Thread: Obama supports 'the right' for ground zero mosque

Originally Posted by Mario92

It's at least partially the result of an unregulated free market. My so-called "pessimistic" responses are true enough. Doubt me? Put yourself in the shoes of a powerful CEO. Tell me, honestly, that given the opportunity of making an extra half a billion at the expense of screwing over a few more people, you wouldn't take it. It's only human nature.

I would hope that you'd have a hard time wading through the evidence that federal acts in the housing/financial areas (fannie mae, freddie mac, Community Housing Reinvestment Act, easy credit, inflation) caused the crisis over the years, although you seem to be doing just that, only with your eyes and ears closed.

And your pessimistic concerns hold no water in serious discussion, so again, they are irrelevant to me.

If it is a temporary illusion, and our country is forever doomed to wallow in another depression, then why aren't you headed straight for the border? America is going to bounce back, sooner or later. If it doesn't, pack your bags for Canada, because that's the only option you have left.

I never said the country is "forever doomed to wallow in another depression." You are right that America is going to bounce back sooner are later. Unfortunately, due to the way things have spanned out, the bounce will occur later rather than sooner, and the bounce will be hard. Might as well get the hangover over with rather than keep on drinking to avoid it.

In a free market, all that matters is supply and demand. It doesn't matter the means.

Any serious education in economics shows that this is blatantly untrue.

Minimum wage may have some unintended consequences, like increased unemployment rates, but that's something we're going to have to deal with if we want people to work for livable income.

You just took a dump on your own premise. You want more people to be out of work so those that remain are paid higher wages. Good job (actually, no job at all!)

A free market is no more the solution than socialism, but so long as the government does provide good things, like child labor laws, I'm not going to lobby for withdrawing all government interference.

Child labor laws are nothing more than compulsory unemployment. They punished child-bearing families in favor of childless families. Those with children, who had typically moved from farms to cities in order to gain more income, were forced to support a larger family without any additional income once the laws were enacted.

The Broken Window fallacy is starting to come to mind...

It's actually a cultural/community center as well as a mosque. I find it hilarious how the media has dubbed it the "ground zero mosque." Uh, no. This video sums up the issue pretty well! Municipal Land-Use Hearing Update - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 08/10/2010 - Video Clip | Comedy Central

It's pretty disgusting that there are many people who oppose this. Really, America? Pretty sure Freedom of religion is one of the most important reasons our nation was built in the first place. Right wing crazies really need to be informed on what the founding fathers actually wanted. If they had any sense they would support it, since the actual center sounds like a breeding ground for moderate Islam, which should be encouraged amongst American Muslims..no?

Originally Posted by Alric

Why shouldn't they take risky practices, when the risks are negated by the fact the government is backing them?

Because the government wants their money back. The banks owe the government, plus interest. And, if they had just used good business practices in the first place, they would likely have much better profit margins than they do now.

Originally Posted by Mario92

lol, Fox News is called Fox and Friends, mate.

Really? Why would you call it that?

Originally Posted by khh

Really? Why would you call it that?

FOX & Friends - FOXNews.com

Because they want to not sound like the evil miscreants that they are.

Originally Posted by Sekhmet

I don't see what the fuss is about. There's been a mosque (the Masjid) four blocks from the World Trade Center location for over 40 years and no one says anything about that.

eta: Hilter was fascist, not socialist.

The Nazis were originally known as the National Socialist German Workers' Party

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Child labor laws are nothing more than compulsory unemployment. They punished child-bearing families in favor of childless families. Those with children, who had typically moved from farms to cities in order to gain more income, were forced to support a larger family without any additional income once the laws were enacted.

You do realize that the economy is but one of the many aspects needed for a healthy society? The economy can afford a dip in the name of increased life expectancy.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

The Nazis were originally known as the National Socialist German Workers' Party

North Korea's full name is the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea".

Originally Posted by Spartiate

You do realize that the economy is but one of the many aspects needed for a healthy society? The economy can afford a dip in the name of increased life expectancy.

The economy is a term describing human actions. It's hard to increase life expectancy while living in poverty.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

The economy is a term describing human actions. It's hard to increase life expectancy while living in poverty.

Poverty that very much exists in America today, while heads of corporations continue to make billions of dollars. Child labor laws are the least of their concerns.

Originally Posted by Mario92

Poverty that very much exists in America today, while heads of corporations continue to make billions of dollars. Child labor laws are the least of their concerns.

This is not relevant to working families in the early period of the industrial revolution.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

This is not relevant to working families in the early period of the industrial revolution.

So, what, you're against child labor laws? Have you even the foggiest idea what conditions children used to work in? The law protected children from all sorts of nasty deaths and safety hazards. A family can survive without a few extra bucks. Recovering from the lost of your first born son is something entirely different.

Originally Posted by Mario92

So, what, you're against child labor laws? Have you even the foggiest idea what conditions children used to work in? The law protected children from all sorts of nasty deaths and safety hazards. A family can survive without a few extra bucks. Recovering from the lost of your first born son is something entirely different.

Those "few extra bucks" meant the difference between a short life usually ending via starvation and survival.

The accidents that occurred were more than likely a product of the technology at the time, not simply because children operated the machines. Adults faced dangers as well, typically more often than children.

Originally Posted by Human Action

It is a distortion of facts to say that the factories carried off the housewives from the nurseries and the kitchens and the children from their play. These women had nothing to cook with and to feed their children. These children were destitute and starving. Their only refuge was the factory. It saved them, in the strict sense of the term, from death by starvation.

It is deplorable that such conditions existed. But if one wants to blame those responsible, one must not blame the factory owners who — driven by selfishness, of course, and not by "altruism" — did all they could to eradicate the evils. What had caused these evils was the economic order of the precapitalistic era, the order of the "good old days."

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Those "few extra bucks" meant the difference between a short life usually ending via starvation and survival.

The accidents that occurred were more than likely a product of the technology at the time, not simply because children operated the machines. Adults faced dangers as well, typically more often than children.

Man, I don't know what your issue is, but I seriously don't think it's a good idea for children to work in factories. If you want to look at the economical aspects of this, consider: if child labor laws go into effect, the factory suddenly has a much shallower pool of labor. They need to start hiring, and what's more, raising the salaries to entice employees away from the competition. The lack of child labor likely also contributed to the social changes that lead to welfare if the increase in poverty was really that dramatic.

Originally Posted by Mario92

Man, I don't know what your issue is, but I seriously don't think it's a good idea for children to work in factories.

I'm not saying it is either. I'm saying it was necessary given the conditions of the early industrial revolution. People moved from agricultural, back-breaking farm work/producing only what they could make and thus being in poverty to the factories where they could actually make a living and, you know, not die of starvation and such.

If you want to look at the economical aspects of this, consider: if child labor laws go into effect, the factory suddenly has a much shallower pool of labor. They need to start hiring, and what's more, raising the salaries to entice employees away from the competition. The lack of child labor likely also contributed to the social changes that lead to welfare if the increase in poverty was really that dramatic.

Gonna need a rephrase on this one.

But, for your consideration:

Originally Posted by Human Action (again)

It is generally asserted that the history of modern industrialism and especially the history of the British "Industrial Revolution" provide an empirical verification of the "realistic" or "institutional" doctrine and utterly explode the "abstract" dogmatism of the economists.[1]

The economists flatly deny that labor unions and government prolabor legislation can and did lastingly benefit the whole class of wage earners and raise their standard of living. But the facts, say the antieconomists, have refuted these fallacies. The statesman and legislators who enacted the factory acts displayed a better insight into reality than the economists. While laissez-faire philosophy, without pity and compassion, taught that the sufferings of the toiling masses are unavoidable, the common sense of laymen succeeded in quelling the worst excesses of profit-seeking business. The improvement in the conditions of the workers is entirely an achievement of governments and labor unions.

Such are the ideas permeating most of the historical studies dealing with the evolution of modern industrialism. The authors begin by sketching an idyllic image of conditions as they prevailed on the eve of the "Industrial Revolution." At that time, they tell us, things were, by and large, satisfactory. The peasants were happy. So also were the industrial workers under the domestic system. They worked in their own cottages and enjoyed a certain economic independence since they owned a garden plot and their tools. But then "the Industrial Revolution fell like a war or a plague" on these people.[2] The factory system reduced the free worker to virtual slavery; it lowered his standard of living to the level of bare subsistence; in cramming women and children into the mills it destroyed family life and sapped the very foundations of society, morality, and public health. A small minority of ruthless exploiters had cleverly succeeded in imposing their yoke upon the immense majority.

The truth is that economic conditions were highly unsatisfactory on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. The traditional social system was not elastic enough to provide for the needs of a rapidly increasing population. Neither farming nor the guilds had any use for the additional hands. Business was imbued with the inherited spirit of privilege and exclusive monopoly; its institutional foundations were licenses and the grant of a patent of monopoly; its philosophy was restriction and the prohibition of competition both domestic and foreign. The number of people for whom there was no room left in the rigid system of paternalism and government tutelage of business grew rapidly. They were virtually outcasts. The apathetic majority of these wretched people lived from the crumbs that fell from the tables of the established castes. In the harvest season they earned a trifle by occasional help on farms; for the rest they depended upon private charity and communal poor relief. Thousands of the most vigorous youths of these strata were pressed into the service of the Royal Army and Navy; many of them were killed or maimed in action; many more perished ingloriously from the hardships of the barbarous discipline, from tropical diseases, or from syphilis.[3] Other thousands, the boldest and most ruthless of their class, infested the country as vagabonds, beggars, tramps, robbers, and prostitutes. The authorities did not know of any means to cope with these individuals other than the poorhouse and the workhouse. The support the government gave to the popular resentment against the introduction of new inventions and labor-saving devices made things quite hopeless.

The factory system developed in a continuous struggle against innumerable obstacles. It had to fight popular prejudice, old established customs, legally binding rules and regulations, the animosity of the authorities, the vested interests of privileged groups, the envy of the guilds. The capital equipment of the individual firms was insufficient, the provision of credit extremely difficult and costly. Technological and commercial experience was lacking. Most factory owners failed; comparatively few succeeded. Profits were sometimes considerable, but so were losses. It took many decades until the common practice of reinvesting the greater part of profits earned accumulated adequate capital for the conduct of affairs on a broader scale.

That the factories could thrive in spite of all these hindrances was due to two reasons.

1.

First there were the teachings of the new social philosophy expounded by the economists. They demolished the prestige of mercantilism, paternalism, and restrictionism. They exploded the superstitious belief that labor-saving devices and processes cause unemployment and reduce all people to poverty and decay. The laissez-faire economists were the pioneers of the unprecedented technological achievements of the last 200 years.
2.

Then there was another factor that weakened the opposition to innovations. The factories freed the authorities and the ruling landed aristocracy from an embarrassing problem that had grown too large for them. They provided sustenance for the masses of paupers. They emptied the poorhouses, the workhouses, and the prisons. They converted starving beggars into self-supporting breadwinners.

The factory owners did not have the power to compel anybody to take a factory job. They could only hire people who were ready to work for the wages offered to them. Low as these wage rates were, they were nonetheless much more than these paupers could earn in any other field open to them. It is a distortion of facts to say that the factories carried off the housewives from the nurseries and the kitchens and the children from their play. These women had nothing to cook with and to feed their children. These children were destitute and starving. Their only refuge was the factory. It saved them, in the strict sense of the term, from death by starvation.

It is deplorable that such conditions existed. But if one wants to blame those responsible, one must not blame the factory owners who — driven by selfishness, of course, and not by "altruism" — did all they could to eradicate the evils. What had caused these evils was the economic order of the precapitalistic era, the order of the "good old days."

In the first decades of the Industrial Revolution, the standard of living of the factory workers was shockingly bad when compared with the contemporary conditions of the upper classes and with the present conditions of the industrial masses. Hours of work were long, the sanitary conditions in the workshops deplorable. The individual's capacity to work was used up rapidly. But the fact remains that for the surplus population which the enclosure movement had reduced to dire wretchedness and for which there was literally no room left in the frame of the prevailing system of production, work in the factories was salvation. These people thronged into the plants for no reason other than the urge to improve their standard of living.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Gonna need a rephrase on this one.

Child workers go away. Now there are fewer workers on the market. Demand remains constant. Supply has shrunk. The "price" of a worker thus increases. Salaries for the workers therefore also increase. A family with a child has lost the child's income, but gained a nice pay raise from the husband.

But, for your consideration:

tl;dr. I really don't care that much.

I think we all know that at the time, the children were working out in the farms too.

Originally Posted by Mario92

tl;dr. I really don't care that much.

Well if you're unwilling to consider the evidence on my side (which was a reply to your argument), I suppose there's no point in debating with you further. Good day.

Originally Posted by Mario92

lol, Fox News is called Fox and Friends, mate.

Huh, never heard it called that before. Around here it's either Faux News or RPN (Republican Propaganda Network)

Originally Posted by ninja9578

Huh, never heard it called that before. Around here it's either Faux News or RPN (Republican Propaganda Network)

I think ExoByte said this once: Fox isn't news. It's the largest trolling experiment ever conducted.

Children still work on farms.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Well if you're unwilling to consider the evidence on my side (which was a reply to your argument), I suppose there's no point in debating with you further. Good day.

I want a summary, not a homework assignment.

Yea I know they do. Since no one imposes child labor laws, on family farms.

Originally Posted by Mario92

I want a summary, not a homework assignment.

...I gave you a mere ten paragraphs to peruse.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

...I gave you a mere ten paragraphs to peruse.

Ten paragraphs that could be spent reading something interesting that I actually enjoy reading. Your copypasta'd essay isn't worth my opportunity cost. Sorry.