Justice Clarence Thomas has secretly accepted luxury trips from a major Republican donors

How are the companies going to control your life. Game it out for me. The FDA goes away. McDonalds can now have no health inspectors. What step happens next that then results in McDonalds controlling your life or what you can eat?

You understand people can communicate with each other right?

The great depression was worsened by government interference. Ironically, the stock market crash of 1929 was terrible for the rich and wiped out tons of speculators. That is the precipitating event that caused the great depression initially. That is what you are saying makes the rich more powerful.

None of the judges are pure, Thomas just has more fidelity to the Constitution than the others.

Of course not. You have consistently argued that people who want a smaller and weaker government are fascists (who definitionally want a larger and more powerful government).

 

I haven't read every post but interpreting the Constitution is part of the court’s function as I understand it. In terms of determining if something is constitutional that's their function, their whole purpose of existence

 

I haven't read every post but interpreting the Constitution is part of the court’s function as I understand it. In terms of determining if something is constitutional that's their function, their whole purpose of existence

 

If the most famous neo-nazis in America wax lyrical about small government and "liberty" then I really don't care what self-labeled Libertarians say.

Their policy positions, the often culture wars they get involved in etc tells me everything. They want to maintain the same socioeconomic hierarchy because they benefit from.said hierarchy

 

Yes, we all understand that because someone in the 1930s that wasn't a libertarian said something about freedom a few times, that means libertarians are fascists. The entire policy positions of libertarians are completely antithetical to fascism, it isn't just rhetorical puffery, but you are a communist so anyone that isn't in favor of your always failed communist policies is a fascist. You are antifa, thanks. You are part of the group that is so terrible that they have to deny actually being a group every time anyone talks about them and that always wears face coverings in public because they definitely do not want to be publicly associated with the non-organization of which they are a part.

 

I have no issue being called a radical. I don't think moderate people spend a lot of time discussing politics on a NBA team message board.

 

Unfortunately a racist too. Race plays no role in Thomas being a terrible human being who should be ousted, but they would like to call him derogatory terms because he’s black and gives the appearance of helping whites. His race HAS to be tied to this.

it’s quite disgusting and sad. The true feelings come out, even though they will pretend to be anti-racists to n name

 

@rocketsjudoka gave a few examples but to reiterate

1. Monopolies - when companies can be the only player in town, they then can use that to exert control - for example, forcing you to buy other products to get their product.
2. Trusts - a company through vertical and horizontal integration can own so much of the market to use that leverage in ways to force consumer behavior. Microsoft was famous for this. So were the telephone companies back when it was Ma Bell.
3. Labor - companies can force their employees to buy their products and commit to contracts or structures that essentially turn them into indentured servants

Just a few examples - all of these things aren't potential things by the way - they all happened and is why the gov't had to pass regulations.

The FDA exists because before it there was so much abuse and people were dying. People could communicate back then. And many drugs side effects are apparent until it's way too late.

Just think - we'd still have asbestos being used it if were for gov't regulation. OSHA is another example.

The great depression wasn't caused by gov't interference, it was caused by a lack of it. Banks were allowed to operate freely, and through their greed, created an unstable situation. Gov't interfered AFTER **** hit the fan.

And again, Thomas has very little fidelity to the Constitution outside the 2nd amendment - I don't know where you get the idea that he does. Just because he claims to (like every other judge) doesn't mean he does. He interprets the Constitution in the way he thinks it should work. The idea of "originalist" is b.s.

 

Look at how much Anheuser-Busch lost just from having a trans-spokesperson. Now imagine they were poisoning the beer. That stuff might have worked 100 years ago when you talked to 10 people. Now word spreads like wildfire. Ma Bell was a monopoly when Alexander Graham Bell invented and patented the telephone and related things. It was the government enforcement of his patent that created the monopoly. Same with Microsoft. Apple has extreme product integration, but people who don't want that just by from any other company. Look at where the worst monopolies and abuses exist, it is in the public utilities and other industries where the government limits competition. Markets without government barriers to entry and free competition like restaurants have better customer service and more options available. Markets with high levels of government intervention like health insurance and utilities have terrible customer service and limited or no options.

 

Telecoms suck the life out of customers inside their little fiefdoms. Government does enable them but that industry also has high capital costs that require continuous investment and upgrade.

Airlines are similar. They love government intervention during bust years while cutting costs and fat bonuses during boom years. Without gov intervention, they either don't exist for the middle class or you get some ghetto Spirit airlines or Ryanair bullshit.

Then there's the "essential industries" like pharma. They gouge and suck the teat off of the healthcare beast... But without gov intervention? It's life saving cures to the highest bidder.

Cuss and whine as much as the next guy about mandates but if those vaccines were 2k a pop and in limited supply, the second hand value would be 5-10x that. Then you have the chloroquine horsey pill quack (neigh?) doctors who offer "alternative treatments" at half or third the cost. MARKET FORCES AND THE SCIENCE AT WORK!!!

Sure Budweiser got can-celed but locally and regionally you got microbrewers selling horse piss or questionably blinding alcohol that only disappears by word of mouth or old fashioned vigilante justice. With fears of unreliable and unpredictable quality, power dynamics veer towards winner take all monopolies and less competitive pressures.

Yeehaw mawmaw! Git yet guns n wrangle up some flimflammers, mountebanks, hustlers n shysters. I got me eye on a comely young lass to boot!

 

A beer company isn't what we are talking about in terms of the healthcare industry. It'a just a strange example to use given the FDA doesn't regulate beer.

Ma Bell was a monopoly a 100 years after Bell died. Your history is a bit rusty.

Companies like Apple aren't able to monopolize because of anti-trust laws. Microsoft was never a monopoly because you just brought up its chief competitor - but it did become a trust when it integrate explorer into windows. Apple didn't break these laws, that's why you have competition and consumers have choice - because of gov't regulation.

You are drawing a false and unproven line between gov't involvement/regulation and customer service. Utilities aren't what they are because of gov't, they are that because they built the infrastructure and own it. It's not the gov't protecting them. Insurance companies don't get terrible ratings because of the gov't - it would be much worse if the gov't didn't regulate them, not better. As I mentioned, I worked at a startup heavily regulated by the gov't, and we had the best customer service in our industry - I know this because I built the customer service team. The gov't had nothing to do with our customer service. They didn't tell us how to do customer service. They just had rules, and we followed them and it didn't affect our customer service one bit. So how you are drawing this line is just strange to me.

Honestly, it just seems you believe a narrative and are creating the facts you need in order to back that narrative.

 

This is like a GPT-1 "guy who once read the fountainhead" generative model level of hallucination.

Shouldn't have been released even in limited beta.

 

I never said a beer company was part of the healthcare industry. I also never said the FDA regulates beer. You said people used to sell stuff that led to people dying before the FDA came around. I pointed to an example of something where people can communicate about something they perceive as bad and tank sales without government involvement that couldn't have been done

Yes, but it was the company and it's control of the technology that prevented competition. The breakup into the baby bells didn't really bring about significant competition in the telephone industry, they were just monopoly regional utilities. It was the advent of new technology in satellite and cellular telecommunication that really spelled the end. Evern there, the government's regulation of building infrastructure and control of the frequencies limited competition there as well.

Apple has it's own closed ecosystem despite the anti-trust laws. That's why the Apple's App Store provides apps for the iPhone which integrates with the iPad and the MacBook and the AirPods etc.

It was a pseudomonopoly because DOS and then Windows has an overwhelmingly dominant market share, especially in the business world.

It was more programming to cause other browsers not to work. Just integrating a browser into windows is not enough.

Government regulation didn't create the competition, it happened before the government got involved in suing Microsoft. Apple existed in the early 80s. The Microsoft antitrust lawsuit was much later.

Why can you not buy insurance from a company that is based in another state, or that doesn't cover pre-existing conditions and thus is available at lower rates? I can by 300 kinds of craft beer, but I can't buy 300 different insurance plans or 300 different electric or gas providers. Sure, part of that is the ownership of the infrastucture (and who gave all the easements etc. to one entity to construct the infrastructure?) and part of it is the regs.

 

Here's the 4 largest globally, over the past 6 months....

https://www.google.com/finance/quote/ABI:EBR?window=6M

https://www.google.com/finance/quot...6i0r9j-AhXMmWoFHYq8CXoQ3ecFegQIKBAY&window=6M

https://www.google.com/search?clien...2ahUKEwjkq9Smr9j-AhXbmGoFHX9SD8EQoe4JegQIIhAG

https://www.google.com/finance/quot...7O2r9j-AhUtmmoFHQf6BWEQ3ecFegQINhAY&window=6M

 

Except the Articles of Confederation were in place after the peace treaty that recognized the US was it's own country. Also the Constitution was written after that.

As others have noted the Constitution has only been strengthened since then.

 

It's interesting that you brought up things a 100 years ago. I don't know if you have read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair but I highly recommend it.

There is a reason why that doesn't have to do with ideological movements why we saw the large growth of the "administrative state" in the 20th C. The low regulation and largely relying upon the market was already tried in this country for at least 2/3rds of the history of this country. Just allowing companies to regulate themselves led to such things as typhiod ridden tenements, spoiled food being sold Black lung, and occasional Depressions.

This is why I believe that Libertarianism as an aspirational ideal has some value but as a practical government and economic system doesn't work. It's as much a Utopian philosophy as Communism is.