You need to be a Right-Wing Conservative to be a Mormon?

[_Droopy]

Your redundancy argument makes it sound like we would all be better off if everything was a monopoly - there is clearly no redundancy in those situations. However, in a monopoly, the company has little incentive to be more efficient, improve, and meet consumer demand. If you don't believe me, think of the cable company of old (now they are slightly more responsive due to competition from satellite TV). Are we worse off because FedEx and UPS each have a fleet of trucks, planes, distribution centers, etc. from which to ship goods? Should all parcel carriers be combined so that we can eliminate the redundancy? No. Why? Because in this market, and most others, there is no redundancy. FedEx has a share of the market that they service with the trucks, planes, etc. that they own. UPS has a share of the market that they service with its trucks, planes, etc. There is no redundancy. The redundancies where goods and equipment sit idle, which would lessen the overall welfare of society, do not exist because no one in their right mind would create them (government is the exception

Thanks, I couldn't make hide nor hair of Larson's argument in the first instance. What competition does, and especially vigorous, dynamic competition, is spur, if not force, innovation, creativity, and original problem solving strategies where natural human tendencies (say, Linux and Netscapes' bid to use the power of the state to break up their main rival, Microsoft) would tend to atrophy and inertia (anyone here ever been to a Social Security office, DMV, or human services complex?).

The anti-capitalist mentality and its god, envy, are like a stampeding herd of Bison, respecting no boundaries or limits to their mindless forward rush.

[Guest]

The problem is that even in these areas the government gets hijacked by the special interests to the point that the clean air act is more of weapon to punish "bad" companies than it is a weapon to clean up the air (I should tell you sometime about my travails of trying to get my truck converted to run on much cleaner natural gas only to be denied by the EPA in reliance on the clean air act; bureaucracy run amok, I tell you!!).

Some other pertinent examples here would be the ESA (the primary weapon of the environmental movement in slowing or stopping industrial development, and in particular, the development of new energy resources) and the Superfund, a boondoggle of truly megalithic proportions. The other really egregious culprit here is the ow infamous "wetlands" legislation, which has been used in a very pivotal and constitutionally dangerous way as a weapon against property rights, especially in western states.

[_Droopy]

I would agree if it were your money. But it's not. What gives you the right to do what Robin Hood does?

Its interesting that this is brought up here, because in the original story, Robin Hood was stealing from government officials who were oppressing the poor with high taxes, and giving the ill gotten gains back to the people.

In the leftist version, Robin Hood becomes the righteous, sanctified populist liberal Democrat who steals from the evil, greedy corporations and the selfish, uncaring bourgeois middle classes to redistribute their ill gotten gains (in socialist thought, all economic transactions, of whatever kind, are a zero sum game, in which each and every gain by one economic actor is an economic loss to another) to the poor (who are not poor because of personal choices made through life or because of complex circumstances, but only because someone or something has made them so).

[_moksha]

I don't see anything Christian about being generous with other peoples money.

I do. I think caring for the populace is the most Christian of principles, although other religions and even the ethics of non-believers also endorse this principle.

Does caring for others justify theft and the removal of agency? I think not.

Well, we are our brother's keeper and the social compact we make with one another to have a government
makes the payment of necessary taxes understandable. Perhaps working on eliminating stinginess is will have an eternal reward.

Moksha: Wanting to withhold resources to be shared, is basically the morality of greed.

Bcspace: It is, but such is not part of conservative philosophy or part of any conservative party platform that I know of. Forcing others to make the right choice is contrary to LDS doctrine. Satan's plan actually. That is why to be politically left-wing is to be an anti-Mormon.

Ah, but the very core of conservatism is based on justifying and keeping undeserved wealth. It is the opposite of Christ's position to
love and care for one another.

[_bcspace]

Well, we are our brother's keeper

No we're not

and the social compact we make with one another to have a government
makes the payment of necessary taxes understandable.

The keyword being necessary. Most economists know that the consumer spends more helpfully than the government.

Perhaps working on eliminating stinginess is will have an eternal reward.

That the government should enforce it is contrary to LDS doctrine.

Ah, but the very core of conservatism is based on justifying and keeping undeserved wealth.

CFR

It is the opposite of Christ's position to love and care for one another.

Luke 16:9-11

[_Thama]

No we're not

Ah, the essence of Christian conservatism. Just deny and throw out every verse of scripture which commands responsibility for those around you. It's not like there aren't very many of them...

[_The Nehor]

No we're not

Ah, the essence of Christian conservatism. Just deny and throw out every verse of scripture which commands responsibility for those around you. It's not like there aren't very many of them...

Using the words of a condemned murderer and the first vampire (and to LDS the only for sure Son of Perdition we know of) to create commandments for Christians is probably not the best way to go about it.

[_Droopy]

The one interesting thing about this discussion is that it is as I've always feared and always known: While most conservatives have, for the most part, a substantial understanding of the Left and its beliefs and attitudes, most leftists have only a cartoon understanding of anything outside of their own reference frame.

This bespeaks an assiduous avoidance of any and all information, of whatever kind, that would diverge from their own comfortable template. Moksha's understanding of fundamental conservative philosophical ideas is catastrophically bogus, and has all the earmarks of having been derived from mainstream media talking heads, but not any substantive perusal of primary conservative sources.

This is, I know from long experience, as it were, part of the territory.

[_EAllusion]

The one interesting thing about this discussion is that it is as I've always feared and always known: While most conservatives have, for the most part, a substantial understanding of the Left and its beliefs and attitudes, most leftists have only a cartoon understanding of anything outside of their own reference frame.

Of course. To a leftist, all moral constraints and boundary conditions are "BS." because they impose limits upon the all consuming, unfettered autonomous self around which all the universe bows and pays homage.

[_Tarski]

The one interesting thing about this discussion is that it is as I've always feared and always known: While most conservatives have, for the most part, a substantial understanding of the Left and its beliefs and attitudes, most leftists have only a cartoon understanding of anything outside of their own reference frame.

This bespeaks an assiduous avoidance of any and all information, of whatever kind, that would diverge from their own comfortable template. Moksha's understanding of fundamental conservative philosophical ideas is catastrophically bogus, and has all the earmarks of having been derived from mainstream media talking heads, but not any substantive perusal of primary conservative sources.

This is, I know from long experience, as it were, part of the territory.

Here is what I think and have thought for a long time (with evidence)>

While most liberals have, for the most part, a substantial understanding of the Right and its beliefs and attitudes, most rightwingers have only a cartoon understanding of anything outside of their own reference frame.

This bespeaks an assiduous avoidance of any and all information, of whatever kind, that would diverge from their own comfortable (conservative) template. (Thus the existence of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh)

The point? Droopy is like a person in one of two spaceships passing each other in interstellar space. He feels himself to be motionless and the other ship to be moving. He laughs at the foolish occupants of the other ship upon learning that they consider themselves to be still and see Droopy as moving. To prove his motionlessness he performs internal experiments like tossing a ball and noticing its uniform path. (He consults Fox and Rush to verify that he is unbiased and that the liberals are the biased ones--proof!)
Droopy cannot concieve that it is exactly his bias that makes the otherside look biased. It's beyond his conceptual grasp--too deep an idea.