Government and me

[Sethomas]

My two main friends here on campus are a staunch Republican and a staunch Libertarian. It's useless to enter politicians between the two of them, since such exist solely to make each other feel better about themselves. But I was walking with the Libertarian a while ago, and I got him to agree with my stance as a Democratic Socialist.

I believe that any state goes through a number of evolutions, and there is no sure-fit economic system that works for all stages. At this point in history, the vast majority of nation/states require Social Democracy to properly build up an economy wherein equity is assured and Adam Smith's dream of "universal opulence" can be achieved. Once all facets of society have reached their optimal levels of wealth, that society should begin a gradual shift toward Libertarianism.

I had the luck of growing up in a community where all tiers of society were present; I have friends in mansions and friends in trailers. Having seen this wide spectrum, I believe that at an absolute best we could begin this shift in five or six decades. If the government remains as it does now and corporate welfare is favored over social reform, it will probably not reach this point until long after our deaths. An alternate possibility is that the situation will get worse unto the point of collapse, wherein the United States will have to be thoroughly re-invented (likely much more drastically than The New Deal) and the future is tabula rasa. This is why I call myself a Social Democrat.

Any thoughts?

[Preechr]

A few, I suppose...

To what degree are you leaning Socialist and/or Libertarian, then? These are very broad terms. Decentralized government? Individual property rights? Pro- or Anti- Capitalism? There are a bunch of point A's and point B's here, and many ways to get between them all...

What I think I'm hearing is that you are a reformist Socialist that believes that's the way to ease into a stateless, communal, utopian society, which is basic communist evolution stuff that I don't typically buy into. Libertarianism is pretty much too idealistic to ever be successfully reformed into an existant society, and your plan would be several orders higher in difficulty of implementation.

Maybe... Hmmm.... Maybe you could invent a machine that whomped everybody on the head in just the right way to make eveybody ten times smarter...

Think back to that trailer park. Build your ideal government for those folks, because they're the ones that need it most.

[AChimp]

I'd just kill the trailer park folks... :/

[Cosmo Electrolux]

I want to kill the mansion folks and have sex with the trailer folks....

[Preechr]

You should probably avoid the crossovers like Britney then.

[eggyolk]

Then again, how long do you think America will last?

[AChimp]

Originally Posted by Preechr

You should probably avoid the crossovers like Britney then.

Cosmo would do HER in the bum.

[Preechr]

Originally Posted by eggyolk

Then again, how long do you think America will last?

Damn good question.