Guns, Guns Guns

gcomeau wrote:

PeterZ wrote:
Do try to keep up.

Under a Parliamentary or Legislative sovereign nation, the citizens do not have the right to evict members of parliament because they are not sovereign.

How, exactly, do you think elections in those countries work?

I'm genuinely curious, since you appear not to think they work by deciding who stays and who goes in their governments.

Because the laws states there will be elections and how the elections will be conducted. The law can be changed.

PeterZ wrote:

gcomeau wrote:How, exactly, do you think elections in those countries work?

I'm genuinely curious, since you appear not to think they work by deciding who stays and who goes in their governments.

Because the laws states there will be elections and how the elections will be conducted. The law can be changed.

You do realize that "the law" you are talking about is, in pretty much every case, the Constitution of the nation in question?

Just. Like. In. The. United. States.


And yes, that law could be changed.

Just. Like. In. The. United. States.

gcomeau wrote:

PeterZ wrote:
Because the laws states there will be elections and how the elections will be conducted. The law can be changed.

You do realize that "the law" you are talking about is, in pretty much every case, the Constitution of the nation in question?

Just. Like. In. The. United. States.


And yes, that law could be changed.

Just. Like. In. The. United. States.

Of course it can be changed. My point from the beginning was that the nature of the change in laws and yes our constitutions will be different from those nations that do not recognize their citizens as sovereign.

Do. You. Understand. Now...?

PeterZ wrote:

gcomeau wrote:You do realize that "the law" you are talking about is, in pretty much every case, the Constitution of the nation in question?

Just. Like. In. The. United. States.


And yes, that law could be changed.

Just. Like. In. The. United. States.

Of course it can be changed. My point from the beginning was that the nature of the change in laws and yes our constitutions will be different from those nations that do not recognize their citizens as sovereign.

Do. You. Understand. Now...?

I understand that you are arguing about quibbling little legalese distinctions that have absolutely no practical relevance whatsoever.

If in both countries the laws of the nation are implemented by their governments, and in both countries those governments are subject to the approval of the voting electorate, then you can argue technicalities of sovereignty until you pass out... what the hell does any of it have to do with your claim that socialism can't work in the United States?

gcomeau wrote:
I understand that you are arguing about quibbling little legalese distinctions that have absolutely no practical relevance whatsoever.

If in both countries the laws of the nation are implemented by their governments, and in both countries those governments are subject to the approval of the voting electorate, then you can argue technicalities of sovereignty until you pass out... what the hell does any of it have to do with your claim that socialism can't work in the United States?

Because socialism asserts the government owns the means of production. That means private citizens have to give up their ownership of those means of production and to any future means of production that might yet be invented. Since the government does not currently have that authority or power, we citizens have to give up that authority to own the means of production.

In societies that hold the government is sovereign, this is no great shakes. Government already has that power. In the US, we citizens have to give up more of our liberty to allow government to own what has been until now private enterprises. We can argue the cost and benefits of public enterprises some other time.

If the federal government can own private enterprises, the amount of enterprises it owns or nature of those enterprises can expand. That potential expansion means the benefits of that expansion accrues more to government and those in government than the private citizen. In this context that's what the loss of liberty means and why the paradigm shift won't work in the US. Too many people want to opportunity to succeed.

PeterZ wrote:

gcomeau wrote:
I understand that you are arguing about quibbling little legalese distinctions that have absolutely no practical relevance whatsoever.

If in both countries the laws of the nation are implemented by their governments, and in both countries those governments are subject to the approval of the voting electorate, then you can argue technicalities of sovereignty until you pass out... what the hell does any of it have to do with your claim that socialism can't work in the United States?

Because socialism asserts the government owns the means of production. That means private citizens have to give up their ownership of those means of production and to any future means of production that might yet be invented. Since the government does not currently have that authority or power, we citizens have to give up that authority to own the means of production.

You get we're not talking about full on socialism right? But the degree of socialism practiced in, as we've been discussing this entire time, Europe?


(And even if we WERE discussing full blown 100% socialism, there is still nothing special about the US that makes it any more or less feasible than it would be in any other democratic nation. If the electorate decided they wanted to do it, they vote in the government to make it happen, and it happens.)

In societies that hold the government is sovereign, this is no great shakes. Government already has that power.

Hate to break it to you, but the government already has that power in the US too.

In the US, we citizens have to give up more of our liberty to allow government to own what has been until now private enterprises. We can argue the cost and benefits of public enterprises some other time.

If the federal government can own private enterprises...

Government owned enterprises are public by definition. The government cannot own private enterprises in any nation..

I think you must mean "If the government can own enterprises."

Which it already can. Just as a single example, the US government nationalized all railroads in 1917. It was deemed important to do so for the war effort... so it was done. (And it still owns Amtrak)

After 9-11 the country nationalized airport security services.

Etc...


So to repeat, nothing special about the US on this matter.

Dude! None the examples you cite for government run enterprises are reasons to expand the practice. Besides creating an organization that kills people and breaks things, what does our government do well?

PeterZ wrote:Dude! None the examples you cite for government run enterprises are reasons to expand the practice. Besides creating an organization that kills people and breaks things, what does our government do well?

So now you're no longer arguing there's a single thing about the US or it's system of government that prevents it from implementing a more socialist system of government any more than any other developed nation and are falling back on just declaring it *shouldn't*?

Well, that's progress I suppose.

As for the question of what government does well, it *can* do lots of things well. Especially if you stop voting for people to run it who think it's their job to make it *not* do well to reinforce their campaign platforms that it can't do well. ("See? Government sucks... we were right!!! Vote us!")

See: Most of the rest of the devellopped world.

So, you agree. Government run enterprises suck. You just want more chances to get it right instead of recognizing the incentives just don't work for them.

Sorry buddy them are pipe dreams. The CCCP tried the whole enchilada and illustrated they were best at killing people and breaking things. Even the the US proved were better at even that.

PeterZ wrote:So, you agree. Government run enterprises suck. You just want more chances to get it right instead of recognizing the incentives just don't work for them.

No.

That closing "See: Most of the rest of the developed world" was my way of pointing you at the many real world examples of governments running various industries just fine.


What may have confused you was my somewhat roundabout way of pointing out that what is not good at running industries is governments with lots of modern day Republicans in them. Because it's not really in their best political interests to have the government do the job too well when their entire election spiel since the days of Reagan rests on them telling their constituents how the government has some inherent inability to do anything right and the private sector is the answer to everything.

It's why when Republicans are in charge we get things like horse show directors as the head of FEMA. Or we get concerted and overt efforts to deliberately sabotage the fiscal health of the postal service. Etc...


In the meantime, most other developed nations approach these things rationally instead of with nearly religious anti-government dogmatism. They recognize that some things the private sector is better at, and some things the private sector *absolutely sucks at* (like, for example, health insurance. There's a reason the US has one of the most privatized and not coincidentally at all one of the most expensive and wasteful and inefficient health insurance systems on earth. And no, it's not all those immigrants, or malpractice lawsuits.)