Now this is how to argue....

This guy is posting anonymously on the NYC RnR board on Craigslist. Odds are this post will be flagged down. But he makes great arguments and I wanted to preserve them.

This guy knows how to deal with Conservatives.

RE:RE: conservatives

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Reply to: pers-565572507@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-02-06, 10:37PM EST

A smug, condescending conservative wrote:

Secondly, there are many factors which contribute to the economic prosperity of a nation and which have enabled nations to grow economically more than others. Your little "litmus test" is childishly simplistic and naive - for instance, like I've already explained, you can laud the "prosperity" of "social democratic" nations like those in Western Europe and claim that their regulation and socialism is responsible for their success, but in fact most of their economic growth happened between the war and the late 70's when their governments intervened in the economy far less. Since they have become "socialistic" nations, their economies have slowed, their welfare bills have ballooned and the prognosis does not look good for the future. Like I've said, history is a movie and not a snapshot.


I write:

Look, you smug, condescending bastard: NOTHING you say contradicts what i say. The conservative viewpoint is that "government is the problem". . .and I am quoting Saint Ronald Reagan here. Conservatives HATE government.

But as you point out (talking, for some reason, as if i am retarded), "there are many factors" that contribute to a country's prosperity.

This is exactly what I argue. Conservatives say a free market is the only thing we need. I say that history doesn't necessarily prove that. You say that the economies of european nations slowed down when they adopted socialistic policies. . .but can you prove that the adoption of the policies CAUSED the slowdown, and weren't a response to the slowdown, which would have been worse had the policies not been adopted?

India is another case: you yourself point outthat India doesn't have a system to protect property rights. in other words, it doesn't have a functioning GOVERNMENT, and without that, it can't have a functioning ECONOMY.

There's an argument to be made here, dipshit, and you condescending attitude doesn't advance that argument one goddam bit.

My "silly little litmus test" is the first, common sense step in any assessment of the evidence: prosperity is much more closely associated, it seems, with strong government than with free markets.

I freely admit that the evidence is variously interpretable. . .there is no PURELY free market to observe.

But for some reason no conservative is willing to make the same concession. the fact that the USA is very prosperous AND heavily regulated is simply a "silly" fact to be ignored, and the person who points it out is to be sneered at.

Conservatives are fucking useless, as the past seven years have shown.

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