And please, don’t try to put yourself out there as an intellectual by referring to peer reviewed work. I DO have a PhD and I actually DO understand what it takes to obtain one-in science, NOT social studies. I HAVE read many social studies. The claims and data are all dependent on the viewpoint of the author, as it is impossible to apply scientific principles to political events in history. This is why I don’t care that someone has a PhD in whatever social “science” you can name. Anyone in that world who is honest would be the first to tell you that there is little of science behind any of it. They pose interesting questions and make interesting arguments that should spark honest debate (if it weren’t for the fools claiming everyone who doesn’t agree with them is a racist/sexist/homophobe,etc), but very little of what they claim is reflective of an opinion that did not exist at the beginning of the study. In this, there is a large difference between social sciences and true sciences in the biological and physical realms. There are few preexisting opinions in those fields that have to do with opinion shored up by cherry picked incidences and like minded scholars.
I always love when liberals claim that people flee to this country because we created the bad people in their countries that forced them to come here. Have you ever actually spoken to some of those immigrants? Do you think for one second that THEY blame the US? Most of them would completely disagree with you. And before you go shooting off your mouth through your keyboard, I DO work with patients that are from those countries. I have lived in South America. Your parroting this ridiculous claim shows how truly shallow your understanding is. Or are you, like many liberals I have interacted with, going to claim that those poor people don’t even know what the US did in their countries. That’s okay…they didn’t think that was paternalistic either, so you’re in good company. You’re liberal, therefore, you CAN’T be racist.
Social programs for the poor aren’t bankrupting our country and that claim is just silly? Really? Most of every tax dollar is going directly to social programs. We are now going nearly 1.6 trillion dollars into debt past our already ridiculous budget every year, yet we aren’t bankrupting ourselves and we just need to take more from the “rich”? I know, that means anyone who makes one dollar more than you do. I’ve never actually heard a liberal commit to any dollar amount more that they are willing to cede to the government to then redistribute to the poor. Turns out that even you morons believe that you can do a better job of deciding where your charitable giving should go, but that theory never applies to anyone else. And, since you seem to know so much about where all our tax dollars are going, you top all of this tirade off with that same, tired old straw man you see in the military. Why don’t we just do away with the military altogether? If we would just get rid of the military, then nobody would want to attack us or do bad things to the US, right? Your comprehension of how the world works and the US economic system is so shallow it’s pathetic. Forget about the argument of whether the military is necessary. Just look at the economics. You could take every single dollar from the military and add every scrap of income from those who make more than $250,000 per year and you STILL couldn’t come close to paying off the social programs that are completely bankrupting us.
So where does that leave you? You’re still little more than negativity with a mouth and an ability to type. Please, apply these principles to your own life, but you can’t stop there. You just can’t-you’re liberal. That means that everything you think should be codified into punitive law against anyone who doesn’t agree. Good luck with that. I guess for someone who hates the US as much as you do, the worst thing is to have to live here knowing in your heart that evil always wins.

“Fair market value”? See postwar Florida. In fact, see all of twentieth century Florida. From massive land giveaways to the surreptitious way Disney snagged most of Central Florida. 

Capitalism was not “created.” It has developed slowly over time. It has never been one particular way and never will be. It is not any more natural than any other historical modes of living. As for contracts, today most people sign a contract when they work for a particular business. And those contracts are embedded within preexisting structres, particularly legal structures–tax laws, labor laws, contract law, etc. Markets, whether labor or real estate or whatever, do no exist without organized forms of power. Today we have the nation state, which will probably (possibly) give way to private corporate states. Think Disney World writ large. But who knows, we’ll probably be dead before any like that happens. 

As for land use: I was exaggerating to prove a point. My point was that “freedoms” often conflict. When your freedom to do as you please curtails my freedom to do as I please, the state writes laws that more than likely limit both of our freedoms. While you might scoff at the simplicity, it’s a fundamental and philosophical issue we have to keep in mind when we consider what “freedom” and “liberty” mean. Connecting to this to real estate–anyone who lives in deed restricted communities knows what I am talking about. 

Honor and integrity. If I did, I did not mean to suggest our society as never had honorable people or done honorable things. But I think we need to be critical and recognize that we as a country have blood on our hands. And mind you, no other country at its inception has set forth such lofty ideals in its constitution (an admirable thing, yes), so while we should be proud we should recognize how badly we have gone astray at times in the past and how the past still haunts us today. I am not even going to get into the racial argument. If you can’t admit that the legacies of slavery, Jim Crow segregation in the South, defacto residential segregation in the North (remember racial covenants?), electoral disfranchisement, profoundly affect contemporary American society and culture, then   you just having been paying attention. Much the same can be said about discrimination against women. As for the sociological data on upward mobility. It’s all there. Look it up. Read a book. More than one. Just because you “think” or “feel” things are a particular way, doesn’t mean they are. Congratulations on your success. But you aren’t representative. I don’t care if you can cite other examples. They are not representative. Simply saying that studies are biased and the data is wrong or misleading is not an argument. Income inequality is higher than it has ever been since the Great Depression. We can debate why that is all night long, but it doesn’t change the facts.

Yes people do come here for opportunities and they succeed. But emigration is on the wane. And besides, the most successful immigrant groups and their descendants were those who came before the quota system ended in 1965. Since then migration streams have largely come from Mexico and Latin America and, yes, parts of Asia. Most of the emigres came alone, work as low-paid fruit and veggie pickers, domestics, janitors, or in the chicken processing plants spread across the South. And most of those people have not just been “pulled” here by economic factors. They have been “pushed” by wars in their own country (El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua) that the U.S. helped fund. We have a bad record of financially and militarily supporting dictatorial, often “puppet” regimes, whether in Vietnam, Venezuela, Guat, Nicaragua, El Salvador, etc. The reasons many people flee here is because our neoliberal and imperialist policies have created the conditions in their countries that force them to flee for better opportunities. 

Your equation of poor people on fed aid with zoo animals is pathetic. 

Fed aid doesn’t just come in the form of money for poor people. What about the invasion of a country and then the granting of no-bid contracts to corporate entities like Halliburton to rebuild those countries. That’s fed aide…AND WE PAY FOR IT. Tax exemptions for oil companies? fed aid. 

This whole “poor people” are bankrupting the country is just silly. Poor people didn’t crash the economy. Sure, many were given loans that could never repay. But that was because the buyers and sellers and investors of mortgage backed securities were making tons of money and they didn’t want the gravy train to stop. And the risk was so spread out and insured that making a bad loan for short term profit wasn’t discouraged. And yes, the fed govt played a huge role in all of this and should be criticized. But not poor people. Why don’t we pull out of our wars, deconstruct many or most or all of our hundreds of military installations throughout the world, end stupid and unnecessary tax deductions like the homeowner deduction, and see where we are. It probably won’t enough. We don’t have good jobs. That’s really the ultimate problem. Where are they going to come from? Enough of them to put the masses to work? Working at Wal-Mart (our biggest employer) will not do it. Don’t blame the unions or the environmentalists either. Blame globalization and all that it entails.

Your analysis of land use is WAY off the mark. There is no comparison between the feudal system you describe and land ownership in the US today. Even when there were only a few land owners, it was because the land was first acquired by a nation state, then ownership transferred to a few to begin the process of building, then, eventually developing over centuries to what it is today. There is no large conglomerate that owns land today, excepting the state and federal governments, which practice is allowed under the constitution. Interstate and foreign commerce is regulated by the federal government through the authority of Article I, Section 8 of the constitution. Additionally, so far as land use, Draxx can answer for himself what he meant by that, but I seriously doubt that he was stating that he has the right to poison his neighbors.

You frighten me, HayMrkt, when you ask, “If you’re super rich, should you be able to buy as much land as you want?” What, exactly, is super rich? Who gets to decide when someone else has enough? You? A committee? What if someone decides that YOU don’t get to participate in free enterprise because you make more money than they do? Even the super rich have to PURCHASE the land. They are paying market value for land and if someone doesn’t want to sell it, they don’t have to, except when the land is needed by federal and state governments for highway projects, government installations, etc. And they still have to pay fair market value for the land and have the right to dispute the government’s position in court. Or is it your belief that only the poor and lower middle class should be allowed to own land?

Capitalism does not fail when there is not a formal, negotiated contract. There is an implied, functional contract between an employer and anyone who “sells” their labor. Or are you intimating that capitalism was designed to only function between individuals selling trinkets? How exactly does business function without employees that are paid an agreed upon price for the commodity of labor? I am completely confused by the rest of that paragraph as it sounded like an economic lesson for 3rd graders. Was it your understanding of what Draxx said that he was advocating anarchy or didn’t understand that the constitution provides for the establishment of courts and the making of laws?

I find it ridiculous that you claim that our nation has never had a scrap of honor or that we historically believed in honor. Honesty, integrity, sacrifice, altruism, loyalty, kindness…none of these have ever existed in the United States according to you. Instead, we “annihilated the natives who roamed the land before the white people, we enslaved millions and segregated people by race and ethnicity. Apparently, you believe that not only were those things supported by everyone, but that all benefited from the enslavement and encroachment on native peoples, etc. Why are these things not occurring today in our nation? Those things ARE happening in Asia, eastern Europe, Africa, the middle east and other regions of the world, but not here. Yes, the original constitution preserved slavery, but the founding fathers who hated the idea also insisted on the ability to amend the constitution, mainly because of their foresight that if the document was not able to be changed, that these practices could never be completely removed without the complete dissolution of the Union or the scrapping of the founding document. I suppose that all of those who died defending the Union during the Civil War were also supporters of the continuation of slavery by the South, according to you. I suppose that all of those who continued that struggle into the 21st century were also evil and that the civil rights movement never occurred. Of course, we’re all evil in this country, right, so there must be a conspiracy even in these movements, correct?
I don’t have a clue where you have obtained your information, although I recognize the same tripe that was peddled to me in public school, college, professional school and graduate school. You claim that all sociological data proves that most people barely move beyond the sociological condition of their birth. Really? It’s a RARITY to have someone become successful if they weren’t born into economic prosperity? I’m so happy that you seem to be able to predict the future for all of those pathetic children who would have been so much better off in your opinion, had they never been born into the horror that is life in the United States today. The fact of the matter is that most of those studies are not scientific and are highly influenced by the bias of the researchers asking the questions. The truth of the matter is that success is and always has been in this nation a matter of will, work ethic and utilization of talent. There is no great conspiracy to keep the poor right where they started. I came from poverty far below the norm, yet I used this very formula to rise to success and I am by no means rare in the consideration of those who use choose to use their own will, work ethic and talent to better themselves and their families. Those who choose to do this are always in the minority, whether historically or currently, because the combination of those three character traits is not often utilized because of the determination and work involved. And frankly, not everyone is equal. Not everyone has the ability to become a surgeon or a successful businessman or woman or other highly lucrative careers. But ANYONE can improve their lot in life in this nation. If not, then why in the world would millions of people from all over the world sacrifice everything to come here? If they have been told a big lie, then they would not only go home, they would inform others of the lie. But that’s not what happens. They come willingly and by the millions, risking deportation and imprisonment in order to come here. Many return over and over again, even after being repeatedly deported. The fact that many do not act to improve themselves IS reflective of the growing sense of entitlement in this country. You can claim that we don’t do enough to help the poor, but you would be a fool to do so.

We are bankrupting our nation in order to nanny people from birth to death. This has resulted in exactly what we all understand intellectually occurs when we feed wild animals and they become dependent upon humans to provide their food. In the wild, this results in two things 1) pathological dependency that incapacitates and 2) dangerous and aggressive interactions that occur when the “gravy train” is shut down. The most liberal of environmentalists understands why this is harmful, yet they would also be the first to claim that we are not doing enough for the people of this nation. Think we are different from wild animals? Then why are more people not choosing to improve their lot in life? The opportunity is right there in front of them. They may not succeed, but that is not the fault of a conspiracy of white men, it is a result of the character traits I mentioned above. The fact that there is no guarantee of success does not mean that the system is evil. The fact that the welfare roles grow and swell reflects the results of societal nannying. Where there is no opposition and struggle against that opposition, there is no progress and there is no appreciation of the benefits of self determination.

Your claims are not only oversimplified, they are trite. You may have been “nice” about how you said it, but if things are as terrible as you claim, then you should have the integrity to go somewhere where nothing bad has ever happened, people have never been racists, government historically made decisions out of knowledge, integrity, honor and near god-like omnificence. Good luck with that. As depressed and mired in futility as your post illustrates you to be, if you can’t find perfect, then maybe you should seek out the place that offers the highest possibility of achieving what you so blithely dismiss as nonexistent. You do not live in a nation established in perfection, but neither do you live in a nation of hypocrisy, dishonor, hatred, racism and devoid of so many other positive things you not only do not value, you don’t believe ever existed or now exists. You only wish to see the dishonorable and hypocritical. Fine. You go with embracing the philosophy of futility and reap the rewards of that philosophy. I’ll do what I’ve done my entire life-I choose to use my talents and work ethic to honorably do my best and improve the world around me. I know my way works. If I actually believed what you seem to, I’m not certain that I wouldn’t commit suicide.

For example, you assume reasonable people can agree on what is “common sense,” and what is “decent,” what “happiness” means, what “undue regulations” are, yet we know well meaning people (loaded term too) disagree all of the time over any number of issues. 

Land: Most people do not own land. They rent from other people. We could even say that even those that do “own” their own land do not really own it until it’s paid off. Even before the American Revolution much of the available land was already owned by a small handful of people. As the country’s boundaries spread westward, much of the best land was given to the railroads. In southern Cali at the turn of the 20th century most of the land was owned and controlled by a small percentage of the people–a function of the old land-owning system inherited from Mexico after our war with Mexico and of the emergent agribusiness that took hold in the first decades of the 20th century. Jefferson’s yeoman ideal never existed. Especially if you were not white and not a man.

Most people in this country go to work for wages. They sell their labor. Capitalism only works if you have freedom of contract and if those contracts can be enforced, among other things. Enforcing contracts requires laws and therefore lawmakers as well as institutional frameworks for enforcing those laws–courts, etc. A military or police force is also necessary for both domestic and international security. Trade and commerce. Who governs trade laws between states? Between countries? Who handles the redress of grievances?

You mentioned building codes and such. And again, you make a good point about being left alone on your own property, but that idea falls apart when you consider the messy and complicated details of human interaction and market exchange. Maybe you do, but most people do not exist independently of each other. Should you be able to pollute a river on your property that people down the road use for drinking water? What if that river travels through a bunch of states? Countries? Should you be able to burn harmful chemicals on your property that seep into the aquifer or into the atmosphere poisoning and sickening others? If you own a house in a subdivision, should you be able to do anything you want to it to the point that it negatively affects your neighbor’s property value? Is that your right? Is that freedom? If you’re super rich, should you be able to buy as much land as you want? 

In another post from another story, you mentioned how we’ve lost our culture of “honor, integrity, and truth.” I ask not when did we lose it but when did we ever have it? When we annihilated the natives who roamed the land before white people? When we enslaved millions of people? When we segregated people by race and ethnicity? When we carpet bombed Dresden or dropped the atomic bombs on Japan? How do freedom and liberty work into those narratives? Freedom for whom? 

And to end this long rant: Freedom of occupation? The sociological data shows that in today’s U.S. most people barely move beyond the socio-economic condition of their birth. Born poor, you’re most likely going to stay poor. And it works the same for each class level. Sure, we have the rags-to-riches stories but those are not the norm. We take anecdotal evidence as representative of larger truths and that’s just not the case. (I can give you plenty of examples of people who won the lottery–people win all the time–but that doesn’t change the fact that you still have a one and a gazillion shot at winning.)

I hope I wasn’t disrespectful or rude. I too oversimplified much of what I wrote. Things are complicated. But we have to think about these things. An ideal world, like the one GB thinks he’s going to build, is as utopian as soviet communism. There has never been a “free market.” And when it was at it’s “freest” (if you can call it that) it rested on the unpaid labor of millions of slaves. 

Freedom – Lack of Restrictions for People as it pertains to Daily Living (i.e.; the ability to use their land for farming, forestry, ranches, hunting, camp grounds, houses (own/rentals), ability to build houses/barns/shops, and to do all of those things without Gov’t Intervention, Permits and/or Licenses.  Some State/Local Taxes of reasonable cost to the owner are acceptable.)

Liberty – Freedom to Pursue Happiness without undue Laws/Regulations, also to include Religion, Career Choice, Choice of Doctor/Nurse/Health Care, Group Affiliations (no crime by association unless the organization commits crimes and you are involved), the ability to Discipline Your Children in civil manner (a spanking is fine as long as it isn’t a beating).

Both of them include the Government Not Making Any Unnecessary Laws That Common Sense & Decency Could Easily Dictate.  (i.e.; Forced Seat Belt & Helmet Laws are something the Individual can take as a personal risk without gov’t intervention.).  Especially if the Sole Purpose of Those Laws Is To Generate Revenue & Criminalize Citizens to further an Agenda That Is Not Specifically Called For By The MAJORITY of Citizens As Necessary for the Survival of the Citizens and/or Country.