Is our Democratic Republic failing us?

[henryclay]

Some would say yes. Others would say our Democraticc part is right on track, because the Republican part of the two words, "Democratic Republic" has been overlooked. So what do the two words mean? Not being a historian, I'll use the descriptions most accessible to us all and provided by Wikipedia:

Democracy is a form of government in which all citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal (and more or less direct) participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law. It can also encompass social, economic and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of political self-determination. The term comes from the Greek: δημοκρατία – (dēmokratía) "rule of the people", which was coined from δ?μος (dêmos) "people" and κράτος (Kratos) "power", in the middle of the 5th-4th century BC to denote the political systems then existing in some Greek city-states, notably Athens following a popular uprising in 508 BC

According to some theories of democracy, popular sovereignty is the founding principle of such a system. However, the democratic principle has also been expressed as "the freedom to call something into being which did not exist before, which was not given… and which therefore, strictly speaking, could not be known." This type of freedom, which is connected to human "natality," or the capacity to begin anew, sees democracy as "not only a political system… [but] an ideal, an aspiration, really, intimately connected to and dependent upon a picture of what it is to be human—of what it is a human should be to be fully human

Lofty words indeed, and while they go on and on about deriving things that have never been known before, none of them come close to the inclusion of individual responsibility. And here is where we will begin to loose people. Individual responsibility to do what? To provide for themselves and families? And how?

To some, providing for one's self and family can be as difficult as getting the forms filled out correctly. To others it might be doing without all the current bells and whisltes while saving for a rainy day.

But in overlooking the "Republican" part of our Democratic Republic" form of government has produced what? Try reading this essay on the country's journey through the last couple hundred years to see if you hear any bells ringing:
www.lewrockwell.com/peirce/peirce12.html

[henryclay]

Perhaps we need to look at ourselves occasionally to measure our part of whatever problems we think has befallen the country. Or, put another way, to make sure our contributions are to prevent those very problems from being worse.

Here's a good startiong point. This is only a starting point.

Thursday, 07 May 2009 22:19
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.

The quote above, attributed to Alexander Tytler (1747-1813), a barrister and professor of history at the Univ. of Edinburgh, Scotland, aptly summarized the hazards of unrestrained democracy.

The Tytler quote is often coupled with a quote by Henning Webb Prentis, Jr., President of the Armstrong Cork Company, from a 1946 speech about the historical cycle of civilizations:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to courage;

from courage to freedom;

from freedom to abundance;

from abundance to selfishness;

from selfishness to complacency;

from complacency to apathy;

from apathy to fear;

from fear to dependency;

and from dependency back to bondage once more.

In an earlier speech, from 1943, "Industrial Management in a Republic," Prentis elaborated on the causes of cycle, and the critical stage between apathy and dependency, warning against the temptation of having the government centrally plan and control the economy:

Paradoxically enough, the release of initiative and enterprise made possible by popular self-government ultimately generates disintegrating forces from within. Again and again after freedom has brought opportunity and some degree of plenty, the competent become selfish, luxury-loving and complacent, the incompetent and the unfortunate grow envious and covetous, and all three groups turn aside from the hard road of freedom to worship the Golden Calf of economic security....

At the stage between apathy and dependency, men always turn in fear to economic and political panaceas. New conditions, it is claimed, require new remedies. Under such circumstances, the competent citizen is certainly not a fool if he insists upon using the compass of history when forced to sail uncharted seas. Usually so-called new remedies are not new at all. Compulsory planned economy, for example, was tried by the Chinese some three milleniums ago, and by the Romans in the early centuries of the Christian era. It was applied in Germany, Italy and Russia long before the present war broke out. Yet it is being seriously advocated today as a solution of our economic problems in the United States. Its proponents confidently assert that government can successfully plan and control all major business activity in the nation, and still not interfere with our political freedom and our hard-won civil and religious liberties. The lessons of history all point in exactly the reverse direction.

[privateinvestor]

Our Democratic Republic failed us on the day President Obama took the oath of office on 15 January 2009, and it may never recover in our lifetime Henry.. Those of us in the late innings or fourth quarter of our lives may never again see our Democratic Republic prosperous and at peace...IMHO

[Deleted]

I',m moving to Norway

[NoMoreLunacy]

Jun 9, 2011 17:58:39 GMT -5 @privateinvestor said:

Our Democratic Republic failed us on the day President Obama took the oath of office on 15 January 2009, and it may never recover in our lifetime Henry.. Those of us in the late innings or fourth quarter of our lives may never again see our Democratic Republic prosperous and at peace...IMHO

Obama is a liar. He talked all about peace when he was campaigning. Then the moment he got elected, he sent troops into Pakistan, a sovereign country and an ally we are not at war with, to kill OBL. The guy is a pure warmonger with no respect for international law.

[NoMoreLunacy]

See how the lying Obama lies?

Last Wednesday, Barack Obama promised another round of deep cuts in the Pentagon’s “wasteful” spending, prompting a retort from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that any further cuts would require a rethinking of global commitments. Today, we find out that the Obama administration has been recalculating America’s strategic reach, but not in the way Gates imagined. Obama has cancelled the return of one combat brigade from Europe planned by George W. Bush, and two administration officials promise an even bigger military presence in Europe than in the past decade.

[NoMoreLunacy]

More examples of how the lying Obama lied.

www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/rulings/promise-broken/

[Deleted]

Is our Democratic Republic failing us?

No, we failed it.

[privateinvestor]

No, we failed it


Who is "we"... The Democrats who shoved Obama down our throats??

[handyman2]

Want to look at a parallel of the current times with history. Read up on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. They were not a democratic system. However many of the same issues from immigration, constant wars, overspending, Political corruption, etc were the major factors to it's collapse. Sound familier to the current situation?

[marshabar1]

Yep. Lazy. And stupid. And asleep. And willing to be enslaved for a little peace and quiet, a little bread and circus. Willing to believe we are free because they let us make noise and vote. So far.

[billisonboard]

...from abundance to selfishness; ...

CEO Pay Up 298%, Average Worker's? 4.3% (1995-2005)
consumerist.com/2007/04/ceo-pay-up-298-average-workers-43-1995-2005.html

[NoMoreLunacy]

Jun 9, 2011 20:58:36 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

...from abundance to selfishness; ...

CEO Pay Up 298%, Average Worker's? 4.3% (1995-2005)
consumerist.com/2007/04/ceo-pay-up-298-average-workers-43-1995-2005.html

And?

[billisonboard]

Jun 9, 2011 20:59:58 GMT -5 NoMoreLunacy said:

...

And?

It is not the people at the bottom who moved us from abundance to selfishness.

[hello fromWarsaw]

Listening to Rush Limbaugh and other bought off pundits of the lyin' cheatin' corporate/pub propaganda machine. Memorizing their talking points is not knowledge...

[NoMoreLunacy]

Jun 9, 2011 21:23:28 GMT -5 hello fromWarsaw said:

Listening to Rush Limbaugh and other bought off pundits of the lyin' cheatin' corporate/pub propaganda machine. Memorizing their talking points is not knowledge...

Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot.

[NoMoreLunacy]

Jun 9, 2011 21:02:43 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Jun 9, 2011 20:59:58 GMT -5 NoMoreLunacy said:

...

And?

It is not the people at the bottom who moved us from abundance to selfishness.

Look, if the "people at the bottom" doesn't want to lower their wage expectations, then they will face more and more offshoring. If that is fine by them, it is fine by me. I am just stating the obvious. In a global labor market capital will go where labor is cheapest. If you want capital to stay in the USA, accept lower wages.

[marshabar1]

Jun 9, 2011 21:02:43 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Jun 9, 2011 20:59:58 GMT -5 NoMoreLunacy said:

...

And?

It is not the people at the bottom who moved us from abundance to selfishness.

No the poor are noble. Like the savages. Blameless and noble.

And worthy.

[billisonboard]

Jun 9, 2011 21:41:46 GMT -5 NoMoreLunacy said:

Jun 9, 2011 21:02:43 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

It is not the people at the bottom who moved us from abundance to selfishness.

Look, if the "people at the bottom" doesn't want to lower their wage expectations, then they will face more and more offshoring. If that is fine by them, it is fine by me. I am just stating the obvious. In a global labor market capital will go where labor is cheapest. If you want capital to stay in the USA, accept lower wages.

...from selfishness to complacency; ...

Next.

[NoMoreLunacy]

Jun 9, 2011 21:46:00 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Jun 9, 2011 21:41:46 GMT -5 NoMoreLunacy said:

Look, if the "people at the bottom" doesn't want to lower their wage expectations, then they will face more and more offshoring. If that is fine by them, it is fine by me. I am just stating the obvious. In a global labor market capital will go where labor is cheapest. If you want capital to stay in the USA, accept lower wages.

...from selfishness to complacency; ...

Next.

You have a solution? I am happy to hear about a solution that brings American jobs back home. I can't see how that be done without lowering wages. If you have a better idea, tell me.

[henryclay]

We hear complaints that spending on Social Security, Medicare and, , , , well, , , "entitlements" in general are running so far ahead of revenues, , , er, , uh , , tax collections, , , that soon the national debt will equal the value of our national productivity.

I believe the only time the country was in such financial bad shape we were in a war for our very survival. Are we not in such a war now? Perhaps the difference lies in potential. The last time we had the potential to produce ourselves out of a bad situation by producing things we could sell. What we perhaps did was sell the means of production instead so that now we are a buyer rather than a seller, , , , and it is not a buyers market if we no longer have a market for our own products.

So, over the years have we not depended more and more on government programs for individual economic security? And aren't government programs a form of control over activities? And aren't controls over activities a form of trading off freedoms for security? And didn't Benjamin Franklin warn us that anyone who trades freedom for security deserves neither?

We don't need to look very far back to see how fast we are heading toward the cliff. Think in recent terms. What was the catalyst that got Obama elected? Wasn't it centered on a philosophy that people can get something for nothing? Wasn't it called "hope and change" and "redistribution of wealth"?, , , , and didn't those two slogans bring out people like ACORN and it's new voters in droves that have never voted before? What were they voting for, jobs? Hope and change and a redistribution of wealth was being promised. Why would they vote for jobs when something free, not jobs, was not being promised?

If Obama had run on a platform advocating "a fair days pay fr a fair days work" would he have stood a chance? Even back in the primaries? If he had said we were going to take the profits from successful local people and redistribute them to less successful, , , but local people , , , would he have been elected?

Talk about a master stroke of strategy. Obama had it in spades.

Do these words from 1943 apply to today? We were in a war in 1943.

Compulsory planned economy, for example, was tried by the Chinese some three millenniums ago, and by the Romans in the early centuries of the Christian era. It was applied in Germany, Italy and Russia long before the present war broke out. Yet it is being seriously advocated today as a solution of our economic problems in the United States. Its proponents confidently assert that government can successfully plan and control all major business activity in the nation, and still not interfere with our political freedom and our hard-won civil and religious liberties.

[bubblyandblue]

Getting something for nothing

The great sore spot in our modern commercial life is found on the speculative side. Under present laws, which foster and encourage speculation, business life is largely a gamble, and to “get something for nothing” is too often considered the keynote to “success”. The great fortunes of today are nearly all speculative fortunes; and the ambitious young man just starting out in life thinks far less of producing or rendering service than he does of “putting it over” on the other fellow. This may seem a broad statement to some: but thirty years of business life in the heart of American commercial activity convinces me that it is absolutely true.
If, however, the speculative incentive in modern commercial life were eliminated, and no man could become rich or successful unless he gave “value received” and rendered service for service, then indeed a profound change would have been brought in our whole commercial system, and it would be a change which no honest man would regret.- John Moody, Wall Street Publisher, and President of Moody’s Investors’ Service. Dated 1924

[billisonboard]

Jun 10, 2011 0:09:41 GMT -5 NoMoreLunacy said:

Jun 9, 2011 21:46:00 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

...from selfishness to complacency; ...

Next.

You have a solution? I am happy to hear about a solution that brings American jobs back home. I can't see how that be done without lowering wages. If you have a better idea, tell me.

...the competent become selfish, luxury-loving and complacent, the incompetent and the unfortunate grow envious and covetous...(from reply #1)

While wages will be cut, it will not stop the process of the cycle in reply #1. But as a man ahead of my time, what do I care.

[bubblyandblue]

I think I have a solution, give me an hour.

[fairlycrazy23]

Obama may be the latest, but we have been moving away from a republic (to our determent) for a long time

[bubblyandblue]

Laborers knowing that science and invention have increased enormously the power of labor, cannot understand why they do not receive more of the increased product, and accuse capital of withholding it. The employer, finding it increasingly difficult to make both ends meet, accuses labor of shirking. Thus suspicion is aroused, distrust follows, and soon both are angry and struggling for mastery.
It is not the man who gives employment to labor that does harm. The mischief comes from the man who does not give employment. Every factory, every store, every building, every bit of wealth in any shape requires labor in its creation. The more wealth created the more labor employed, the higher wages and lower prices.
But while some men employ labor and produce wealth, others speculate in lands and resources required for production, and without employing labor or producing wealth they secure a large part of the wealth others produce. What they get without producing, labor and capital produce without getting. That is why labor and capital quarrel. But the quarrel should not be between labor and capital, but between the non-producing speculator on the one hand and labor and capital on the other.
Co-operation between employer and employee will lead to more friendly relations and a better understanding, and will hasten the day when they will see that their interests are mutual. As long as they stand apart and permit the non-producing, non-employing exploiter to make each think the other is his enemy, the speculator will prey upon both.
Co-operating friends, when they fully realize the source of their troubles will find at hand a simple and effective cure: The removal of taxes from industry, and the taxing of privilege and monopoly. Remove the heavy burdens of government from those who employ labor and produce wealth, and lay them upon those who enrich themselves without employing labor or producing wealth.

[handyman2]

Many big corporations are not going to be the business that creates jobs it is the little businesses that will. Automation by big business makes the demand for workers much smaller. The assembly of computer components is now mostly automated same with machined products etc. Twenty years ago it took a group of people to manufactur and engine. Today it can be done with five and ready to run.
Sad truth is we don't need all those workers.
The computer brought many changes to the way we do business not all of them a blessing.

[fairlycrazy23]

It is the small and medium businesses that are most effected by burdensome regulations, since many of them perceive taxes and regulations going up, they are holding off on expanding, or the red tape may just be too burdensome already to make it practical. Large multinational corporations are effected as well, but they can better game the system, or opt out entirely

[bubblyandblue]

I would think that an increase in productivity will lower labor cost in the production of that item - I don't believe that would harm employment in the least or lower wages. There is not an overproduction going on in our world. What takes away from labor and capital is the parasitic speculator - the one that does not employ labor to create wealth but instead sits back to have his value increase without contribution to labor or capital. Automation by big business makes demand for workers much smaller unless you consider that more labor will be reqired to make the automation equipment. Computers make the production logistics and accounting easier but, they rarely actually produce something- by themselves that I can hold in my hand. It is the speculation that takes (steals) the money out of productivity and labor. Tax the crap out of the speculators who do not produce wealth or labor and remove it from those who do - I can't imagine then any problem with wealth creation in this country and people lacking for decent wages. What do you think brought down the housing market? it was not overproduction because of the market but because of speculation stealing the wealth from producers - the driving up of prices on speculation to the point where productive capacity and wealth creation could not exceed the vacuum of speculation's wealth capture.

[henryclay]

It is the speculation that takes (steals) the money out of productivity and labor. Tax the crap out of the speculators who do not produce wealth or labor and remove it from those who do - I can't imagine then any problem with wealth creation in this country and people lacking for decent wages. What do you think brought down the housing

Speculation is often referred to as "Venture Capital", and is used to make start-up businesses and business expansions possible, and that is where the jobs are.

So, can we read the reference about, "it is specualtors taking money out of productivity and labor", as meaning tax capital gains income heavier than it is taxed now? Today the tax on capital gains income is capped at 15%. So that taking real figures, a single person with no dependents and no other income, who makes 1 million dollars in capital gains today, , , , after he deducts his exemption and standard deduction, , , , has a federal tax tax of $146,239.00 That is less than 15%

If his capital gains income was taxed the same as all other income his tax would be $218,823.00.

So the question is , , , would the additional tax, ($72,584.00) be better spent by the government or by letting the owner keep it and put it back into the economy in the form of Venture Capital to get another business started or expanded?

And keep in mind that more money is lost on specualtion than is made. For instance, how much have you made on the futures markets lately as copmpared to how much you have lost? Some say the odds are better in Las Vegas.