There are a myriad of problems this country faces, but there are seven steps we could easily do that would go a long way toward fixing them.
Political reform:
- Stop the legalized bribery that has rotted our political system: revitalize public campaign financing. The campaign finance system started in the ’70s was slowly gutted during the ’80s and ’90s, and by 2000 Bush chose to forgo the pittance of public campaign funding so he wouldn’t have to conform to the rules that govern use of such moneys. Remember the snippet of tax form 1040 where you can donate money to the presidential campaign out of the tax you owe? Those two boxes labelled “You” and “Spouse” should be labelled “Check here if you want to kick in a little dough to keep the presidential campaign honest” and “Check here is you don’t give a shit”. Politicians listen to those who finance their election campaigns; they’ve been listening to businesses for years, and they’ve been ignoring the public. It’s time to change that.
- Vote. Get out and get other people register to vote.
- Force states to redistrict their congressional districts according to the law–compact and contiguous districts, instead of the creative cutout-shaped districts that favor one party or the other.
Economic reform:
- The Bush tax cuts were a disaster recognized back in 2003 when they materialized. When you give tax cuts to the lower- and middle-class, people will spend it, thus increasing demand and encouraging the industrial base to grow. When you give tax cuts to the rich, they’ll either invest the money in an industrial infrastructure that doesn’t need it (because economic times are bad) or they’ll save it since they don’t need to spend it.
- Use government money to create jobs and bolster the social infrastructure (much as Obama’s Recovery Act program did). Just be careful that a lot of that money doesn’t end up as pork for Congresscritters.
- End corporation welfare. Force corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.
- Outlaw the shelter of American corporation profits in mail-drop shell companies in the Bahamas and the Grant Caymans.
On another page on your website you refer to “Me and Ayn Rand”. Reading that one might come away with the idea that you are a libertarian. Your attack on the nonsense of the injection of religion into politics, (small government and no abortions) is consistent with that theme.
But on this page I am registering a bit of contradiction. As Ayn Rand would say, whenever you find a contradiction, check your premises because one of them is wrong.
Any person who has read Atlas shrugged will know that Ayn Rand was totally against your proposal to use government money to bolster social infrastructure. This is about as anti-libertarian anti-objectivist and anti Ayn Rand as you can get.
You cannot be for liberty and an enlarged government funded social infrastructure at the same time, any more than you can be for limited government and no abortions at the same time. Both represent a contradiction and neither come from libertarian principles or objectivist philosophy.
As I’ve mentioned before, Rand’s objectivism would be a perfect moral code in which to live — if the world were full of nothing but angels. Unfortunately, it is not. Also, since humans are social animal with a requirement of a social network in which to live, it is necessary to support those less fortunate members of society.
It is also necessary to pool money for common economic necessities — roads, police and fire protection, medical coverage, etc. — so that all residents enjoy a certain level of security and living standard. (I for one am uncomfortable living comfortably in the same society as starving, sick children.)
Thanks for the explanation. I am sorry I had just stumbled on your site yesterday so I may have missed your previous explanations about societies of angels etc.
I am not sure how much detail I should go into in responding as I can see that philosophically we have a distance between us. And since I am not a troll I will not put my nose into areas where I am not welcome.
Still you have been good enough to put this website up for discussion and to respond to my post so I would like to address yours briefly.
Your post reminds me of one I received from a good friend of mine recently, also like you and I, an atheist who abhors religion, especially in politics. This I think the three of us have in common.
My friend posted that socialism develops naturally out of capitalism and accepting that capitalism is the engine for productivity and growth in economies she noted that it is the basis and necessary precursor to socialism. In her words, capitalism provides the wealth and socialism insures that the wealth is fairly distributed. Now to be fair, this friend of mine is Canadian and by socialism she did not mean anything like the Soviet Union or Cuba but more she was alluding to the mixed economies of western Europe as the ideal.
It struck me that your world without sick and starving children that also accepts the basic ideas of Ayn Rand has a parallel to the world that my friend alluded to.
This is far from a radical concept as it is the basis of all democratic mixed economies since the time of Keynes. But I would argue that there is nothing about this that has anything to do with the philosophies of Ayn Rand (Objectivism) except that it is exactly opposite to them. In fact Ayn Rand specifically addressed the concept of the mixed economy both in her novel “Atlas Shrugged” and in her outline of her philosophy. She referred to the path you suggest as trying to have your cake and eat it too. Objectivism does not require everyone to be an angel, just for some. Perhaps most to act rationally. Ironically the government infrastructure that you would promote actually may increase the incidence of starving and sick children as it creates perverse inducements and incentives for people to act in ways which are ultimately against their best interests(You can refer to the book ”Freakanomics”)
If you do not believe that Ayn Rand has a philosophy that is useful and applicable that is fine. I am sorry it just seemed to me at first blush that you did.
Funny how you go on about voting. Do you realise that the law of averages dictates that a 100% voting population would make almost ZERO difference to the results?