Nope. Everything is fine and dandy.

Any group that exerts authority through coercion over a wide range of people can be considered a government, regardless of its legitimacy or recognition internationally. If I recall correctly, there are a host of militants in Somalia that fit this description. Your argument fails.

Except that only happens, BECAUSE THERE'S NO FREAKING GOVERNMENT. Your ideal Road Warrior system of everyone fending for themselves simply does not work. Get over it.

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ban

my gosh, just trying too lightin the situation for a while

@dshiznit: ? what are you talking about?

I never said that all government was evil, just that interference was responsible for economic hardship. I believe in minimalist government of the people, by the people, and for the people that provides only military defense and internal police forces, with perhaps a few other allowances for such things as roads.

And in case you didn't notice, I defined Somalian rebels as a form of government anyway, albeit an illegitimate and probably internationally unrecognized type. It is still government, however you treat it. It's called 'martial law' in civilized countries.

And you'd be wrong. Economic hardship in this country has repeatedly been caused by the *lack* of government interference (aka, regulation)



That isn't martial law. The Somalian rebels are not a government. The point is that what you desire simply doesn't work. Never has, never will. It is naive in its idealistic beliefs.

Martial Law is were the active government sends out their military (Soldiers, tanks, helicopters etc) into civilian areas (Towns, citys, homes).

I couldn't agree with you more.

I feel sorry for people like you two.

OK, can you give me an example where government interference produced a long-term (more than 20 years) benefit without any detrimental effects whatsoever?

Nobody has said that government interference is perfect. Can you show me where the lack of government interference has produced a long-term gain? Of course you can't. I can easily show that the recent economic collapse was due to the lack of regulation. You can't show that government interference in this country has caused anything resembling that.

Regulation is a necessary evil. If you believe that corporations (which are run by greed, by the way) will all play nice and compete fairly, you're a complete moron.

Of course, the two are slightly different in that I'm not aware of any time in history where a national economy has been unregulated.

Not in this country, but even still, the idea that it could work is laughable at best. Look at the crap corporations try to pull when there IS government regulation preventing it. Removing the regulation won't suddenly mean companies will develop ethics.

Find me an example of any country in recorded history that has had a completely unregulated economy.


And antitrust laws are really the only beneficial regulations related to corporate behavior that I'm aware of.

The economic boom in the 90s?

fail.

People and corporations are causing their own misery by engaging in unscrupulous practices and encouraging irresponsible spending. There seems to be this belief among Americans that a modest lifestyle is equivalent to poverty or social castration; so (usually, fresh out of college) people take out massive loans and put money down on expensive homes, vehicles and other lifestyle accouterments they can't actually afford. Not surprisingly, major banks, Realtors and car manufactures start declaring bankruptcy, and then everybody misdirects the blame at the government for "stealing" their money to put food on poor folks' tables; or to put their children through college.

As long as America's priorities unduly emphasize lifestyle-spending, this is what we'll always have to deal with. People need to be more realistic and stop using money (that they don't have) to buy crap that makes them feel better than everybody else.

The problem with Randian capitalism is that the industrialists in her books don't actually exist (in large enough numbers anyway).

Some regulation is good. Just a little. America's strong 18th century economy is an example.