The problem with debate right now is that the scope is too limited, and the people debating are too badly educated or informed. Debate with someone you really disagree with, an enemy, is stressful, even risky. It's always far easier to retreat into the protected enclave of people that agree with you most. In that enclave, though, the information you get and what you see are easily orchestrated. Results, there is no real debate within the enclave, as its perhaps unwritten rules of membership would prevent challenge. Besides, it's also there to provide fellowship, protection and relief from the contentiousness. Meanwhile, between the enclaves there is no debate, just name calling, or devices aimed at converting the neutral.
With these enclaves, we are divided up into market demographics even in our politics, and issues are sold to us, and we buy them, and can never connect them to each other.
I favor the Democrats to the Republicans because I know that even if I attempted to embrace the Republicans, they would show me the door at the soonest opportunity.
.. I was struck by, and commented on the posts about failures and successes earlier. In all fairness, it is important to note that the liberal successes often occur because liberals see goveernment as providing a capacity to develop public goods (roads, fda, space program, ...). Their record of being able to do this over the years has been good and deserves praise.
Conservatives, ohn the other hand, recognize that governments can fail (and badly) in developing programs {The great society, war on poverty, ...). They also know that the taxes necessary to pay for these programs funnel money out of the private sector and reduce innovation. My read of conservative successes are things they have eliminated or reduced and lowered tax rates. For my liberal friends on this board (and fellow Kerry Voters), remember that President Kennedy proposed and passed a tax cut during the early part of his administration to revitalize the economy.
I for one, hope the government gets more divided after the next election cycle and that we regenerate a more healthy debate between both these camps.
I'm sorry, Harry, that Kennedy tax cut was the beginning of the unravelling of this nation. It's not that taxes weren't too high, a contention in which I would agree, it's that the entire purpose of the progressive income tax had not been for revenue. It was to keep the rich from getting richer and keep the poor from getting poorer. It was one way the United States kept Marxism from gaining a foothold, and it kept the country relatively stable while Europe was hit by convulsions.
Let me tell you what happened when Kennedy cut taxes, and this has not been noted anywhere else. After the cuts, money began to flow into candidates campaigns and lobbying took off like never before. Why? Because as more wealth was allowed, the rich began to fix the laws and bias the government so they could grow richer. Then Reagan cut taxes, especially for the rich. Suddenly donations and lobbying went into hyperdrive. Now Bush has cut taxes, unequally biased to the rich. And guess what? He's probably the most successful fundraiser ever. Attempts at campaign finance reform are doomed, because they attack free speech and ignore the root of the problem, which resulted from either cutting or sabotaging what was originally a device to prevent class stratification. Now the tax system is actually regressive.
The idea of a progressive tax came into being before the world was affected much by Marxism: it's a very old idea. While some of the political advantages to progressive taxes are as you describe, there is a solid economic basis for the idea (See the papers by James Ramsey from the 1920s -- BTW, one of the most brilliant men who ever lived).
I'm sure you know American history well enough to know that paying off politicians was occuring long before tax cuts. I would say that lobbying in DC is the consequence of the growth in the size of businesses in the US -- it made economic sense to develop a K street.
Good points. But none of them are in any way contradictory or excluding of the arguments I made. A progressive tax system can predate Marxism, and yet still be used to undercut its appeal.
As for citing "the growth in the size of business," this describes accurately a symptom rather than a cause. Business size grew because the rich were once again allowed to grow richer. The fact supports my point, and doesn't contradict it.
As for the "paying off" of politicians, it's different now in that it is an industry in itself, and largely an open and tolerated one, getting teams of politicians to remake massive amounts of rules.
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