Why do people vote for Hilary and Obama?

[Final-Fan]

elprincipe said:

Final-Fan said:

That said, yes, of course we could afford it. We could afford 100% taxes if the government provided 100% of everything we need. But you know what? I don't like that system. Not only don't I like that system, it's been tried before and failed miserably. And that's what we'll be if government takes over health care: miserable. I'll say it again: there is nothing in the history of government that has ever been run more efficiently than the private sector does it. Sure, there are some things that by necessity must be run by the government (military, foreign relations and a few more), but making us pay more taxes because "we can afford it" is pretty dumb. I don't know about you, but I'd rather make my own financial (and other) decisions instead of having the government screw them up for me.

Why do you put up this communist strawman? It'd be closer to the truth to accuse Ron Paul of wanting to completely abolish all government above the county level. But I'm not accusing him of that, because even if it's true in his heart of hearts I have no evidence to back it up.

Oh, and the privately run airlines are a fucking joke. A joke that the government has to step in and bail out about every decade. How is that "more efficiently" run?

I don't want my tax dollars wasted on inefficiently run, shitty programs that don't benefit the country. Therefore, I want the government to take back the airlines so our tax dollars won't keep lining the pockets of the airline companies.

First off, this had nothing to do with Ron Paul whatsoever, so I'm not quite sure where you got that.

And it's not a strawman. The government owning 100% of everything and controlling everything has been tried. It failed. Badly. The people under this system were miserable and life was horrible.

I agree government shouldn't bail out airlines. If people want to travel by air, let them pay the full costs of said travel. It's ridiculous that someone who never flies on an airline has to subsidize someone who does so all the time.

That said, I don't see how it then follows that the government should control airlines. That is even more ridiculous than the government subsidizing them.

I only used Ron Paul as the subject of a counterexample of your attack.  Portraying the Democratic agenda as even socialist is laughable, and trying to imply that it's advancing towards communism is just stupid.  That was the strawman I referred to.  And if that's not what you were trying to say, then why did you even mention it?  Not even really communist regimes like China, Vietnam, and the former USSR stuck to 100% government control.  And much of the hardships people in communist countries faced was due to the brutality and incompetence of the regimes in question rather than communism itself.  (Don't mistake that for a defense of communism!)

If government stopped supporting airlines, they would fail.  FAIL.  They're too greedy and incompetent to do otherwise, unless they jacked up the price so high the industry would be reduced to a shadow of its former self before it reached a capitalist equilibrium.  Maybe you're OK with that -- in which case I respect you a little more for sticking to your ideological guns -- but that is irrelevant to and doesn't change the fact that airline service in the US was more punctual, courteous, and all-around better before privatization.  At least, that's what I've heard; I'm not old enough to testify to that personally.