At the end of a three-day hearing, a federal district court judge in Austin, Texas, on January 19 issued a temporary injunction blocking state officials from excising Planned Parenthood from the state’s Medicaid program — a move that would deny more than 11,000 of the state’s poorest residents from accessing preventive care from their provider of choice, and would annually strip Texas Planned Parenthood clinics of several million dollars.
The current court action is just the latest in a long string of attempts by the state of Texas to defund local affiliates of the nation’s largest provider of women’s health and reproductive care. And it is part of a larger movement by conservative state and federal lawmakers to cut off Planned Parenthood from all government funding.
If anti-choice lawmakers in D.C. have their way, it may be easier for Texas, and other states, to get their way.
Yanking Medicaid funding from the group is among the top priorities for anti-abortion lawmakers. Planned Parenthood clinics receive $390 million annually as reimbursement for services provided to Medicaid patients, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Together, the group’s clinics serve roughly 1.25 million Medicaid patients per year.
Congress tried to terminate Planned Parenthood from Medicaid last year as part of its bid to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, only to have the measure vetoed by President Obama. Under the new D.C. regime, the measure will return – and it may be harder to stop.
“We don’t want to commit taxpayer funding for abortion, and Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said during a recent CNN town hall meeting, arguing that because “money’s fungible” federal dollars “float” Planned Parenthood’s abortion services.
Photo: Eric Kayne/Getty Images
In the pending Texas suit, Stuart Bowen, the inspector general for the state’s Health and Human Services Commission, which oversees the Medicaid program, is hoping to oust from program reimbursement all three of the state’s Planned Parenthood affiliates — Planned Parenthood Greater Texas, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, and Planned Parenthood South Texas — which together operate a total of 30 clinics across the state.
In a termination letter dated December 20, 2016, Bowen wrote that it was footage from an undercover video shot inside Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s Houston headquarters that prompted his conclusion that all of the state’s providers had demonstrated they’re incompetent to provide care to Medicaid patients. Specifically, Bowen alleges that the footage — shot by activists Sandra Merritt and David Daleiden, founder of the anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress — reveals that PPGC officials were eager to participate in a questionable scheme to harvest and sell fetal tissue removed from abortion patients.
Planned Parenthood’s abortion facilities are legally separate from their medical clinics. And although the footage in question was taken at just one Texas clinic operated by the PPGC, Bowen concluded that all three affiliates should be kicked out of Medicaid because of their umbrella relationship. In other words, Bowen has determined that the mere allegation of wrongdoing by one employee at one clinic is enough to disqualify all 30 clinics from serving government-insured clients. Notably, PPGC has not participated in any tissue-related research since 2011, when it completed a project with the University of Texas Medical Branch that used aborted placental tissue to study the effects of a particular chemical on fertility.
The three Planned Parenthood affiliates of Texas vehemently deny the state’s allegations. From the more than 8 hours of footage that was fraudulently collected in Houston by Daleiden and Merritt while posing as owners of a biotechnology start-up, the state has cherry-picked roughly 12 minutes, most depicting snippets of conversation, in an effort to paint the group as doing something unethical or even illegal, and to further its ongoing mission to cripple Planned Parenthood’s ability to provide preventive care.
This Is Not Strictly a Texas Phenomenon
Daleiden’s Center for Medical Progress released a number of similar videos in 2015, filmed with various Planned Parenthood officials outside Texas, leading to an uproar among foes of reproductive autonomy and launching a number of investigations — including a months-long investigation by a special panel of the U.S. House of Representatives — despite the fact that the recordings, many heavily edited before online posting, have been widely discredited.
And the videos have been invoked by officials in other states — including Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, and Louisiana — as they too have attempted to withhold government funds from Planned Parenthood. Each of those bids has failed, in part because Medicaid law contains a “provider of choice” provision that allows each program recipient the ability to seek services from any provider qualified to deliver that care.
Photo: Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor via Getty Images
Under a longstanding prohibition, no federal funding is used to pay for abortion (except in rare circumstances). But the fact that Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion provider — at facilities that are legally separate from the medical clinics where Medicaid patients are served — nonetheless vexes foes of reproductive rights, and continues to animate efforts to wrest government funding from the group. Abortion makes up just 3 percent of all services provided by Planned Parenthood; testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections and contraceptive care make up 45 percent and 31 percent, respectively, while cancer screening and prevention services make up 7 percent.
In an effort to get around this, federal lawmakers have recently tried a new approach: labeling Planned Parenthood a “prohibited entity” excluded from participating in Medicaid. That’s exactly what they did as part of the 2015 budget reconciliation measure attacking the Affordable Care Act. The reconciliation bill defined as prohibited from receiving Medicaid funding any non-profit, “essential community provider” of family planning and reproductive health services that also offers elective abortion, and that has received more than $350 million in federal funds — in other words, only Planned Parenthood.
Although Obama stopped that provision from taking effect, there is concern that Trump, whose opinions on women’s reproductive rights are by turns enigmatic and deeply troubling, would not block it. And the reconciliation process allows the Senate to vote out budget matters impacting entitlements by a simple majority.
But whether that would necessarily end all funding for Planned Parenthood remains unclear. Lawmakers would likely still have to rewrite the freedom of choice provision to somehow make Planned Parenthood unqualified to provide the kind of preventive care it has been delivering for nearly 100 years.
It seems likely that whatever mechanism lawmakers use to try to exclude Planned Parenthood from Medicaid funding — or other sources of government funding — would be met with legal challenge. “Something of this magnitude I guess would be challenged in court,” said Sara Rosenbaum professor of health law and policy and the founding chair of the Department of Health Policy at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. “I can’t comment on the legalities of it, but it does raise serious questions of an organization being excluded from a federal program not because it’s not qualified to provide the services that the program pays for, but because of its views and because it does things unrelated to what Medicaid pays for.” The move could raise not only due process and equal protection claims, but also First Amendment issues.
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards (daughter of former Texas governor Ann Richards) has repeatedly said that the group would fight attempts to defund it, reiterating at the Women’s March on Washington that “our doors stay open.”
Helping Women By Denying Care
Of course, Speaker Ryan and others enamored with the idea of defunding Planned Parenthood — including Vice President Mike Pence, who while in Congress led the fight to do so — don’t seem to see value in Planned Parenthood’s doors remaining open. Lawmakers have argued that if Planned Parenthood wants government funding, it should simply stop providing abortion care. “If Planned Parenthood wants to be involved in providing counseling services and HIV testing they ought not be in the business of providing abortions,” Pence said in 2011. “As long as they aspire to do that, I’ll be after them.”
But perhaps more important, they insist that the millions in taxpayer funds that go to Planned Parenthood would be better spent on community health centers, which provide a broader range of services and therefore, they argue, can act as a medical home for low-income patients. “We want to make sure that all women get the kind of care they need, like preventative screenings and services,” Ryan said at the town hall meeting. “We believe this can better be done by putting these dollars in federal community health centers,” which Ryan said provide the same services provided by Planned Parenthood, but “without all the controversy surrounding this issue.”
That plan has its own problems, including that there are likely not enough health centers to fill the gap. As of 2010 there were 19 million women in need of publicly supported contraceptive services, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which last year was asked by the CBO to provide information on the role Planned Parenthood plays in delivering services to this group of women. Researchers found that in two-thirds of the 491 counties where they operate, Planned Parenthood clinics serve half of all low-income women in need of contraceptive and preventive reproductive care; in roughly 21 percent of those counties, Planned Parenthood is the only clinic available to provide these services to low-income women.
This leads to a second problem with this plan, which is that community health centers are not in a position to expand operations in order to absorb the population of women (and men) in need of publicly-supported reproductive care should the rug be yanked out from underneath Planned Parenthood — nor, in many cases, would they want to, says Rosenbaum, who has spent decades working with these health centers.
Community health centers — which are tasked with providing a wide range of services from dental care to diabetes management — often work in tandem with other specialists,like family planning clinics to manage the client load. “They don’t have the capacity to absorb a huge hit to another part of the health care safety net,” Rosenbaum said. “And, of course, in a lot of communities they work together, precisely because not everybody can do everything.”
In Texas there is ample evidence that a plot to defund Planned Parenthood by funneling money to community health centers has not worked. After Texas lawmakers slashed the state’s family planning funds and retooled the matrix by which it dolled out those dollars in such a manner that favored health centers and effectively ousted Planned Parenthood (along with other smaller clinics), some 128,000 patients lost access to care.
And when the state then sought to deny funding to Planned Parenthood by withdrawing altogether from federal funding to support a special Medicaid-paid Women’s Health Program, 40,000 clients were immediately denied access to their provider of choice.
In the wake of that move, the number of women in the state receiving long-acting reversible contraceptives — or LARCs, among the most effective forms of birth control — decreased 35 percent. Moreover, the number of women receiving injectable contraceptives — also highly effective — decreased by 31 percent, while the rate of subsequent Medicaid-paid childbirth among this group of women increased by 27 percent, according to research done by the Texas Policy Evaluation Project at the University of Texas at Austin.
This is not an insignificant issue in a state where Medicaid pays for more than 50 percent of births, as is the case in a number of states. Nationally, Medicaid pays for nearly half of all births.
Among the issues the CBO pointed out in its 2015 assessment of what would happen if Medicaid funding was denied to Planned Parenthood is that the government would actually see a net increase in spending of some $130 million due to an increased number of births paid for by Medicaid.
“Today we’re here to deliver a message: We’re not going to take this lying down. And we will not go back,” Richards said at the D.C. march. “For the majority of people in this country Planned Parenthood is not the problem, we’re the solution.”
Top photo: Erica Canaut, center, cheers as she and other anti-abortion activists rally on the steps of the Texas Capitol in Austin, Texas, to condemn the use in medical research of tissue samples obtained from aborted fetuses on July 28, 2015.
“SEX STRIKE” (including prostitutes/politicians mistresses, and wives) will make them to rethink this… for sure!
While there are many variations of opinion regarding PP, the bottom line for me is that if PP drops its abortion on demand ‘service’, it can continue to offer legitimate women’s health programs. Abortion is the death of a human being,no matter how you try to mask it. State by State governments are the ones who legally determine the legality of such deaths. There can be no Federal or Constitutional right to kill.
abortion is a legal medical procedure for the termination of pregnancy, and as such, legitimately falls under the general heading of women’s health, and is legitimately considered as a part of such programs.
I think I’m a little miffed that so many women have lined up to take reproductive rights away from other women. It’s bad enough that men do it but it’s an absolute betrayal for woman to be declaring oversight of other women’s bodies. This is the part I really don’t get.
Kind of like another dude telling me I’m not allowed to get vasectomy.
having an abortion is mentally devastating to the woman but can be helped with counselling. for the state to pay for caring for unwanted children is more expensive and usually more damaging to the children. the women standing up to delete pro life are the same ones who seem to wish they were a man and their god cheated by making them a woman.
Uncertain of your point. Unwanted children should be the boon of you and I? Women need to have a sex change to have equally rights as men? I honestly don’t understand unless you’re just a man-troll.
You don’t have to be a believer in a higher energy source/creator/God to want control over your own decisions. You don’t have to be a believer in your right to control the lives of others to “see” that total control over others’ decisions is fascism – akin to Hitler’s reign of terror over so many. You just have to be the slightest bit logical to understand that your ego is in control of your thinking when you desire in such powerful ways to block your neighbor, your friend, your employer, your co-worker from deciding for themselves how to proceed with their own lives, their own decisions over their bodies. Fascism is a nasty outcome, but it is coming, if people continue to force their own religious ideas upon others. You cannot block the outcomes. What will result from power over others will be power over you, too. The law of cause and effect will never exclude you, if you continue to bully others. The outcomes to you will also come, dear religious zealots. You cannot escape it.
Abortion is Murder and planned parenthood will finally be dedunded as it should be. Stabbing a baby in the brain and cutting it up to sell off boy parts is an abomination to God. Jordan you are a hypocrite – what if you had been aborted? You wouldn’t be here to bitch. Don’t want to get pregnant? Wait for marriage
Right, because marriage completely immunizes a woman against rape, defective concepti, and unwanted or life-threatening pregnancies.
i just asked god, and i’m sorry to tell you that you’re mistaken.
……always amazes me to hear from one who believes they have the right to control another person’s body to justify their claim to have the direct knowledge of their God’s will…..
…..your comments are true to the twisted believers of Christianity…..I would forgive you but I do not have the power…..that is with your God….
The most valuable thing that people like you could do to end abortions is to develop better birth control–birth control that people don’t have to plan and think about; birth control that is free and easy and 100% effective; birth control for men.
Now, if you’re the type that just wants everyone to stop having sex, I suggest you seek counseling for your hangups.
Sure. First, the Texas legislators (the pompous men) take donations from Dow Chemical and Monsanto that both have been poisoning the US children while the children are still in mothers wombs. See the skyrocketed numbers for autism, the sexual dimorphic irregularities, cancer, chronic sicknesses… the list is long. But the alleged X-tian in Texas think it is kosher to take money from polluters and then to abuse the women by forcing them to carry on pregnancies with severely handicapped fetuses. Plus Texan legislators do not believe in single payer. These legislators are rather the servants of Satan.
Basic biology indicates that a fetus remains such until it leaves the womb. After birth, exiting the womb, it is no longer a fetus. Abortion is nothing more than the medical procedure of terminating a fetus/pregnancy, it is NOT a “murder”. Your personal religious beliefs are your opinions only, they’re not facts, which is why you have no argument.
Abortion is murder. That’s all there is to it. Everything else is atheism trying to justify itself.
well yeah. except that it isn’t. abortion is a legal medical procedure for the termination of pregnancy.
atheism doesn’t require justification. not in a legal or constitutional setting.
The 7 wars in the Middle East is a mass murder . The wars were initiated by Bush the lesser, for whom the Southern Methodist University in Dallas has built a library to glorify this mass murderer of babies, pregnant women, elderly, and innocent youth in the Middle East. The same Texans that celebrate the mass murderer want to show their piety and moral superiority by harassing the poor and powerless women. Hypocrites and cowards.
Abortion is made for man and empowers his misuse of woman. Men will keep it around as long as they want women cheap, accessible, and exchangeable. Whether a woman is forced to abort or forced to carry, she is still being forced by man, who gets to pretend he bears no fault.
Choosing posting names – please don’t pick a single, common first name
We’ve now got two Karl accounts posting here. One is a far-right, genteel racist and Trumper; the other, newer Karl is a self-described Marxist. And I’m reasonably sure the Joe commenting in this thread is not the same rightwing troll that’s being spewing some short, obnoxious crap for several months.
A week ago or so, I interacted with the Marxist Karl, expressing surprise at his saying things so unlike him. That was because it wasn’t the Trumper Karl!
Adding an initial of a surname, or the dash thing I do with my name, is a good way to avoid confusion.
End of public service announcement.
if there are no abortions, what happens to all these unwanted children. do they become wards of the state, where tax payers have to pay for their existence, until they are 18. why should I bear the financial burden of the unwanted?
they’ll eventually be out roaming the streets like texas stray dogs….
So many words to ignore the crux of the issue, it is easily stated. Anti-abortion beliefs stem from one source, that of a god, a non-existent supernatural being. The United States Constitution says in effect gods don’t exist, else prove it. If the freaks who want to use the dictatorship of non-existent supernatural beings want a voice, then prove the existence of any god; there have been thousands posited, all share the same trait, none has ever been proven. Planned Parent exists for one reason, to help those in need. The fools who want to deny them that option aren’t worried about someone needing assistance, all they care about is dividing our nation and achieving the power they seek, to impose their sickness and ignorance on all of us, as their god demands; convert others. This is truth, too bad others are reluctant to speak out about that which will destroy our nation if it isn’t addressed.
Social issues create the illusion of democracy. The poor rubes in the top pic are the first to fall for it.
I would enjoy discussion of what I post, but it can’t happen, the Christian supremacists who lead the efforts of dominion know what they speak to justify their actions is gobbledygook, it’s just a lot of words saying nothing, round and round we go. That statement is easy to justify, as said above, no gods have ever proven to exist, as mighty as the effort has been for centuries. None, nor will there ever be any proven. The freaks don’t like this to be said, but they can’t prove otherwise.
It is time for all in this nation, true Christians, non-Christians to begin to understand the threat and to act against it. Look to Texas to begin to understand the threat of non-existent supernatural beings involvement in government, the lies and hatred that emanate to justify the dictatorship of non-existent supernatural beings.
Well, they do say Thor really did exist. ;^)
Using Dawkins’ argument, we’re all atheists with respect to the endless list of G-ds that went before momotheism. Some of us are just that littler more consistent!
“monotheism”
I don’t need a bible to tell me that removing your son or daughter from its womb simply because you don’t want them is fecked up. Kind of like child sacrifice of Mayan fame, you don’t have to be a bible-thumper to be disgusted by it.
fetus.
it’s called a fetus.
Go first to deliver your grievances to Monsanto and other corporate polluters that harm irrevocably the human lives in the women’s wombs. It seems that you choose your fights carefully and prefer to battle the poor and powerless instead of confronting the wealthy and powerful that deny the US citizenry the universal care, decent education, and clear water, air, and the food that is free from Monsanto Roundup.
@Joe
In many ways the Founders were political geniuses, but they were also a diverse lot. Many owned slaves. Most limited the vote to property owners. But not Tom Paine, who favored economic and social equality.
Without economic equality there can be no liberty and democracy is swallowed by the wealthy who can purchase the laws to the detriment of those with less or no means. I prefer a democratic “tyranny of the majority” over a “tyranny of the rich.” In an imperfect world, and in light of human nature, it is the best option. Scandinavia, after all, is not a Stalinist hellhole.
Coming to understand all of this is why over ten years ago I abandoned libertarianism. It’s an illusion, a fairy tale, and can only serve the interests of the rich. Indeed, because the wealthy elites so own and control the United States is a large reason why we now have President Donald Trump.
And to walk back toward the actual topic, poor women who need Planned Parenthood’s many services– including abortion — can and should be provided them with the assistance of their community, through a democratic government. That promotes the economic and social equality necessary to true democracy.
Mona I sympathize with you and your struggle. Is the tyranny of the majority better than fascism? Maybe. But I believe that a better system exists than either of those extremes. However, it can’t be a coincidence that America had much more robust middle class before Keynesianism took hold of our system. Libertarianism isn’t the perfect solution, but it is the best one I have ever encountered for our imperfect world. It strikes the best balance of enabling people to be successful while also respecting the rule of law. How can anybody be against that?
What is not a coincidence is that the robust middle class existed at a time of robust unions, industrial jobs at home and no significant automation yet replacing humans. Keynesian economics, or its lack, had little to do with any of this.
In the U.S., the service sector is now dominant but is largely non-union; the elite rich have been very successful in preventing unionization, by, among other things, buying lawmakers and laws. The wealthy class ships industrial jobs, such as remain, out-of-country. (The middle class, by the way, did not include African-Americans and Hispanics at the per capita rate it included whites.)
And again: Scandinavia. It is simply not possible for a reality-based person with sufficient information to make a good faith criticisms of the supposed horrors of social democracies, and to instead endorse what is a fantasy, to wit: your notion of how libertarianism “works.”
I’m happy that socialism has worked so far for Scandinavia. I really am. The people want it and it works out for them. But considering it has failed so many other times, I wouldn’t really say it’s a reliable system.
I could explain why Keynesianism is responsible for the fall of the middle class and the rise of the 1%, but frankly that is too long of a discussion for this venue. I recommend reading End The Fed and The Road to Serfdom as basic primers.
I’ve read Hayek, a lot, including The Road to Serfdom. (I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d been a libertarian; I subscribed to Reason magazine for some 20 years.) Scandinavia is a mixed economy; social democrats are not communists. Hayek was absolutely correct about the error of a centralized, command and control economy. But that is not what social democrats advocate.
What we do advocate is very much along the lines of what Hayek also did in Serfdom:
Capitalism has often failed. Hayek knew that.
What country is that?
The USA has a constitution which explicitly declares foundational principles in its first paragraph; yours must be a little different:
The Preamble to the Constitution of Joe’s Country
WeI thePeoplepersonofin aUnitedseperate states, in Order, wishing toform a more perfectremain inUnionisolation,establish Justiceget my way, insuredomestic Tranquilitychaos,provide for the common defencebecause it’s every man for himself,promote the general Welfarewhen it’s all about me, andsecure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselvesI’ll grab whatever I can for myself andour Posterity,to hell with everyone elsedo ordain and establishwhen I followthis Constitutionthese ideas in theUnitedIndividual StatesofAmericaJoe.lol
nice rewrite!
Putting words in my mouth is poor form. If you can’t make arguments that stand on their own then perhaps you should examine why that is.
The Declaration of Independence says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The Fifth Amendment says that a person shall not be deprived of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
I could go on but I encourage you to read the documents for yourself. These are just a few relevant parts of it, unlike the gibberish you wrote.
Doc’s post is not “gibberish.” The Preamble is a statement of principle. Much of the Bill of Rights necessarily takes the individual as the unit of moral analysis; individuals go to prison as individuals. Thus, individuals need certain rights protected as individuals, and as against the state.
But governments are formed for the community of individuals. Doc’s rewrite is snarky, but not off point. Your ideology is hyper-individualistic, and wrong.
It’s gibberish because it’s not what I or anyone else believes, aside from maybe some anarchists. To even call it a straw man would be giving it too much credit. It’s complete nonsense designed to try and mock a philosophy he doesn’t like since he apparently cannot confront it on an intellectual level.
It’s fine if you think I’m wrong. I’m not here to convince people like you who have already made up their minds. That would be a futile waste of my time and yours. But some people who are still open-minded might read this and I want them to get the correct information, not some terrible straw man version like what Doc Hollywood and others here have written.
Libertarianism is founded on very enlightened ideas, like respect for others, peace, prosperity for everyone, and free choice. Whatever you think of the philosophy as a whole, blatant falsehoods and misrepresentations of what libertarians believe only hurts the advancement of those ideas. And really, how does that help anyone?
Codswollop. Doc is doing snarky parody, as is obvious to any intelligent reader. His point is quite, well, pointed. That you dislike it does not render it either gibberish, or dangerously misleading to anyone.
The fact is, you are the one whose mind is closed if you are aware of a great many thing, such s those I’ve already stated, yet remain devoted to libertarianism. Another reality that needs highlighting is that capitalism has often failed, disastrously. It failed in the 1930s, and rebounded in very great part because of a war.
The boom of the 1950s was stimulated by the industries established by a world war. And, I might add, many American men went to college as a result of the GI Bill, which doctrinaire free marketeers opposed as the “dole.”
No, libertarians cannot withstand an honest confrontation with the facts.
We’re now getting so far off topic that I hesitate to continue responding. However, I will go so far as to say that the Great Depression was most definitely caused by central economic planning, AKA Keynesianism, not free market capitalism. Curious people can read All The President’s Bankers or The Road To Jeckyll Island if they wish to learn more. Also, your comment about the 50s boom implies that the war is what made us prosperous. Is that really the point you want to make?
That is false.
My “point” is about facts. The war rebooted the U.S. economy. I have also pointed this out to some Democrats who would have it that FDR’s programs got us out. It did not. Many of those programs were helpful and necessary. But they did not end end the Depression and cause the boom. The war did.
Indeed, in his Farewell Address, President Dwight Eisenhower warned of the military industrial complex. The economy was already far too based on defense spending when Ike left office.
This is Nomi Prins, the author of one of the two books you cite, All the President’s Bankers:
She’s right. Completely right.
Prins (correctly) does not argue that the Great Depression was caused by centralized economic planning; she blames it on unregulated, laissez-faire capitalism. Which often disastrously fails.
I have decided to take your advice from another comment and change my handle to something more unique. I’m definitely not some right wing troll and would like to not be confused with one.
Prins clearly has a pro-big government bent and I disliked that about her book, but I recommend it because of the level of research and detail she goes into to show how the collusion between bankers and the government causes the issues. I know very well what she thinks caused the issues, but I also think that an intelligent reader and take the facts she expertly researches and presents and come up with a different interpretation, i.e. the correct one. Collusion between government and banks is not free market, it’s crony capitalism. To acknowledge that the Great Depression was caused by such collusion and then blame a free market system in the same breath is a self-contradiction.
I recommend The Creature from Jeckyll Island (not The Road to Jeckyll Island, as I mistakenly typed last night; that’s what I get for making comments after midnight) with a similar caveat. The author of that book spends far too much time talking about unprovable conspiracy theories in which I have no interest. But the historical facts he has researched and presents are invaluable in their detail and thoroughness and so I recommend the book for that reason, not because I endorse his thesis. Same goes for Prins and her book. I don’t have to agree with everything somebody says in order to find value in it.
In response to your other comment, if the war “rebooted” (whatever that means) the economy, then isn’t it logical that any time we want to boost the economy we should go to war? And if the war helped the economy then how come it didn’t actually start to recover until after the war? The reason is because after the war, the industries were once again privatized after being essentially nationalized for the duration of the war. Once the market became relatively free again, prosperity returned. The same cause-and-effect can be seen throughout the history of our country and I can cite you many examples. There is a clear correlation between freer markets and greater prosperity, and conversely between government interference and collusion with the markets and reduced prosperity. The correlation is way too consistent to be a coincidence, so the only logical conclusion I can draw is that there is a causal relationship.
” Once the market became relatively free again, prosperity returned. The same cause-and-effect can be seen throughout the history of our country..”
The reason for these swings (basically boom-and-bust cycles) is because of tension between unbridled capitalism and the regulation thereof.
For example, FDR hammered capitalism’s greed (excesses which contributed to the Great Depression) because it”s impact was so negatively affecting “prosperity” at the time.
In other words, both free markets and government regulation can be a net positive or negative depending on the policies being enforces, and neither one is exclusively the “bad gut” when it comes to assigning responsibility for how prosperous we are. The obverse is true as well.
That said, it’s apparent that over-aggressive free markets have harmed our society more often and to a greater extent than government regulation has.
Geez. Edit: Bad *guys *enforced
The reason for the boom-bust cycle is the Federal Reserve. We never had peaks and valleys to anywhere close to the same extent pre-1913, even though capitalism was almost completely “unbridled” during that time. Sure, there were occasional panics, but the effects of those were usually gone withing weeks, maybe months for the worst of them. Now we get recessions and depressions that last years, sometimes even decades. What changed was not regulation or lack thereof, but the Fed and its manipulation of the value of our money. In 1912, the dollar was worth essentially the same as it was worth in 1800. Its value had remained stable for over a hundred years, with the high inflation of the Civil War being the only exception, and after the war the dollar returned to its pre-war levels. Since the Federal Reserve was given control of our money supply, the purchasing power of the dollar has dropped 96%. A dollar today can purchase what four cents could purchase in 1912.
This reckless inflation of the money supply is the cause of the business cycle. Too much money floods the market and needs to go somewhere, so malinvestment happens. That bad investment forms bubbles, which continue to get bigger and bigger until some arbitrary point when people collectively decide to bail on one and then it suddenly bursts. If the bubble was big enough, like the housing one in 2008 or the bond one in the early 80s, it causes a recession. If the government tries to “fix” the issue with more of the same and bailouts, it greatly increases the damage by making the bust last much longer (like with the Great Depression and to a lesser extent our most recent Great Recession).
Blaming “greed” for this is like blaming the atom for destroying Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Greed is just a part of human nature–it has no sentience to act on its own–and it is always there, omnipresent in human nature like the atom is in the universe. People are to blame for the business cycle, not greed. Everyone is greedy to an extent, but not everyone has the power to control our money, backed by the government and the power it wields. And people were greedy before 1913, but they didn’t have the power to manipulate our currency. Once again, the correlation is too consistent and the logic of the economic theory checks out, so the only reasonable conclusion is that the Fed is the cause of the boom-bust cycle.
Although again I feel I should anticipate your next argument and point out that I’m not saying the government should do NOTHING to restrain bad business practices. Companies that commit fraud or collusion should always be punished because the harm they do to others is a violation of their individual rights. But too often (basically always), government regulations and interference do more harm than good and should be avoided.
I disagree. Can you provide links to a peer reviewed study showing this?
Throughout most, if not all these cycles, and using whatever management scheme, the consistent pattern has been shown to be otherwise: low regulation = higher volatility leading to market instability and/or crashes. Hardly ever the reverse.
Now, my next comment is separate and distinct,and not intended to be hyperbolic, but it seems an appropriate representation of how I’ve seen libertarians argue their overall position on public policy:
This is a worrisome trend that undermines democracy because it is being used as a rational to make US public policy (see recent GOP action on the economy) and is diametrically in opposition to our representational form of government.
That last quote is from this other Intercept article.
I don’t argue that way and neither does any other libertarian I know. Most of my friends and acquaintances are liberty-minded and I’ve never heard one of them claim they are somehow sovereign from the US or exempt from its laws. You are yet again confusing libertarians with anarchists. Libertarians have the greatest respect for the rule of law and for their fellow man; anarchists are the opposite of that. In fact it’s important to note that aside from our mutual opposition to authoritarianism, anarchists and libertarians have virtually nothing in common.
My wife’s birthday is today so I won’t have time to look for studies but if I have time tomorrow I will and get back to you. But really I have presented you with a ton of evidence–which, while mostly circumstantial, is rather convincing in its consistency and quantity–and if you are curious you should research more on your own. However, in the interest of good faith I will try to do as you have requested.
I did as you asked and hope you are still following this thread.
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/43007/1/MPRA_paper_43007.pdf
Relevant part from the conclusion:
“Actions promoted as socially responsible that are forced or subsidized suppress the free expression of the needs and concerns of buyers and the efforts of sellers to satisfy them. Suppression of free market activity tends to reduce the total welfare of society. With economic theory, experimental evidence, and individuals’ preference for freedom of choice all against government regulation, there is no obvious need for further research on regulation in the name of social responsibility.”
Thanks for that. I’ve read similar papers over the years, that have reached pretty much the same conclusion. This cited portion, however, isn’t a peer reviewed study (a compilation and assessment of various articles among peers in the same field) and therefore doesn’t really answer at all your assertion that:
First of all – harm to who? The paper is clearly biased against government (citizens) having a place at the table as a stakeholder, when clearly, we elect fellow citizens to represent our interests, and governments (citizens) are arguably the largest stakeholders of all. This portion of the article evinces that bias:
Of course there’s an obvious need, or you and I wouldn’t be discussing it.
This is a rather blatant attempt to end the discussion; not an effort to allow us to make better decisions that affect all of us.
This is but one reason for using a peer reviewed article – it levels bias (an inevitable human trait) among all stakeholders and therefore gives us a better picture of the situation being studied.
In other words, the articles premise, and yours too, I think, concerning the harm of regulations put forth by local, state, and federal agencies “in the name of social responsibility,” is something that ignores the reality of living in a shared society, which is that re-litigating our interactions and contracts among one another is an ongoing process and always will be.
If we’re going to have a shared space and a social contract to deal with those interactions we have to recognize that all stakeholders need a place and methods to address these concerns.
The government (citizens) shouldn’t unilaterally decide when businesses should forgo researching how best to meet their company. customer and/or corporate needs, nor should corporations, as this article advocates, unilaterally decide that government (citizens) no longer should have any input on how the shared concept of social responsibility is to be fashioned within our democracy.
The article was published in the Journal of Business Research, which is a peer-reviewed journal. The version I linked is the working version, not the final published version, but you can view the published version here if you want to pay, or if you have access by some other means:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296313000386
If you don’t want to accept the conclusions of the study, that is fine, I wouldn’t expect you to. But you asked for peer-reviewed research that shows how regulations hurt the economy and I have provided it. I’m not really going to try defending the paper or the biases of its authors for many reasons, not the least of which is that you are right about the human inevitability of bias. So if you want to discredit the paper, I will not argue any more. The problem is that economics, being a soft science, cannot have most of its theories proven beyond a doubt. All we can do is take the evidence at hand and make the best judgment call we can.
I think you also make a good point about how “re-litigating our interactions and contracts among one another is an ongoing process and always will be,” but those actions have specific places where they are negotiated namely–and isn’t this a radical idea–in litigation and contract negotiations. Unelected bureaucracies writing regulations unilaterally is neither litigation nor a contract. It’s just pure authoritarianism, and is nearly always exploited by the rich and powerful to discourage competition and to accumulate more wealth and power. The “harm” I referenced is not only done to the general prosperity, but also to the democratic sense of equality for all, because regulations nearly always are written in such a way that they help certain business or sectors at the expense of others. One of the core principles of democracy is that all people have a right to equal opportunities for success, and that principle is inherently compromised by regulation.
I think it’s really interesting that you use the specific terms “litigation” and “contracts” because those things are also important parts of the libertarian ideology. A common response to libertarians saying all regulation is bad is to ask “but then how are people protected from abuses and infringement of their rights by other people and/or corporations?” The answer is litigation and contracts in concert with an understanding of personal property rights (hey look, we’ve come full circle back to the issue you originally challenged me on). Pretty much any time you enter into a business arrangement–whether to rent something, buy something, negotiate a service, etc.–you enter into a contract. When one party of that contract violates it, the other side has recourse in the form of the courts. Same thing goes for property rights. If, for example, a corporation pollutes the waterways, people whose land that water flows through have had their property damaged and they have recourse through litigation.
While this system isn’t perfect, it is the best one available because, unlike regulations, people aren’t punished for something they haven’t even done. Instead of inhibiting production and competition, people and businesses are encouraged to act respectfully towards each other or face the consequences in court if they don’t.
I know that people like you support regulation out of an enlightened desire for equality, but the irony is that crony capitalists use regulation as one of their most powerful tools to squash competition and steal wealth from the middle class and poor and transfer it to the 1%. So not only is regulation ineffective and wrong, but it actually has the exact opposite effect that its supporters want it to have. It’s a failure on every level—morally, practically, economically, and ideologically.
Thank for the reply. From what I researched, that specific paper, although in a peer reviewed journal, hasn’t been peer reviewed.
I use the words “litigation” and “contract” purposefully, because despite your desire to libertarian-ize them they mean the same things when you petition the government (your fellow citizens) as when you apply it to a strictly interpersonal business deal.
It’s about the multiple stakeholders meeting to iron out how we all get along – in this case, in the democracy we’ve created.
I don’t “support regulation” out of “an enlightened desire for equality.” I support it because it’s a morally neutral word that accurately describes how multiple stakeholders meet to iron out how we all get along in the democracy we’ve created.
Regulations aren’t evil in and of themselves, nor are their outcomes, as much as some try to malign it. All contracts have regulations that must be litigated, and parties that find those regulations burdensome can re-litigate them – either in meetings, in court, or via legislation.
Private contracts and public contracts work the same here.
What this means is that regulations themselves aren’t “a failure on every level—morally, practically, economically, and ideologically” – what it means is that the people implementing them are – humans are selfish, manipulative, greedy and hard headed in general. And always will be.
Unless you want to live on an island and pre-screen your potential fellow inhabitants using that criteria – good luck with that, it just isn’t possible.
So what you see as a failure of government, per se and its regulatory process, I see as simply the result of how humans are, have always been, and always will be – and a democracy is just one system of government that attempts to get those human machinations that inevitable affect all of us in this shared and interconnected society out in the open so that we can get the best results possible with the least harm possible.
So far, I haven’t seen another form of government that can do all of that perfectly – because humans aren’t perfect – but reducing regulation just because they’re regulations is a strawman argument; in that you can’y eliminate the process or a major part of it (regulations) , in private or public contracts (our democracy and it’s workings is a contract) and, ipso facto expect it to somehow perform better for all of us.
I guess I should have asked first: do you believe that equality for everyone is something to which we should strive or not?
I agree with you again about human nature. However, because of the negative qualities you named, giving too much power to one group of people (those in government) is a surefire way to end up with an inequitable system. I guess if you don’t care about equality then you would have no problem with that, but if you do then democratizing that power out to everyone is the better way to ensure equality for all, because then each person is better able to protect themselves against the “selfish, manipulative, greedy and hard headed” motivations of those around them.
I wholeheartedly agree, but reality insists that your comment read:
“Giving too much power to one group of people (those in government or those in business or any other special interest) is a surefire way to end up with an inequitable system.”
We’re all in this together, and that’s why we’re constantly re-litigating our democracy (our social contract).
Thanks for taking the time to discuss these issues. If we don’t, as we’re seeing today, we end up with a society that pits one group against the other, to the detriment of us all.
Then maybe I too will be qualified to interpret and explain the Constitution to others.
Or is a second reading necessary before one can honestly claim that level of expertise?
Just FYI, I’ve already read it. It was kinda necessary in order to graduate law school. But I hear some of you rubes have occasionally also given it a glance. ;)
the BIBLE SUPPORTS A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO END A PREGNANCY
And if the Bible – the word of God – supports it, and your faith is with God, and you go against God’s will, naughty naughty.
fyi – 25% of all pregnancies are naturally aborted.
Climate deniers and life deniers seem to be the same people-types. Their theme is “we dont cause anything, we cannot effect anything, our will does not belong to us, we are not in control, and fate is god’s will”.
this is insane. these are ALT-PEOPLE.
Not only have the attempts been discredited and proven false…they were sued and lost.
The governments reasoning is also false because it has been discredited……using their own tapes that they tried to use saying how they were operating illegally. IT is sad that they can not do it legally they do it illegally…..GOVERNMENT AGAINST THE PEOPLE USING LIES…..These are elected officials that are supposed to be representing the best interests of ALL THE PEOPLE……
this is what i don’t understand. as i recall, the producers of the video were sued for slander and plead the 5th.
how can you accuse someone of something and then claim the 5th? but anyway, their story was debunked in court.
Seems they could avoid a lot of controversy by handing over it’s abortion services to someone else. PP can refer the patients out if the patient requests it.
More than any other issue, abortion is based on individual beliefs and one’s own sense of morality. The labels of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice are both deeply hypocritical, sidestepping the arguments of the other side.
As I don’t bear religious beliefs, the question for me boils down to this: at what point is a fetus considered a conscious, sentient individual? Given that I don’t remember anything that happened in the womb, and was thus not sentient at the time, I lean in favor of abortion, but ultimately hope it’s a question I’ll never have to deal with personally.
my personal opinion is following birth to 4 months after, not in the womb.
i dont push that because it is only a suspicion based on limited observable things. The same holds true of comatose persons with 0 brain activity. At some point the brain boots and the manual control takes place. It all depends at what stage of life one wants to define as “completed”.
The term “pro-choice” was a response to the manipulative term “pro-life,” which implies some anti-life hatred in people who support the right to abortion services. I appreciate that you understand that no one is sentient while in the womb. You won’t ever have to deal with the “question” of abortion personally; you are a man.
These women campaigning against funding Planned Parenthood disgust me. PP provides a wide variety of women’s health care besides abortions. Meanwhile, abortion is legal in the United States. If these women are opposed to abortion, nobody will force them to have one. They’re also hypocrites in that they undoubtedly support the murders of abortion doctors that have taken place. “Pro life”??? Don’t make me laugh!
their efforts are always to force pregnancy and birthing against the will of the individual. They dont emphasize life for the living or quality of life provisioning. They are acting on wome weird knee-jerk response to perhaps a guilt complex similar to syndromes of perfectionists who have a mental handicap.
simply put, pro-life is not the same as pro-living. Pro-lifers fail to reconcile that.
It is very upsetting that so many women are part of the problem. Sexism wouldn’t exist for long if so many women weren’t part of it.
Due to PP’s umbrella relationship between its abortion services and its other services, any money that goes to PP will go towards abortions. Economists call this phenomenon “crowd-out.” I can refer you to more in-depth explanations if you are interested.
The claim that PP money is going for abortions is simply not true. You are making a philosophical judgment, based on you’re on own biases, not on the facts. But who needs facts?
And, the real in-depth explanation is that religious radicals are in power, and they are going to impose their religion on everyone, especially the traditionally powerless like women and minorities, but, they’ll eventually get around to most everyone.
Since you clearly didn’t bother to research crowd-out before making your comment, I’ll link an explanation for you.
https://economics21.org/html/planned-parenthood-abortion-funding-fallacy-1435.html
It’s hypocritical to mock others for not having their facts straight when you’re the one guilty of that offense.
As a libertarian I don’t really care about abortion one way or another; as a man i’ve never had one and don’t plan to. If women want to have them, more power to ’em…use it as birth control for all i care, have as many as you like: it’s your body and it’s none of my business.
Also, as a Libertarian, I don’t want anyone demanding i pay (government spending) for their choices. If people think that P.P. is a good thing they can make all the private donations they chose to keep it afloat. I don’t expect to have my contribution to public funds dedicated to ending a pregnancy that i wasn’t a party to.
What ever happened to personal responsibility?
If you don’t like entitlements, period, that’s one thing. But the funds we’re talking about here — Medicaid dollars — are not, except in very rare circumstances, used for abortion. So it’s not accurate to say that your “contribution to public funds” is going to finance abortion. Indeed, the money is spent to avoid such circumstances for women who are trying to do so, by allowing them to access contraceptive care.
My comment above was supposed to be a reply to yours. Not sure what happened; my apologies.
somehow that message doesnt get thru to pro-lifers.
and if it did, i believe they would toss that off and find another hook to hang on. My experience with these types is they believe life should be simple, really simple – not that there’s anything wrong with that. Where they fall short – completely fail – is in their avoidance and cowardice in recognition that life should also be GOOD.
Your argument could be extended to any public service – education, social services, child support enforcement, you name it. As a librarian, I’d think you would agree with me.
As a Libertarian, why do you go to a doctor to receive healthcare services under some kind of “healthcare coverage” instead of curing your own health issues? What ever happened to personal responsibility?
As Libertarian, why don’t you put out your own fires if your house is engulfed, be your own policeman against crime, carry your own garbage to the dump, or pave your own roads & bridges instead of expecting the government to do everything for you like a helpless baby? What ever happened to personal responsibility?
I don’t expect to have my contribution to public funds dedicated to helping you through a fire, theft or murder at your house because you’re too irresponsible to prevent those things from happening. What ever happened to personal responsibility?
^^^
Libertarians, you’ve gotta lov’em. ;^(
The fallacy here is that any philosophy will break down if you take it to it’s logical extremes. I’m Libertarian-leaning, but believe a safety net should exist to account for the random hand of fate, but that welfare programs (as well as the criminal justice system) should have the end goal of making the individual self-sufficient and productive again, provided they’re able-bodied and capable.
ok, so in the interests of avoiding logical extremes perhaps we should point out the fallacy of arguing that you’re being unduly burdened by way of taxation that supports medical procedures and health care specifically for women. the proposition that you would be allowed to consult on the specifics of treatment under any circumstance is patently absurd on its face, while we’re applying the maxim of rhetorical moderation.
It’s a medical procedure, typically adminstered to women. PP is a recipient of federal funds as a medical provider for women.
Why is it that American Libertarians only invoke “personal responsibility” when they elect to tell other people what to do?
Libertarianism in a nutshell:
My best friend was 7 when she told her parents she was running away. She zipped up her footie snow-suit and stood silently by the back door. When her mother asked her what she was waiting for, my friend replied, “I’m waiting for you to drive me.”
We’re interdependent. Grow up.
It is a gross violation of a person’s rights to not only take their personal property away from them (taxes), but then to spend that money on something they know to be a grave evil (abortion). Why is that hard to understand? We are a country founded on individual liberty and the rights of individuals to live their lives the way they choose, so long as it doesn’t infringe on the ability of others to do that same. Using tax dollars to fund abortions is the complete opposite of those principles and is fundamentally wrong in every way.
It is a gross violation of a person’s rights to not only take their personal property away from them (taxes), but then to spend that money on something they know to be a grave evil (war). Why is that hard to understand?
How long a list would you like?
‘Pro-life’, pro-war, usually…
I agree with you and don’t know what your point is. If you assumed I was some Republican neocon you were wrong.
Thank you, Doug. Quite right.
That could get really complicated.
Do others having abortions infringe on you in any way, shape or form? Even your right to think about that whatever you want?
If I am forced to pay for them then it absolutely infringes on me. Did you even read my first comment?
Somehow I feel it’s not really about money to you. ;-)
Libertarians always conveniently leave out the fact that our government is predicated on the idea, as described by John Locke, that government “is a social contract. The term, will of the governed, encapsulates this concept, which means the people are boss.”
Using tax dollars in any way the “will of the people” decides is a part of that social contract – another thing that flies in the face of Libertarianism – and you’d realize this if you folks would only think out what you believe to its logical conclusion.
Now, I may not like a lot of things my taxes go towards – wars and benefiting the one percent are right at the top of that list – but as a part of this government “of, by and for the people” – you know, that social contract our founders based this all on – I’ve still got options to change that.
Libertarians like you deciding unilaterally that the “will of the people” – as corruptly as it’s been misapplied – doesn’t exist for you because you’r rather live on an island amongst your fellow misanthropes is getting as old.
If you and yours would rather live in that society, I’m pretty sure me and mine will gladly pay for – at taxpayer expense – the ticket to get you there, so long as it doesn’t infringe on my ability to participate in a government that was desirgend under the aegis of “the will of the governed” – especially as long as we never hear from you again.
Edit: *you’d – *designed
Ok, that’s made my night, that. ^^^^^
“You old commie!” ;^)
You have gone off topic now. In your eagerness to attack my political philosophy, you have moved away from the crux of my argument. However, in the spirit of presenting both sides of the argument for other people to read and decide for themselves, I have provided a rebuttal of your points below.
You are contradicting yourself. You keep talking about the will of the people but then you imply that I don’t have the right to exercise my will, according to my conscience and values. Am I not a member of “the people”? Do I not have a say in how I am governed? Why are you trying to silence me for doing exactly what you just said I had the right to do?
Conversely, I’m not deciding anything unilaterally for anybody else. I merely wish to not have my liberties, and those of others who feel the same way, infringed upon against our will. Believe it or not, I’m fighting for those rights for you too. You may not believe I have the right to influence our political process because you don’t like my philosophy, but I think you do have that right in spite of our disagreement. To paraphrase Voltaire’s philosophy: I disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. This is the essence of the liberal philosophy—being able to think freely and express those thoughts without reprisal or judgment.
I’m sorry that libertarian values make you uncomfortable, but we will not go away just because you don’t like us. We have just as much right to try and influence how we are governed as you do. That what your pet phrase “will of the governed” means.
I also feel compelled to point out that the argument “you’d realize this if you folks would only think out what you believe to its logical conclusion” is a slippery slope fallacy. Excepting anarcho-capatalists (of which I am not one), libertarians do believe that government has legitimate functions that are a necessary evil. Some taxes are required and some power needs to be surrendered by the individual to form the “social contract.” But our system so far beyond that at this point.
If I were to take your slippery slope fallacy and turn it back on you, I could say that you are arguing for the tyranny of the majority, which is something the framers very explicitly despised and tried hard to prevent. They studied history, so they knew that when republics become democracies, it is only a matter of time before they become tyrannies. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you aren’t arguing for tyranny. I ask that you do the same for my arguments.
You point out how awful it is that your taxes go to evil, pointless wars and benefiting the wealthy. I agree with you completely. Those are terrible evils. The problem is that those types of evils inherent to our system. The system itself is evil because it relies on stealing from people to arbitrarily give to other people. You can’t use something evil for the purposes of good. It’s like the One Ring. Stealing is always evil and the results of it can, on balance, only be evil. My question is: why are you fighting to defend a system which you know is evil?
“It is a gross violation of a person’s rights to not only take their personal property away from them (taxes), but then to spend that money on something they know to be a grave evil (abortion)”
Libertarians, like you, continue to fail at logic.
Taxes are not personal property – they are money you’ve agreed to pay to live in this society that is predicated on the will of the people. What did those people say? Pay taxes. What for? Whatever they decide. Don’t like it? Change it using the process by convincing others that it not in our societies interest do do that.
I do do that with war, etc. Does it work as well as I’d like? Not always.
You libertarian fucks just say “I don’t like it!”(paying taxes, or whatever) and dream up a political ideology that says you can’t do that.
An example of this is the GOP Congress simply boycotting democracy by not participating. The “Party Of NO.” Doing that doesn’t make it a democracy, it makes it a schoolyard game of “I’ll take my ball and go home!”
That’s not how a fucking democracy works.
Your Ayn Randian-libertarian eagerness to have a philosophy that does all the things I’ve said at the expense of democracy is the argument you idiot.
Everything else you selfish and morally bankrupt whiners come up with is simply mental masturbation.
Democracy, instead, is like an orgy. Oftentimes messy, and likely you’ll interact with or look at folks that don’t agree with your sensibilities, but unless you like playing with yourself until the day you die; or want to participate in circle-jerks until your hands bleed, I suggest you all’ join the party, or at the very least, bring the condoms and lube, because you’re serving no useful purpose for the rest of those here in the role that you’ve decided to champion.
Well it didn’t take you long to devolve to name calling. That’s unfortunate. I was hoping for a civil and intelligent debate but I guess it’s too difficult to stick to just the issues when all you have to go on is logical fallacies. Since you didn’t counter any of points except to insult me and my worldview you leave me with no reason to continue this discussion. Good day.
You’re right. I shouldn’t call you an idiot, per se. Your views are unacceptable for the reasons I used in my replies to counter your points, and no matter my feelings on how you feel about trying to insert a diametrically opposed governing philosophy into our existing democratic one, a philosophy that has been abused by especially the right wing in our country, I should stick to those facts.
My biggest gripe with libertarianism is that it attempts to project rank individualism into an existing pluralist system, ignoring the fact that without broad protections and shared responsibility it breaks down into anarchy of various forms.
Mona put the choice between the two – and it really has to be one or the other – quite well:
It doesn’t have to be one extreme or the other. That’s a false dichotomy fallacy. The correct solution lies somewhere in between. You’re still making the same mistake of assuming that libertarianism means no rule of law and each man is an island. Only anarchists believe that, not traditional libertarians. You’re arguing against a position that I don’t hold, and neither does anybody who thinks like me.
Also I want to thank you for composing yourself and responding with a more reasonable tone. I enjoy discussions like this and don’t make them personal, so when others make them personal I have no choice but to withdraw from the conversation, which is very disappointing to have to do.
Democracy needs civil liberty protections, to be sure. But the governing philosophy of libertarianism, as I cited in my examples above, has been abused, especially by the right wing in our country.
The following are the central points of my argument, and I’d like to hear what you think. There is simply no way at all that taxes can be considered private property. Your money, before taxes, is your private property, but not those funds you owe for taxes, as they’ve been encumbered already (with your consent) and are therefore an already agreed upon debt via your acceptance of our social contract.
Whether your agreed upon debt (taxes) is applied to war, abortions, or helium balloons doesn’t matter. What matters is if it’s a mutually agreed upon expenditure, (a spending priority.)
Voting is the only option we have to make our spending priorities known initially; and voting and/or legal means (lawsuits, etc) are the only way we have to change policies we don’t like.
In the end, libertarians (wherever you place yourself on that spectrum, it doesn’t matter) are in the same boat as independents or any other group: convince enough folks to get out and vote to change whatever bothers you, or live with it until you can. Or move out of the country. Or, I suppose, overthrow the government.
I also want to thank you for sticking around. Everyone I know gets riled up in comment section discussions, especially when, all too often, folks don’t argue in good faith; and I sometimes take frustrations out on a commenter before realizing they’re not one of those.
I think you misunderstood my comment about taxation. At first I didn’t respond because I thought you were purposely misconstruing my position, but now I see I was not clear with my wording. I meant that the act of taxation is taking the personal property of a person, not that the taxes themselves were personal property.
I understand what you are saying about taxes being a debt and part of the social contract. However, it’s worth noting that I didn’t actually consent to that, at least not explicitly. I know that you will say that by choosing to continue living in this country/society/system/whatever I am implicitly choosing to accept that social contract, but that is a rather oversimplified way of posing the issue. I was born here in America without being asked if I wanted to, and laws were passed before I was born and before I was of voting age which affect me but I had no say in. My family and friends are all here, and I also happen to believe that America is still the freest country in the world, as sad as that is. So yes, I choose to live in this society, but that doesn’t mean I have to meekly and passively accept every evil I see around me. To be sure, most wrongs are beyond my power to right, but what little ability I have influence the system, I intend to use to make a better world for myself, my family, my friends, my children, and even you and everyone else I don’t personally know. Your argument of “you live here so you accept the way things are” is along the same line of “logic” as the right wing rednecks who tell you that if you don’t like the way America is, “you can just git out.” That’s not how social constructs work. If you don’t like the system and you think there is a better one, you work to change it, not leave and abandon the system and everyone you love to its evil and depravity.
I know this is hard to believe, because it is human nature to automatically demonize those with different ideas, but I genuinely believe that the ideas of liberty are the ones that bring about the greatest common good. I want everyone to have liberty not because it will boost my bank account or make my life easier, but because I truly believe it will make society as a whole the healthiest, happiest, and most prosperous it can be, and I will work every day of my life to try and bring that result about. You may choose to work against me and I respect that, but it doesn’t change my resolve.
Thanks, Liberty Joe, although I don’t think I misunderstood your position, nor was I trying to misconstrue it. So, to be clear, your clearer wording is:
This is a distinction without a difference.
How in the world can “taxation is taking personal property”
and
“taxes themselves [are not] personal property”
be reconciled? They cannot.
If you are burgled then your personal property is stolen. It’s a crime under our laws.
Taxation, in and of itself isn’t unlawful. Therefore the paying of taxes isn’t “taking your personal property” – it’s you giving it to the government because you owe that debt.
Therefore it’s not theft. Nor is it a violation of your rights. If you still think that, please provide the specific right(s) in our Constitution or laws that have been violated.
If you have a problem with completely legal taxation, then because of your implicit agreement (you haven’t moved out of the country) means that you accept that debt and that responsibility and the requirement to pay it.
We’ve already agreed on the personal liberty stuff.
Your idea that I or anyone else is infringing on your right to redress the government with regards to things you feel are violations of your rights is simply wrong, and I’ve already explained why, and what you should do about it.
The distinction is that it is your personal property until it is taken, at which point it becomes public property. As far as I can tell, we don’t have a disagreement here, it was just a misunderstanding of semantics.
Part of the problem here is that we are arguing two different things. You are arguing legality and I am arguing right and wrong. I have already agreed that some taxation is a necessary evil, and the framers also agree, since Article I, Section 8 gives Congress that power. I’m well aware that taxation is legal and that it is to a certain extent necessary. However, just because something is legal doesn’t make it right. By law, the military draft is legal. Does that make it right? By law, the government can spy on you, gather your personal communications and data, and not tell you they are doing this. Does that make it right? Trump just signed an executive order restricting immigration, refugees, and travel from Muslim nations to this country, effectively with the power of the law. Does that make his order right? Just because something is legal does not mean you have to choose to either accept it or leave. You are still using the same argument of “if you don’t like it, you can just git out.” But that’s not how democracy works. It’s an extremely fallacious and authoritarian argument to say “this is the law and if you don’t like it then you are wrong.” Laws change all the time; right and wrong do not.
And again, this is not an argument that taxation should be completely abolished. Without it, government could not function at all and we would have anarchy, which I’ve already stated I am against. Believe it or not, libertarians do have the deepest respect for the rule of law, so long as those laws are just and protect the rights of all people. That is why we so revere to Constitution. However, it does not change the fact that taxation is theft and indeed burglary. If you don’t pay your taxes, what happens? Men with guns come to your house and take you away until you agree to pay. If that’s not burglary, I don’t know what is. Just because they have the power of law behind them doesn’t change the fact that it is burglary. Unfortunately we live in an imperfect world and I recognize that, so I will begrudgingly consent to be burgled a little if it means being able to live in a country where there are laws to protect my rights as an individual, and those of my friends and family and indeed everyone.
“The distinction is that it is your personal property until it is taken…”
No more so than a house payment, rent, or a car payment is.
None of that is burglary, any more than taxation is.
Does adhering to those contract requirements lessen your liberty? No. And, the same with taxation, you’ll suffer similar legal consequences if those terms are broken.
The bottom line is we live in a country that, as part of the contract for living here, requires certain things, taxation is one.
Citizens can try to change that using the processes in place.
Simply saying taxation is burglary ignores this fact, in a desire to make the situation different than what it actually is.
Now we’re arguing in circles because I already addressed this in a earlier comment. However, since you never responded directly to my point there, I will copy and paste my comment rather than re-typing it:
“I understand what you are saying about taxes being a debt and part of the social contract. However, it’s worth noting that I didn’t actually consent to that, at least not explicitly. I know that you will say that by choosing to continue living in this country/society/system/whatever I am implicitly choosing to accept that social contract, but that is a rather oversimplified way of posing the issue. I was born here in America without being asked if I wanted to, and laws were passed before I was born and before I was of voting age which affect me but I had no say in. My family and friends are all here, and I also happen to believe that America is still the freest country in the world, as sad as that is. So yes, I choose to live in this society, but that doesn’t mean I have to meekly and passively accept every evil I see around me. ”
If you choose not to respond, that is fine. We may have reached the point in this discussion where our fundamentally different values make us unable to come to an agreement, which is normal for these types of conversations. I’m not here to try and convince you to see things my way, but just to present the other side of the argument that is implicitly made by the tone of this article. I enjoy these types of discussions, but I’m not so deluded as to think I can sway people from their deeply-held worldviews with a few internet comments. Just know that regardless of whether you choose to continue responding, I respect you and your opinions and I thank you for this enjoyable exchange of ideas.
Yes, no one is saying we have to accept an inability to address what we feel is wrong, just that, like everyone else, we have use the processes in place to try to make that happen.
Thanks for using your voice – too often too many do not, and our democracy is poorer for it.
your libertarian views reflect one’s need for individualness and reponsibility and personal power. You are correct about the creep to tyranny and how a central system can head toward bad or evil. The system we have in US is corrupt, misguided, and has taints of evil. BUT A MAN WHO STEALS TO EAT IS NOT A THIEF.
i need you to think about that.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/thief?s=t
I don’t know what your point is but I want to let you know words do not change their meaning just because you want them to. Stealing is mentioned right in the dictionary definition of thief, and motive or circumstance are not a consideration. I need you to think about that.
joey joey joey
you cannot even see the plank in your own eye
Amputation is an obomination. If god didn’t intend for you to have that arm that was mangled in an accident involving a chainsaw, he wouldn’t have stuck it on your shoulder.
I’m not paying for no got’dam amputee’s lack of foresight!
Viagra has been covered by Medicare for years. Men get to have sex and women are forced to give birth. Believing abortion as a “grave evil” is nasty, hypocritical sexism steeped in religious belief. Separation of Church and State keeps religious groups from imposing their beliefs on non-believers. It’s a gross violation of my rights that another’s religious beliefs should prevail over my health care decisions and my personal beliefs.
Please explain how believing that abortion is a grave evil is sexist or hypocritical. I’m very curious how you can make that accusation of people about whom you know virtually nothing.
Show me where in the Constitution the phrase “separation of church and state” is used. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Do what you want with your health care. I’m not trying to stop you and if you think I am, you missed the entire point. What I want is for people who oppose abortion to not have their rights violated by being forced to pay for it. Do rights only matter when they apply to you but not others?
the proposition that you get to intervene in a decision making process between a woman and her doctor as regards any specific treatment on the basis of your assertion that your personal religious beliefs must be applied as public health care policy is obviously sexist and hypocritical. it’s a legal medical procedure.
those that are convinced that taxation is immoral are welcome to hold that view, but that isn’t compatible with how our government or society are organized. you’re welcome to leave.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2bOXQibamM
Everyone’s go-to argument around here, apparently. Oh the irony.
yuk yuk yuk.
only the question here is concerned with someone disputing their share of bill after ordering wine and dessert.
if you want separate checks, you have to state that at the outset, and be prepared to sit at your own table.
You’re right; next time before I’m born I’ll ask for a different venue. One that doesn’t include trolls like you.
Wonder how all these people would feel if some other busybody stuck their nose in their very private and traumatic moments in life without knowing the whole story. These are people with no lives of their own, no control over their own shit, desperately trying to control strangers with their very biased and positional self righteous indignation.
Does anyone else feel like Planned Parenthood is a ball and chain holding back the progress of family planning? Their creepy eugenics history, their brand (whether or not it’s an umbrella) confounding abortion and public money for contraception… where is the advantage? From a liberal perspective it seems like a no brainer to genuinely split up that umbrella, merge most of their operations into the regular health care system, provide universal subsidy for contraception as a measure in the public interest wherever it can be dispensed, and have what remains be an abortion clinic franchise without public involvement. Why not let the “conservatives” get their way on this one if we can extract even small concessions to further the non-abortion health care of women?
Oh, sure. Anti-choice forces across the country feel that way.
This will cause a boom in the Texas coat hanger industry; it’s just biznizz, gals!