I get a lot of lip on here about how I am "owned" by some of the commenters here and all of them over at TSM. Given what has happened in the last few months, I'm curious....in what reality do they reside?
A few months ago, I was told by many members of the Cult that Toyota was the model for running a car manufacturer. Toyota doesn't have to deal with all the "socialist bull shit" of Detroit and President Hussein. Apparently, they don't deal with quality control as well.
This is but one example of the constant whining I hear about the "free market" and if government just stayed out of the business of private industry (see: turn the other way when we fuck people over and laugh all the way to our third vacation home), all would be well. Private industry can take care of itself and needs very little regulation or oversight (see: already happening). The free market is wonderful and all who earn profit are Christ like. All who are remotely critical of private industry and/or call for sensible oversight and regulation are communists who hate Jesus and want to send us all to re-education camps.
That is, of course, until private industry royally fucks up and comes crying to the government for help. And that's just what we have now with BP, Haliburton, and Transocean.
Of course, I could write post after post about how there needs to be more regulation but they will get me nowhere. It doesn't fit with Ayn Randian Cult narrative. Thus, we will always have 30-40 million people that will NEVER believe that private industry can fuck up this badly. Instead, I'm going to take a different tack.
I submit that whenever the come to Jesus moment arrives for those who worship the free market, they are fucking cowards. They will wiggle and squirt to deflect blame and not take any responsibility (as we see now with the testimony in front of Congress) ultimately ending up begging for help from the government they rip whenever they get the chance.
Believers of Ayn Rand can ignore reality all they want, as we see in nary a post regarding BP or Toyota at TSM, but sooner or later it's going to bite them in the ass. Actually, I would say a Jaws like chomp. When that happens, watch them fall all over themselves...yelling...that the government (see: Help Me, Daddy!) needs to help out with greater vigor. We've seen it already as some Cult leaders are saying that this is "Obama's Katrina."
As always, I'm willing to be proven wrong. So, what do you say, Ayn Rand zombies? Are you and the executives of BP going to roll up your sleeves and start cleaning oil off of fish and birds?
Or are the cleaners going to be the people you deride as tree huggers bent on destroying us all in the flames of fascism/communism/socialism?
Hmmm?
12 comments:
I guess the main problem I have is that your premises are faulty. You deliberately misrepresent our position, then expect us to prove you wrong.
Example - your words "constant whining", "when we fuck people over", "laugh all the way to our third vacation home", "all who earn a profit are Christ like", "the come to Jesus moment", etc.
You hold those up as fact of what I think about the free market. I don't think any of those represent my view of the free market. If you were so secure in your arguments there should be no need to engage in that tripe.
For example, I agree that BP and Toyota screwed up, but I only agree with you up to a point. Those actions that you blame on corporations should be treated as crimes, not as a golden parachute for someone who didn’t read the warning on the pack of smokes, or who hadn't heard the term Cancer Sticks over the last several decades.
In addition, when you talk about the free market, the only companies you ever talk about are the easy targets or the ones that just screwed up. Are big banks, insurance companies and BP the only examples you have of the free market? That's simply armchair quarterbacking and anyone can predict the past. How about I take the worst of the worst when it comes to minorities as a representation of them as a whole? Sound like a plan?
You aren't getting people to think, you're just trying to provoke a response.
Yeah, that's right he wants a response. How about who exactly should be responsible to clean up the Gulf? Or how would the free market take care of this travesty?
Big banks, insurance companies, and oil companies basically run the free market so I don't get the arm chair quarterbacking comment at all.
Of course he wants a response - you folks control all 3 branches of govt right now and you keep asking questions of the folks who are out of power. Why don't you tell us who should clean it up and how it should be cleaned up or answer questions asked to you on here once in a while. All Mark said was that the govt should help and then wondered if it was constitutional. Can't get any specifics out of you because then you may have to back up your policy. Who's in charge?
Mark whipped out a strawman in his statements about Toyota. Since I don't know what was said a couple months ago by some guy I don't know somewhere I wasn't at, I don't even know if his statements were directed at me. Even though I own a Corolla, I don't worship Toyota as I was darn close to buying a Ford last time I was car shopping. Here's what I typed up about Toyota in my review of Michael Moores latest movie on this blog in Oct of 09...
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He (Moore) spends a lot of time talking about unions and General Motors. I found it odd that he didn’t mention the bailout of the auto industry as he sure talked a lot about the bailout of the financial firms a lot. The union dream and the dream of a strong GM are over, and the reasons Moore cites are only part of the story. In 2008, GM and Toyota actually sold about the same number of vehicles. Toyota turned a $1.7 billion profit while GM lost around $9 billion. That doesn’t happen by accident. Until these automakers and their unions resolve the structural problems that creates this kind of unprofitability, the dream will remain just that – a dream. GM is basically a retirement home/health care facility with a auto plant as a side project. GM has a policy of 30 years there and you can retire and they seemed surprised when lots of people retired at 48 and drew on the pension and free health care for another 30 years.
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Now if you took that I Worship Toyota from that then you only read what you wanted to so you could toss out an insult and didn't dispute the facts presented. If those aren't the numbers from the year preceding their bailout then tell us what they actually are, then give us your reasons why they are that way. I did that, why can't you?
Of course you don't get the armchair quarterback line...it's reeeeeal easy to conclude that Toyota "doesn't deal with quality control as well" AFTER the problems with their gas pedals come to light.
"Of course he wants a response - you folks control all 3 branches of govt right now and you keep asking questions of the folks who are out of power."
This is totally disingenuous. The way the Senate is run these days, you need to get sixty votes to accomplish pretty much anything. So it is quite false to claim that "you folks" control all three branches of government.
The Democrats only really control one branch of government -- the executive. Republicans have veto power over the Senate, which is one half of the legislative branch. Republican cronies control the third branch, the judicial.
The majority of Republicans in Congress today are just trying to run out the clock. Every time the Democrats try to engage them they yell, "You have to throw it all out and start from scratch." You saw it on health care, energy legislation, financial reform, just about everything. They just want a platform to scream and shout, and never actually do anything. And then they say that the Democrats haven't accomplished anything, all the while bogging down legislation with frivolous amendments and using parliamentary delaying tactics to bring everything to a halt.
There are a few Republicans who are willing to buck their party for a brief time (Graham, for example), until the Democrats do something that gets them in a snit and they withdraw their support. The Republicans just do not seem to be capable, adult partners in governance.
They want a steady diet of cake (tort reform) and ice cream (tax cuts). They cry for spending cuts, yet when they had near complete control of all three branches of government the only thing they really accomplished was cutting taxes for the wealthy, giving away trillions of dollars to the drug companies with the Medicare drug benefit and invading a country that had no WMDs and had nothing to do with 9/11. Oh, and they let Osama bin Laden get away too.
And then they have the gall to call the oil spill in the gulf (caused by some combination of Halliburton, BP and two other oil drilling firms) Obama's Katrina. The Republicans are just not interested in running the country. They just want to play silly blame games and make sweetheart deals for their cronies.
How exactly does Barack Obama control the Supreme Court? With the laws on two thirds majorities your statement sounds ridiculous.
I'd like to know how much longer people are going to believe that Republicans are right about anything. Where are the calls for Drill Baby Drill now? What a bunch of fools.
(Skipping the rest of your post, which was one long argument with the convenient conservative Nazi in your head.)
>As always, I'm willing to be proven wrong.
I just had to comment on this - what a complete and utter lie that statement is. You're willing to be proven wrong - by yourself and yourself only. For everyone else, your ego is too fragile to admit error. Or have you figured out what "verbatim" means yet?
Y'all didn't accomplish a whole lot even with your veto proof majority blk. The stimulus bill and the cap and trade bill ain't much to brag about since nobody on here will even comment on them. Even now, you mean to tell me you can't produce legislation that could pull a moderate republican into the fold? Perhaps they wouldn't block the legislation if the legislation didn't suck so bad. Jeff c, donald, you two have any opinions on the stimulus bill or the cap and trade bill? Nobody else will say anything about them on here.
When I said 3 branches I meant the white house, congress and senate. Poor choice of words on my part - my bad.
"Big banks, insurance companies, and oil companies basically run the free market". I decided that I need a link for this to be correct since knowledge only exists on the internet.
We've seen it already as some Cult leaders are saying that this is "Obama's Katrina."
Wow. The point you thought you were making with that comment more than adequately proves that you do not have the foggiest frakking clue what you are talking about.
But, hey, try not to let that stop you from flinging about ad hominem attacks, blatant fallacies, pointless expletives, and your "oh woe is me" martyred attitude - it makes it all the more amusing, really.
anon three places above-
mark has admitted he has been wrong on several occasions. He recently did so regarding his theory on the golden age of capitalism via an article by Jim Manzi forwarded by a poster from Kevin Baker's site named juris imprudent. He also has changed his mind about the Reagan presidency much to the chagrin of those of us grew up in that era and know that he was a terrible president. So he is not willing to be proven wrong by himself and himself only.
As mark would say, nice Rove.
I also admitted I was wrong about the census worker who hung himself.
To bring it back to the original post, I submit that private industry will clean it up. My reference point is the Exxon Valdez spill. Exxon cleaned up Prince William Sound (to what degree of perfection is another debate) rather than take the lawsuit/PR losses they would have sustained. They want to keep selling a product. When the public knows exactly what the circumstances are, they can make an informed opinion as to whether this company deserves their money. No poster here has mentioned either the remaining clean up needed still in Alaska, nor some sort of Exxon boycott. I can only assume you are happy with that company's contrition. Free market principles at work.
As far as who actually performs the cleanup? Apologies if you are just being facetious, but the people who clean will be either paid by BP, or will be able to take time from their jobs at some other corporation in order to help clean it up.
dw
dw
"I also admitted I was wrong about the census worker who hung himself."
Where? As far as I know, you never did so over at TSM, even when asked about it directly.
Still, I'll take this as an admission, which is good. It's nice to see progress from a "progressive". It's so rare! ;-)
Now, about the current question you're running from:
"How can we keep murders, rapists, thieves, gang bangers, drug pushers, and terrorists out of our country without checking out everyone who wants to enter our country?"
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