super-magically reduces drag as an offering to the government on their new tanker, for instance...you're saying that they can't use that tech on their next gen of airplanes? All that would ensure was that the gov't didn't get the good stuff...the highest bidder would. Right now, at least, when Boeing sells an airplane to India or Australia or whoever, the gov't gets a say on if they can sell it and a cut of the profits. I think the entire process, while able to be streamlined, is one of the lower concerns being talked about in this thread.
And I hate to bring it up without numbers or links, but while I was in West Africa a couple of years ago there were somewhere on the order of a couple of dozen wells just in Nigerian water that were in process of, or have had, "significant" spills (I didn't ask the contractors for specifics). Let's not pretend that a) this is the first oil spill since Valdez and b) that we're all about "protecting the environment" when really it's just the wetlands of LA and the Gulf Coast that we care about. If we were about "protecting the environment' we'd be pressuring a lot of these multinationals about safety records worldwide. And I fully agree with the article's point that we use language with "Big Business", especially multi-national "Big Businesses" that we wouldn't dream of using (justifiably) against Iran or N. Korea. That makes us hypocrites, bullies and cowards. And that's not just on this administration, though they're running with it.
"Rand Paul's philosophy got in the way of reality." -- RNC Chairman Michael Steele, in an interview on Fox News Sunday, on Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul's (R) recent controversial statements. Scary when Michael Steele and I agree on something. barfo
The constitution enumerates the rights and powers of the federal govt. They are not restricted to defense, enforcing property rights, and international treaties. Article I, Section 8: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; To borrow money on the credit of the United States: The constitution grants congress the right to make laws and spend money from the treasury. It also guarantees that all states will have a republican form of government, but it is mostly silent about the powers of state governments. Other than the limits on making treaties and putting duties on imports. The 10th amendment reads: As a Libertarian, I have no beef with the states hiring police and firemen, providing public education, laying taxes, providing welfare programs, etc., etc.
I know you've indicated in the past that you feel the constitution is a "living document" and the words don't have much meaning... Do you see the danger in this POV? There are no limits on government if they're not held to its own by-laws. You will talk about Bush spitting on the constitution for doing X, but look the other way while other administrations do the same for doing Y. You may be happy with the federal highway system, but at the time it was opposed by the Democrats (among others) as unconstitutional of all things. The way it got passed was in the name of national defense. Though the list I provided above indicate the founders saw the federal govt. as (weak!) with the powers to provide infrastructure (post office, courts, etc.) and the highways are within that spirit. The constitution never talks about direct transfer of money between the govt. and the people or vice versa, though it clearly (originally) had the power to tax the states and redistribute those funds as it saw fit. Until the 16th amendment, that is.
That doesn't correctly state my position on the Constitution, no. I know you've indicated in the past that you feel that the federal government's powers should be virtually unlimited and citizens should obey without question. Do you see now how dangerous that POV can be?
I'm in favor of more local government and less national government. If a business wants to be so stupid as to discriminate against someone for their race, creed, religion or sexual orientation, then that should be their right. It would also be my right to never frequent such an establishment and to protest it on public property, like the sidewalk in front of said business.
The problem with that philosophy, and the reason for the civil rights legislation, is that the market legislates what's popular not what's right. If most people, unlike you, are fine with racism and frequent such places, the market won't punish such behaviour. From a "free market" perspective, perhaps that's fine: the people decided that racism is fine and oppressing people of colour is fine. Live with it. But not everyone is okay with letting the majority decide everything, when the decision is oppressive to a minority. Free market solutions are fine in certain cases, but certainly not where it creates a tyranny of the majority to oppress a minority.
I prefer my racists and homophobes to be self-identifying. Getting rid of Jim Crow laws didn't stop racism, it just pushed it underground. I say the best way to deal with racism is to shine a light on it.
