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IDefendThePlatform
06-27-2012, 06:39 AM
I don't know this guy, but he gets it. No more of the "30% tax is too much but 15% is ok". We need to win the principled moral argument to be successful.


“Around the world, it is the moral case, not an economic one, that leads people to take risks for freedom,” (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/25/moral-case-for-freedom/)Mr. Brooks (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/arthur-c-brooks/) writes. “Advances in the cause of freedom and free enterprise - while less dramatic than the collapse of communism - have succeeded when advocates have made a compelling moral case for it.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/25/moral-case-for-freedom/

Travlyr
06-27-2012, 07:09 AM
He gets it? Hegelian Dialect is good for liberty? The Washington Times is nothing but Hegelian Dialect.

IDefendThePlatform
06-27-2012, 07:34 AM
Another good quote from the article:


“Anyone who reads the words of the Founders,” Mr. Brooks (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/arthur-c-brooks/) writes, “cannot miss their keen emphasis on the morality of the systems they intended to create. Our ideas about free enterprise and liberty were born from a sense of what is right and what helps us to thrive as people, not from a monomaniacal obsession with what makes us rich.”

Travlyr
06-27-2012, 07:52 AM
And a bad quote,

It took decades to make the moral case for welfare reform. But millions of Americans are better off today than they were when they relied on the federal government.

Since 1970 alone, free-market economic policies have lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. They have saved and improved countless people’s lives.

We do NOT have a free-market. And I would like to see the numbers for his claim that welfare reform actually worked, or that there are actually less people on welfare now than there was in 1970.

Feeding the Abscess
06-27-2012, 07:56 AM
And a bad quote,


We do NOT have a free-market. And I would like to see the numbers for his claim that welfare reform actually worked, or that there are actually less people on welfare now than there was in 1970.

It's true, though. Even with the market getting squeezed and squandered, the wonders voluntary association brings have still made the poorest among us wealthier, smarter, and better off than we were 40 years ago.

Travlyr
06-27-2012, 08:06 AM
It's true, though. Even with the market getting squeezed and squandered, the wonders voluntary association brings have still made the poorest among us wealthier, smarter, and better off than we were 40 years ago.

How so? My father could buy dynamite in the hardware store. Gun laws were virtually non-existent. Almost all of his friends owned their own small airplane and some even had their own runway. Almost everyone owned their own home outright and bought new cars every two years. Silver was 100% redeemable which would make the $7.00 minimum wage (if it is a free-market as claimed) worth $140.00 per hour today because silver dollars are worth $20 each now.

It is not a free-market and it is not a voluntary society until government is forced to obey the rule of law.

IDefendThePlatform
07-02-2012, 07:46 AM
How so? My father could buy dynamite in the hardware store. Gun laws were virtually non-existent. Almost all of his friends owned their own small airplane and some even had their own runway. Almost everyone owned their own home outright and bought new cars every two years. Silver was 100% redeemable which would make the $7.00 minimum wage (if it is a free-market as claimed) worth $140.00 per hour today because silver dollars are worth $20 each now.

It is not a free-market and it is not a voluntary society until government is forced to obey the rule of law.

You've made several anecdotal observations, but even with the government becoming an ever bigger leach on society we're still gaining ground on the whole. This is a good book with a lot references to how the free market continues to drag the mass of humanity out of grinding poverty (in relative and absolute numbers) and improve quality of life:
http://www.amazon.com/Its-Getting-Better-All-Time/dp/1882577965/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341236130&sr=1-5&keywords=julian+simon



And another good quote from the article:

Since 1970 alone, free-market economic policies have lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. They have saved and improved countless people’s lives.
That’s worth keeping in mind as we debate policy in the public square. Yes, we need numbers. But Mr. Brooks (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/arthur-c-brooks/) is right: If we want to build a better society, we need to seize the moral high ground as well.

The constitution could be used as potential moral high ground, but as we've seen repeatedly it gets distorted to mean whatever govt wants it to mean. We need to strike the root and fight for the morality of self-ownership.

IDefendThePlatform
07-08-2012, 03:14 AM
From the article:

Conservatives, beware: You can have reams of information, piles of studies and folders of charts at your fingertips. And you can still lose the debate.
That’s because you’ve overlooked a crucial component: the moral case. And that, according to Arthur C. Brooks (http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/arthur-c-brooks/), can often make or break your argument.