Jon Stewart brings up Ron Paul

[KingNothing]

Exactly.

It`s exactly those good intentions that are causing the problem. This need of helping each other springing from empathy is very human, but many fall in this trap. It takes self control to not let empathy get the best of you. Only reason can balance things out.

Women, due to higher Oxytocin levels are little more empathetic than men so there`s even stronger will of wanting to help one out. The strong maternal instinct of providing for the kids plays is prime reason for these elevated levels.

"As Friedman said, spending one person's money on projects for a third person is always going to be inefficient."

Or in other words: "Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime."

The question I can't get beyond is this: why do you need government to do works inspired by good intentions or forethought? If people truly believe that we need to do this project to care for those people or build this thing to provide that service.... what prevents them from doing it? Why must government be their tool? They brush off the alternative to government as absurd, while believing to their core that they can make government an efficient tool for good. It just doesn't make sense.

 

[StilesBC]

The question I can't get beyond is this: why do you need government to do works inspired by good intentions or forethought? If people truly believe that we need to do this project to care for those people or build this thing to provide that service.... what prevents them from doing it? Why must government be their tool? Their brush off the alternative to government as absurd, while believing to their core that they can make government an efficient tool for good. It just doesn't make sense.

+rep. I use this argument all the time against environmentalists. They spend untold millions lobbying the government to protect the environment and they get nothing. And with that money they could have just bought the land/fauna as a conservation society and prosecuted anyone who infringed on their property rights.

 

[MaxPower]

A very well-articulated point on Stewart's part; I think he's begun to half-believe it.

 

[matt0611]

Where in the Constitution does it give the federal government the authority to build our schools?

State governments are perfectly capable of building most roads and bridges.

How can this lady be so dumb?

 

[JuicyG]

+rep. I use this argument all the time against environmentalists. They spend untold millions lobbying the government to protect the environment and they get nothing. And with that money they could have just bought the land/fauna as a conservation society and prosecuted anyone who infringed on their property rights.

Idea is so original and out of the box, they probably never thought of it.

Or perhaps they can`t think it such terms at all. Environmentalist want global solutions and that is achieved by federal laws and such. They`ll probably tell you, why fight for a small patch when you can have it all.

 

[matt0611]

The question I can't get beyond is this: why do you need government to do works inspired by good intentions or forethought? If people truly believe that we need to do this project to care for those people or build this thing to provide that service.... what prevents them from doing it? Why must government be their tool? Their brush off the alternative to government as absurd, while believing to their core that they can make government an efficient tool for good. It just doesn't make sense.

Yep, this question can be turned around to anything that we have now:

But who will build and maintain our cellular phone networks Jon??!!!! Oh wait, the private sector does that...

But who will build our grocery stores Jon??!!! Oh wait, the private sector does that...

But who will run our totally free online encyclopedia Jon??!!! Oh wait, its done by a non-profit...

But who will run our email systems Jon??!!! Oh wait, its done by the private sector...

....


Just because the government does something people assume it can ONLY be provided by the government. Thank our wonderful public school system Ms Warren loves so much.

 

[LawnWake]

You watched that and you don't think Jon Stewart likes her? The level of denial in our movement sometimes frightens me.

Ehhh, I agree, but I don't think he's that bad. He does greatly respect her and agrees with her, but from the way he talks, it does seem like he's at the very least THINKING about Paul's position and doesn't rule it out. He doesn't fully agree, but he sees and somewhat understands our point of view, but I think he's just not convincef of how applicable 'our ideas' truly are.

He may get there eventually. He is a pro-regulations kind of guy because he's been fed the same pro-government kool-aid all of us are fed, but he's a critical thinker.

 

[Muwahid]

Warren isn't evil, I don't think. Her intentions, as Jon Stewart mentioned at the end, seem ridiculously pure. If every Democrat in politics, if every government worker and if everyone even associated with public "service" were more like her, things probably wouldn't stink as much as they do now.

If you sense that a big, hairy "but" is coming... you're right.

...but well-intentioned people like her are trying to make apples fall up. Human nature is human nature, and economic law is economic law. As Friedman said, spending one person's money on projects for a third person is always going to be inefficient. Even with good intentions and excellent managerial skills, it's impossible to get beyond that. In that regard, the Founders had the right idea - push government down to the most local level possible where the people heavily invested in a project are the ones who will reap the fruits of success or bear the burden of failure. The federal government was never intended to do the things we currently ask of it, and basic laws of nature make waste and graft a certainty.

I kind of disagree and agree because, it's not nice of me to say because I feel this cause is worthy, I want everyone to pay for it whether they like it or not. If they want to allocate their money some way they can do it, forcing people to do it is theft. If you go on the streets and ask the average apolitical person things like "Do you think everyone should have healthcare", they'll almost always say yes because they're not thinking about who what when where and how.

Liberals are good at the feel good stuff everyones equal, jobs for all (even if they're govt jobs), roads, schools, bridges, the list goes on, they sound good until you think of what's behind it, until you think of "how". We have to bite the bullet and draw the line in the sand to what we'll allow the government to do FOR US - and if they do something for us WE ALL AGREE ON IT through our representatives which is why the state governments are so attractive, it's the most direct control a populace gets over their legislative branch.

Conservatives take a lot of heat for saying we need to cut things like dept of education, EPA, and these things BY DEFAULT we "assume" are good. Liberals think the ends justify the means. I like how Penn says it



Liberals skew information purposely like "we'll have no future, we'll go back to the stone ages" etc.. I'm sure they're well intentioned, but they're lying for an agenda.

So I feel like they're lying (which is abhorrent imo) - but I think they think its ok for their cause.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Yeah right. She outlines the problem and dismisses the solution. Her angle is 'elect me and i'll make the bureaucracy efficient'

Yeah, she says "accountability" will offset inefficiency. Really? She states that as a fact, when it is nothing more than a dream, Where is the accountability today? Where has it been? It doesn't exist in government, and there is nothing she can do about that. It will never exist! Our world is awash in the hypotheses of well intentioned fools. Her hypothesis somehow bypasses ever being a theory, and it gets treated as a fact. Wrong.

She states that the solution to bad government projects is not to decrease funding. By definition, if it has failed, any additional funding is an increase in funding. What she wants to do is reward failure with more funds. This is not unique to government, and it also happens quite often in large corporations. It has more to do with budgets that can easily expend due to the perception that there is more than enough money to spend, and it can be had one way or another. Small businesses that operate this way go out of business. Large, connected corporations and their government partners can continue indefinitely with the power of regulation, taxation and money printing.

 

[Matthew5]

I used to actually like this woman. I can't believe how much of a statist/socialist I was before I was awake.

Kudos for Jon bringing up a good point!

 

[bolil]

Yeah it makes sense, because we are all people, and thankfully our altruistic government helps us all take care of each other. Cause if someone on the west coast doesn't have a bridge, they might fall in the water and then the person on the east coast will have to pay more to fish them out. (Note satire).

 

[tajitj]

This woman is a complete airhead. She has no idea what she is even trying to communicate.

 

[tttppp]

Thing is some people can`t even conceive government doesn`t need to take care of roads and bridges and other things.

Both Obama and this Warren figure keep on mentioning China this and China that. China is building lots of infrastructure, China is subsidizing lots of green tech, China is blah blah. Wtf? Since when is US taking China as role model of central planning. Seems like they want to follow in their footsteps or something.

China also has a lot less regulations.

 

[KingNothing]

Yeah, she says "accountability" will offset inefficiency. Really? She states that as a fact, when it is nothing more than a dream,

That's the thing I don't get. She says that as if no one ever thought of it before. She thinks she's going to walk in, tell people her dream and they'll respond with something like "OH! Accountability! WOW! What a great idea! We haven't even thought about trying that yet!"

How many times are people going to fall for that garbage?

 

[KingNothing]

It's also funny to me that things are so absurd now, all we really, really, really want to accomplish is to stop spending a trillion-dollars a year on foreign policy, stop giving corpoations hundreds of billions of dollars, overturn the handout to the insurance industry that Obamacare is, peal back some of the most cumbersome regulations, prosecute financial criminals, stop prosecuting non-violent drug users, and shed some light on what the Fed is doing. ......if we just did those things......

sigh...

I mean, if we just did those things, would ANY average American even be hurt in ANY way? These aren't irrational or absurd changes. And they're really the only changes a Paul administration would bring us. People would still have roads. Schools wouldn't be bulldozed. Social Security and welfare checks would be mailed on time. And we wouldn't destroy our future, as Warren implies. It bothers me so much that people create this strawman of libertarians/anarchists/Paulites that we expect radical transformation immediately and will settle for nothing less than complete upheaval of society. It's a noble goal, sure. But Christ, wouldn't every single one of us just be happy to accomplish the things I outlined above? Wouldn't most of America's major problems be solved? And we wouldn't have to fire thousands of teachers, kick sick kids out of hospital beds, or sell off the roads to do it.

It's sad that liberals scoff so vehemently at this.

 

[LukeP]

He's catching on, I'm telling you.

 

[TheTexan]

That's the thing I don't get. She says that as if no one ever thought of it before. She thinks she's going to walk in, tell people her dream and they'll respond with something like "OH! Accountability! WOW! What a great idea! We haven't even thought about trying that yet!"

How many times are people going to fall for that garbage?

Accountability.. meaning if the government fails to do its job, the government gets fired? NICE I LIKE THAT IDEA!!

I have a laundry list of things the government has a sworn oath to do but has failed to do, where's her accountability now?

 

[KingNothing]

Accountability.. meaning if the government fails to do its job, the government gets fired? NICE I LIKE THAT IDEA!!

I have a laundry list of things the government has a sworn oath to do but has failed to do, where's her accountability now?

"Accountability" and "Change" and "Ending Business as Usual" have got to be the three most common words or phrases that politicians use when campaigning. The common theme running through all variants of progressivism, socialism, communism, etc is that now, finally, we WILL do it different this time! ....and they never do. The same failures are repeated time and time again and no one is held accountable. No change comes. Business as usual continues. Warren has good intentions, no doubt. But she's got to be either ridiculously arrogant, ignorant or narcissistic to think she can do what's never been done: if good intentions, intelligence and managerial expertise could do the job, things wouldn't be as bad as they are now.

The thing Paul has done better than anyone since... umm... well... maybe ever... is get people to ask questions like "should the federal government even be doing this? Is it legal for the federal government to do this? Oh, could a state handle it more efficiently? Hm. Wait, would no government involvement here actually be best?" He's made it so that people who ask that question can still be viewed as having good intentions. That is extremely significant, and Stewart really highlighted that point in the interview.

 

[mac_hine]

This interview reminded me of this article I read today...

...We try to explain on a regular basis how these fear-based promotions work and why they are so important to the control that a tiny group of humans exercises over others. The creation of a narrative is perhaps the most important part of an elite's toolkit when it comes to controlling others.

War and military conquest can create a temporary circumference of control, but to ensure that a population is not only pacified but actively engaged in its own enslavement it is necessary to create sociopolitical narratives that steer whole societies in certain directions.

The main narrative that the modern Anglosphere power elite is concerned with is the one that emphasizes the necessity of the state. The elite's fear-based dominant social themes inevitably present problems that can only be solved by state authority. These memes, in the modern day, are funded by control of central banks that give a tiny handful of families and their associates and enablers access to trillions.

Yet the problems are just as phony as the solutions. Today's problems such as the so-called war on terror, global warming or various impending scarcities (of food, water and oil) all tend to collapse into charades when one examines them closely. In fact, they were never created to stand up to scrutiny. The whole command-and-control strategy was created pre-Internet, and is, perhaps, collapsing post-Internet.

They are not, in fact, what they seem, but are elaborate shadow-plays that have been developed and propagated in order to manipulate entire populations into feeling cowed and generally fearful. The antidote to such fears, of course, is the authoritarian state.

Read more...

UN Tackles Mental Disorders: Supervise World Sanity Via 'People's Charter for Mental Health?' http://thedailybell.com/3541/UN-Tac...anity-With-Peoples-Charter-for-Mental-Health-

 

[milo10]

In maybe 5 years, I could easily see Jon Stewart going from being an open-minded progressive to basically a libertarian.