The independent states of America

[Yanoda]

Yanoda, you may have to spell out the logical consequences of such a setup for them. For example, the problems that might come from having a police force that only protects the rich.

That is why I proposed this as an experiment for a city to implement. Since this form of policy or society was never truly implemented, we do not know how it would properly function or how the exact effects are.
I would actually support an experiment to be conducted this way. Then we would know if having little to no government and letting the private sector take care of everything would be possible and maintainable, or we would see that this form of policy/society isn't possible and that it is just a baseless concept several people advocate.

Since several (not all) conservatives keep advocating such policies, why not let them perform this in a City where most of the inhabitants are willing to partake?

I'm sure there would be several supporters (even in our community).

Cheers

Yanoda

[THEWULFMAN]

The levels of stupid are so high, I don't know which to respond to. Crater answered a lot of them.

Black. Just a note, every time you burst into "Hahahahah" laughter I believe you aren't trolling just a little bit less. Also, of course you'll say you aren't trolling. Only bad trolls admit they are trolling.

You advocated for raising our military budget and cut funding to programs like PBS. You realize that dropping the funds to PBS wouldn't even buy you a fighter jet? A single last generation fighter jet mind you. You also realize our military budget is bloated with tons of stuff we don't need?

Pi... you realize Saudi Arabia is an ally of ours... right? :S

[[m'kay]]

The levels of stupid are so high, I don't know which to respond to. Crater answered a lot of them.

Black. Just a note, every time you burst into "Hahahahah" laughter I believe you aren't trolling just a little bit less. Also, of course you'll say you aren't trolling. Only bad trolls admit they are trolling.

You advocated for raising our military budget and cut funding to programs like PBS. You realize that dropping the funds to PBS wouldn't even buy you a fighter jet? A single last generation fighter jet mind you. You also realize our military budget is bloated with tons of stuff we don't need?

Pi... you realize Saudi Arabia is an ally of ours... right? :S

To be fair, Saudi Arabia isn't exactly governed by nice people. We turn a blind eye to more and more heinous tortures every day, much less the state of the general population. Not saying we should nuke them, but having them as allies is a bit questionable. Of course, we still need the oil, so until the day that Saudi Arabia feels comfortable enough with the strength of the Arab world, we'll be buddies with them. But there isn't really much loyalty there to speak of. Right now, we're just a really, really good customer.

[{JOG}Black]

To be perfectly honest, I realize that we can't use nuclear weapons because we'd get them right back in our face. We'd have to destroy every other country to be perfectly safe, which we clearly have the power to do, but it'd be killing billions of people.

PBS needs to go regardless. Social security needs to be privatized, not liberalized (nobamacare). That right there would solve half of our problems.

I understand what stimulus is, hater from a few posts back, but it doesn't work on such a large scale.

Here's a scary stat that's true : we've promised more money in social security payments than there is or ever has been money in the ENTIRE WORLD. Thanks, liberals.

[[m'kay]]

Haha, yes, we could totally destroy every other country with nukes. Do you seriously not have any clue what Mutually Assured Destruction means? It's not a complicated concept. Hell, I would honestly expect a ten year old to be able to rattle off some rudimentary version of it. And yeah, really got a sense of how empathetic you are with "oh but it'd be killing billions of people so that's bad". I almost couldn't tell you were paying lip service! Hold on, let me get my cat to see if he can sniff out your [poo] too.


ok my cat has seized up and is frothing at the mouth, i'm pretty sure he's either pissed or dead


[m'kay] you cat killer

[Hobo]

Privatized health care... Hmmm..... Since health care is a somewhat limited resource, who should decide who gets health care and who doesn't? If I lived in Yanoda's fake city with 5 cancer doctors and there are 30 people with cancer, 99 percent of the people make an income of around 50000 per year but one person is a millionaire. So should that one millionaire get all five doctors while the other 29 die because they don't have as much money? Is that how we want access to health care decided?

[Mandalore]

Well, at the very least this was fun to read.

As for responding to the claims that the Iraqi invasion was for oil....that would make sense if America actually just took the oil. Most of the auctions of Iraq's oil fields did not go to American firms and they were shown no preference in the beginning. Oil has increased in price over the past decade. And to say that invading Iraq was unjustified, I'm sure that you could find a few ethnic and religious groups there who are pretty happy he's gone. Saddam was a mass murderer who threatened the stability of the region overall, even if he did stabilize Iraq itself. And speaking of stability, this is the entire reason the US is deployed in the fashion that it is. Taking our troops home, while an ideal solution is just a very bad strategic move. Removing our guarantees of countries' independence, or our usual practical version of this (I.E. moving fleets near Taiwan) would create huge holes of instability across the world.

Having a plutocratic society has already been seen....asking whether or not they succeed or fail has already been demonstrated. The gilded age in America in particular showed entire towns run by companies and it was a [m'kay] mess. Pre-revolutionary France, where the wealth was amassed in the hands of less 3% of the population. But you know what, [m'kay] it, lets just do that and hope the rich guys really do care about us! Because they always have in the past, right?

And Crater was right about gold just being a fiat currency. True currency in an apocalyptic situation is power, so buy some AKs with your gold nuggets. Fun fact, Rome also dug a huge hole in itself by inflation (via the silver mines of Spain)

And let's throw out PBS which costs us less than a tenth of a percent of our federal budget, because [m'kay] education. That's why. Everyone knows that the countries' with the weakest middle class were always the ones that succeeded? Oh, what's that history? That's completely wrong? Well [m'kay] you too, I'm right because I said so!

As for government spending, I do believe that social security needs to be gradually privatized. For one it will increase domestic investment, secondly SS was never meant to really have turned out this way. It pretty much started out as a scam, seeing as most people wouldn't even really live to see the benefits of it when it was implemented (1935 I believe, right in there somewhere). We also currently outpace every country country in the world by military spending, I'm not quite sure I can make the claim that we outspend them all combined, so I won't outright claim that. But we're close. I'm also not sure how the money is spent, but I would guess that quite a significant amount is spend on research and development which could be cut or spread out to NATO allies in Western Europe (the only region of our massive military presence that doesn't truly need it)

I think there were some people talking about that golden boy of conservatism Ronald Reagan. I'm not sure why he's held in such high esteem by the far right, seeing as he was far more moderate than they are. Ever take a peek at his immigration reform? Plus during his reign he increased government spending, and ended up doubling the deficit he started with. The only economic successes he enjoyed were the reduction of inflation and the reduction of unemployment (which was a natural trend, seeing as the unemployment level hovered around 10% when he took office).

The problem with healthcare costs is twofold. For one, the costs of training doctors hovers around $300,000. This is in part due to the fact that the supply of money to the market is already assured by the government, thus allowing universities to jack up their prices with relative comfort. Reduce the amount of government assured loans and you'll see the price of universities start to fall just due to the fact that their market will start dissipating. Secondly are the regulations placed upon the health care industry, and I'll throw the malpractice insurance rates under that category too. Americans have begun to see the imperfection of humanity as a sign to sue, sue, sue!

[(=DK=)Samonuh]

It would be nice to get rid of countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan, indeed.

Why? Do you enjoy eliminating thousands of years of culture? Every nation has had its flaws in leadership. The Middle East is currently going through theirs. No need to single them out and ignore the many contributions those nations have given to science and literature...

[(SWGO)SirPepsi]

To be perfectly honest, I realize that we can't use nuclear weapons because we'd get them right back in our face. We'd have to destroy every other country to be perfectly safe, which we clearly have the power to do, but it'd be killing billions of people.

PBS needs to go regardless. Social security needs to be privatized, not liberalized (nobamacare). That right there would solve half of our problems.

I understand what stimulus is, hater from a few posts back, but it doesn't work on such a large scale.

Here's a scary stat that's true : we've promised more money in social security payments than there is or ever has been money in the ENTIRE WORLD. Thanks, liberals.

You do realise that if Social Security were immediately privatised, it would be at the mercy of the market. If, God forbid, the DOW crashed, then billions of dollars in paid income to be used later immediately dissapears. The goal of a private company is to make money, whereas the government just has to (or would like to) break even. This means private companies are more likely to take risks with their money, make bad investments, or lose it in some scandalous affair. It's not unlikely. The chances for fraud would be overwhelmingly present.

[Yanoda]

Privatized health care... Hmmm..... Since health care is a somewhat limited resource, who should decide who gets health care and who doesn't? If I lived in Yanoda's fake city with 5 cancer doctors and there are 30 people with cancer, 99 percent of the people make an income of around 50000 per year but one person is a millionaire. So should that one millionaire get all five doctors while the other 29 die because they don't have as much money? Is that how we want access to health care decided?

Unfortunately, that is what several people would want it to be. Why lot let them perform this and see if this would really occur and then they would understand the issues about privatized health-care. Though there is a possibility may also be beneficial. We would never know the true effects until this is implemented properly.

Cheers

Yanoda