Texas’ Sovereignty Under 10th Amendment

The Coffee Shop
41

Yes, of course. That’s why they rank much lower in economic freedom than the US.

Slightly lower, Rob.

The evidence of that ranking, as shown by the overwhelming majority of the countries, strongly refutes your claim.

Only if you get to make up my claims for me. This is the claim that you are responding to, but failing to cite:

“I’m only pointing out that socialism and economic freedom (and prosperity) are obviously not exclusive. It is quite easy to screw up any political or economic system… usually via corruption. Take a look at all the countries that are capitalist (or at any rate certainly not socialist) which are also very poor.”

The evidence overwhelmingly supports this.

The very poor countries are almost entirely the ones near the bottom of the list, that is, the least capitalist ones with the least economic freedom.

Are they socialist then? What would you call them? They have essentially zero social welfare, and they certainly are capitalist in that the capital is privately owned. The fact that they are poor and corrupt does not make them non-capitalist.

If you go to the “Top Ten” list compiled by the scholars who developed the index and listing, you’ll find that Australia and New Zealand received almost identical rankings in “trade freedom” (i. e., tariffs) compared with the US. As to the taxes and benefits, you can look at the “government size” factor. Here New Zealand received a somewhat lower ranking (i. e., larger government size) than the US, but Australia received a higher ranking than the US. So even if you want to single out these two countries, they don’t support your claim; at best, they are ambiguous.

I didn’t single them out, you did. And their social welfare (like Canada) is considerably higher than in the US.

About the “economic freedom” lists… these are put together by think tanks with the expressed purpose of touting their version of economic freedom… so their findings should be viewed with a bit of scepticism. Additionally, I don’t think your equating “size of government” with taxes is correct. Here is a list of total tax burdens:

Country Tax in % of GDP

Pakistan 10
Mexico 19.8
Turkey 23.7
South Africa 26.4
Japan 27.9
USA 28.3
Romania 28.6
South Korea 28.7
Lithuania 29.7
Switzerland 29.7
Slovakia 29.8
Latvia 30.1
Australia 30.6
Estonia 31.0
Greece 31.3
Ireland 32.2
Canada 33.3
Poland 33.5
Malta 33.8
Bulgaria 34.4
New Zealand 36.0

New Zealand and Australia are well below the US, so however they are doing the ranking for “size of government” must be different than you assume.

42

Can’t post at work so this is a little late but Perry no more wants to make Texas a country than the man in the moon. This is pure politics. Perry’s up for reelection and the other contender for the job is Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson. She’s gonna clean his clock so he’s now saying that ALL of Washington is corrupt, not just the Dems, so he can include Kay “Bailout” Hutchinson as he now calls her. Perry has no where to go. Bill White has announced that he’s running for Hutchinson’s senate seat and he has better funding than Perry so Perry’s trying to hold on to what he’s got by appealing to the conservative base. There have been independent Texans around since Texas became a state. Thats nothing new. That the governor said it makes it news but he’s soon going to be a full time Boy Scout leader or partners with Tom Delay on K street. He most likely will be political history soon enough.

Remember Don’t trust politicians

43

Thanks for that. I still think that overall more people are becoming aware of what the role of the Federal Government should be and how individuals and States lose control they should have. You’re absolutely right that you shouldn’t trust politicians, I think you shouldn’t trust any humans as greed and personal gain are main motives of most. I only trust those that earned my trust - often I just rely on myself, easier that way and I’m the only one accountable for my mistakes and fortunes.

Do you think that Perry endorsing this will cause more widespread awareness in TX of the interference of State powers/control through Federal Govt. intervention?

I don’t think States will seriously try to break apart from the current way the Federal Government operates until we experience massive inflation due to the irresponsible monetary policies by the Fed and the irresponsible spending habits by elected “Representatives”.

44

I’ve been on a trip to Boston and haven’t had any time to go on the Internet for a week, but your last post was so replete with false and misleading statements that it demands a reply.

“About the ‘economic freedom’ lists… these are put together by think tanks with the expressed purpose of touting their version of economic freedom… so their findings should be viewed with a bit of scepticism.”

You’ve obviously forgotten–or would prefer to forget–that you were the one who first brought up these rankings. Your statement was: “You might be surprised to learn that nearly all the countries that score highest for ‘economic freedom’ are also socialist… by US standards.” That “score highest” bit was a pretty obvious reference to the publishing rankings for economic freedom, especially since you’ve been in on several recent discussions of the latter.

When I challenged your statement, you responded by claiming: “Canada, Austrialia, New Zealand, Japan and all of western Europe are quite ‘socialist’ compared to the US.”

Of course, that would support your point ONLY if the countries in question “scored higher” than the US in the first place, AND if those countries were clearly socialist. But as I pointed out, Japan and the western European countries scored at much lower levels of economic freedom, so they did not support your point at all, and in fact pointed in the exact opposite direction.

That leaves Canada, Australia, and New Zealand–and as I further pointed out, none of those are really “socialist,” and I pointed to specific indexes that indicate that they’re no more “socialist” than the US in the specific areas you named as important. So now you’re falling back on the claim that you never meant to “single out” those countries in the first place. Aarrrggh…

Or wait–maybe when you typed “Austrialia” you meant Austria instead of Australia. But no, Austria ranks 23rd in economic freedom, much worse than the US, so that can’t be it…

The obvious truth, which you will never admit, is that your initial claim was totally unsupportable and contrary to the empirical facts. Now I’m dropping the subject, before someone posts the picture indicating what kind of person is retarded enough to continue to engage in a debate like this one. :wink: