OWS is disjointed and leaderless so their messages are not always clear, and not everyone has the same goals. Myself, as a supporter of OWS, the list by the teabaggers is exactly what I promote. I think they need to add the abolishment of superpacs, but The teabaggers and I agree in general. I still have a bunch of student loans, but I don't really give a shit about getting the government to abolish student loans. A few more years and I will have them paid off. I work hard at OHSU and am still furthering my education. This whole issue is a red herring that never should have been sent out. Just as I don't want the banks to receive taxpayer money, neither should the students. At least, not retroactively. If more student grants and lower loans were available, that would be great, but we need to change laws to move forward, not fix history. The banks got their money, fine, but never again. The corporations have had too much influence on politics, fine, but never again. We can still right this ship, let bygones be bygones and fix the problems that currently exist so that a representative government functions as it should, representing the people.
You and I are not that far apart. But I have a question for you. How does Boeing compete with AirBus, considering AirBus gets massive govt. subsidies from several european countries? And another: If some environmental NGO (non governmental organization) finds a sympathetic federal agency who orders some company's assets to be seized, doesn't the company deserve to defend itself? Or if some policy is going to hurt business now or in the future? Or if a company's shipments are hijacked by pirates? (It's not so simple to me)
A representative government does not mean an anti-business government. It simply means one that is not overly influenced by businesses, where politicians are bought and paid for before they are even sworn into their job. If subsidizing Boeing is required to compete and provide jobs, taxes and a healthy economy then I would hope that the politicians would realize that those subsidies had merit. Or, tariffs could be levied against foreign products if those products are produced with subsidies. Right now, there are too many politicians in the pockets of big business, passing laws and creating loopholes that are not designed to create a competitive marketplace, but instead designed to make the profit margins exceedingly large. There are other ways to allow business to thrive and protect itself other that allowing them the ability to write our laws. As I said above, I am not anti-business. We just need to swing the pendulum back towards the people. There could be courts created for business to redress their complaints, and certainly laws would still protect business from hijacking and pirates. Too often, people get weighed down by the black and white of issues, and forget that greys do exist. Although I do support the general idea of OWS, I believe that many of the individuals involved in the protests, and those who are anti-protests, see the world as black and white. Real change that is sustainable can be neither black nor white, it must lie in the grey.
What drove me to become a Libertarian is the realization that the only solution to companies lobbying the government (and owning it) is to not have a government so powerful that it's even worth trying to buy it. The whole anti-capitalist philosophy is something I don't get at all. They rail against "capitalism" yet we don't have Capitalism. We have corporations designed by govt. (see Securities Act of 1933), goaded by govt. to do non-capitalistic things, and it's turned into crony capitalism. Actual capitalism hasn't been tried. But when we didn't have the Securities Act (e.g. before 1933), we had guys like Edison and Ford making many great companies. Ford in particular typifies Capitalism in that he realized he maximized his profits by building a car that his employees could afford to buy and own. Though Edison absolutely lobbied government to get electrical lines run and even the electric chair put to use for executions.
I admire many libertarian ideas, but I also believe that there is room for government to be involved in more than the total minimum. Science for example. I work in a Cell and Developmental Biology Lab up at OHSU and we are working off of NIH grants. This money is greatly needed to create the fundamental breakthroughs that companies can then come and use to design drugs. Right now, I am working on unlocking the actual mechanism that cleaves IL1beta (which triggers inflammation). Companies would not do this research since it is several steps away from being something that can create money. However, if we are successful, an entire new class of drugs may be used on inflammation, and there will certainly be many companies that will thrive off our discovery. Government is needed in this instance. For every 1 dollar government spends on research, 4 dollars is generated by business. Without the goverments assistance, companies would have far fewer breakthroughs to work off of, and many more people would be suffering from diseases that could have been avoided. Science, schools, environmental protection, transportation, communication technologies, and many many other things can greatly benefit the entire nation if assisted by the government, even though they are not minimum requirement of government.
Yeah, so what? I didn't respond to those claims, or post anything that opposed them. So you said something. Big deal. Wow, you have an opinion. Color me impressed. What I don't get is why you think I don't get any of that, when it was something else completely (namely, your use of statistics) that I objected to. barfo
I was responding to (part of) your post, not post #33. Obviously, since I quoted the part of your post that I was responding to. barfo
Is OHSU a federal government school? I'm fine with big state governments, and the feds taxing the states (not the people) and redistributing the wealth so the poor states aren't really poor compared to the rest of the states.
so if State X was well-run, and turned a profit with things like lottos and beer tax and building sports stadia, etc...the gov't could levy a tax to pay for whatever the $#%Q California's trying to pull nowadays?
The Feds were supposed to tax the states, not the people, from the start. Article I, Section 2, Clause 3: Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers...[1] Article I, Section 8, Clause 1: The Congress shall have power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises...but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States... Article I, Section 9, Clause 4: No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
And it isn't about profits, it's about being able to spend a reasonable amount of money on education, police, paving roads, etc. California might be well run and hugely profitable, but it makes some of its profit from being able to ship product over roads to customers in rural arkansas.
Where do those relatively rich states get the money to pay taxes to the feds? Do you suppose they might get it from the people? So basically, you are not ok with the federal government taxing you more so that some po' folk in Alabama can eat, but you are ok with California taxing you more so that the federal government can take the money from california and give it to Alabama who will then give it to those very same poor people? Yes, I can see how having 3 governments involved instead of one fits perfectly with your goal of reducing government. barfo
I am not OK with the federal government taxing anyone directly. I thought I was clear about that. Alabama is far better suited to get money to the poor in Alabama than the federal government is. You think that's why the government was designed the way it was? Until your kind fuckeditup.
No, OHSU is a privately owned hospital and medical school. It also has a lot of research. The NIH (National Institutes of Health) provides grants to scientists all over the nation, to private and public institutions alike. The grants are merit based, not institution based. OHSU was recently in the news because Brian Druker from OHSU came up with the worlds first CURE to cancer. Granted, it was to a very specific and not very common type of cancer, but never-the-less, it was a huge breakthrough. Phil Knight donated $100,000,000 to create the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute and appointed Brian Druker to head it up. There does need to be some overriding projects, that cross state line, or benefit the greater good. Like the science I mentioned earlier. There are scientists in every state, but if the same money was divvied up by state, there would be some science that deserved to be funded based on merit but because it was in a state crowded by science institutions, the money would run out, While some science that did not deserve to be funded would get funding because it was in a state with fewer scientific institutions. This same issue can cross to many other areas aside from science. Also, many businesses would leave states with higher taxes (they do this already, but the issue would be magnified) to go to states with lower taxes, or to states with a weaker economy so they would draw funds from wealthier states. I agree that the federal government needs to be shrunken, but there are still many areas where having a federal government is much more conducive to smooth operations and can actually save money or better allocate funds.
And by extension, in 1963 Alabama was far better suited to deal with their "Negro problem" than the federal government. What makes Alabama "far better suited"? Does the USPS not deliver mail in Alabama? Do Bo and Luke need to deliver it via that road with the washed-out bridges? Does Alabama have a more efficient bureaucracy than the federal government? If so, what's your evidence for that? barfo
Hardly. Alabama government has a sordidly racist history that stretches all the way back to it's inception. I doubt they could be trusted at all. 90% of the wasted time and effort by our representatives evolves from the non-parity of regional governments due to regional disparities of education, tolerance, and special interests. Ever watch Cspan? Bicker, bicker, bicker... State government should focus on protection of their citizens' civil rights and state infrastructure, and leave the complex issues to the Feds.
You see the inconsistency in this line of thought? $100,000,000 from Phil Knight, who isn't the government. The Hewlitts and Packards have donated $billions to Stanford, which is also a great institution of medical science and research. How many years did Jerry Lewis do his Muscular Distrophy telethons to raise money for that cause? Jonas Salk cured polio in a state university on Mellon family grants. I think the worthy causes get funded, regardless. Californians get back $.81 of every dollar they pay in federal taxes, while D.C. gets back $6.17 of every dollar they pay in taxes. The redistribution among states is already there, it's just a matter of who takes the money from the people in the first place. http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2004/09/red_states_feed.html
Why must every state have a republican form of government? The federal government does have a role to play to assure that the 14th amendment, and the rest of the constitution, is upheld. The people who hold office swear to uphold it. So if Alabama isn't allowing black children to attend public schools, it's fine to send in the national guard to move the racist governor out of the doorway to the school. This was done by Ike in Little Rock, and by JFK in Alabama. It wouldn't have been necessary if the government had done its job all along. There is a huge difference between enforcing the laws and assuring peoples' rights and building huge national bureaucracies that cost half of every dollar that should end up in the hands those programs are intended to help. Alabama has a government completely elected by its citizens. It's capital is within the state. The people have far more ability to travel to their state capital to petition their grievances. In all respects, Alabama's government is simply closer to the people. Since this thread is about Occupy Wall Street, consider they're protesting the way things work as currently set up. It's upside down, or inside out - government is FAR AWAY from the people and the people have little influence over it. They get to pick 2 senators, a representative, and vote for president - 3 out of 536 of the federal government.
