Samuel Adams Quote

For any patriotic american liberal: 

    "If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."

Samuel Adams

Also to note, for those liberals who would regulate the economy in the name of economic security:   

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."

Benjamin Franklin

>>1
It is message for those who are willing to sacrifice liberty for their own wealth, so this applies to conservatives who might think it is ok to let coorporations influence the government and bring us closer to communism.

>>2
I think that any liberty given up is a breach of security. I'm sure that is what Benjamin meant aswell.

>>3
Anti-economic freedom liberals should also take that into consideration for certain. 

It's not about economic freedom, it's about personal freedom. Economic freedom is just giving leeway for the rich to screw the middle class. Free market is economic ogligrachy.

I would gladly give up my economic freedom for economic security. of course, this is not an essential liberty, nor temporary security in question. If you use a quote, use it in context.

>>5
Wrong.  They are the same thing.  You can't have personal freedom without economic freedom. 

>>6 You can't have complete personal freedom without economic freedom. And I doubt that a free economy would be able to accept completely free consumers for too long. But, I'll read up more about that.
>>5 I don't think the world would have progressed this much if economic security was prioritized over economic freedom.

>>7
I agree with the first sentence.  You can't have complete personal freedom without economic freedom. 

Socialism thus detracts significantly from personal freedom, as does leftism in general. 

"I don't think the world would have progressed this much if economic security was prioritized over economic freedom."

I agree, and I think we would have progressed even further had we placed yet more emphasis on economic freedom.  Freedom in the USA has, unfortunately, been declining.  Unbelievably, even with republican majorities in the house and senate, as well as a republican president, our government spending and power in general is still going up.  In fact, it's going up faster than it was under Clinton, if I'm not mistaken. 

At least we haven't had more firearms rights infringements, while they ran completely out of control under Clinton.

I can't think of a measure of economic freedom that they tried to give us so far, with the exception of his attempts to fix Social Security. 

I think Bush is more of a moderate conservative, and probly knew his Social Security plans wouldn't succeed before he attempted them, and more or less just did that to appease his conservative base.

mmm... beer

>>9
Absolutely true, your words outshine all the other ass-tards here. Seriously, wow, are you like an honest politician or something?

Capitalism is nothing more than letting companies dominant the consumer. You cannot be free while you let yourself be dominated by your own economy.

>>11
No one's forcing you to buy from a certain company. At least capitalism is not like communism where you can only buy from government run monopolies. Oligopolies rarely survive more than a few months, the minute a segment of the economy starts giving a bad deal, then foreign investment or just some plucky entrepeneur will step in and save the day.

>>11
In capitalism consumers dominate the companies, you fucktard. 

>>13
In capitalism, companies strive to create monopolies and ultimately the consumer will depend on them for all his basic needs.

Reality check get.

>>14 "In capitalism, companies strive to create monopolies and ultimately the consumer will depend on them for all his basic needs."Actually, a man named Reisman once compiled a 1000-page defense of capitalism, dismantling myths like that.
>>13 "In capitalism consumers dominate the companies, you fucktard." Yes they do, if they are not busy watching Lost and My Name is Earl...

>>15
Who cares if they are watching them? They still hold the leash, so things are under control. 

Anyway, it's better than socialism, in which things are in the hands of government thugs, mass murderers, and bureaucrats. 

Do you remember the specific title to your defense of capitalism that you speak of? I'd like to take a look at it....

>>15
>Actually, a man named Reisman once compiled a 1000-page defense of capitalism, dismantling myths like that.

I suggest you post some of his points then or admit you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

http://www.capitalism.net/ Here we go. Browse to your heart's content.
>>16>>17

Yes, we all know how fucking great capitalism is on paper, but it doesn't stay that way, consumers get mollified, companies monopolize, and that the whole "competition" ethic is really fantastic as long as individuals don't figure out that 4 fists hit harder than just one.

In a capitalistic society, nobody can cooperate, as cooperation lends greater strength to the group over the individuals. 

Please, refute to me how one man can topple 1000 other than getting 999 others to help him topple that 1000, and once they succeed, what's to stop this new 1000 from oppressing individuals?

The refutation of "better service, better product or method" will trump that big company which is able to drop its price temporarily and crush the upstart.

Please, give me evidence of some entrepreneur with less than 500,000 capital beating an established company of over 5 billion dollars net worth with "a better product". 

All of the tools that entrepreneurs are supposed to have at their disposal aren't there, a savvy consumer public, a free press, etc. 

Basically, I see capitalism on paper as thus: "A free economy that the government has no say in, but in which companies can use their clout to manipulate the market and stifle competition,  which is a contradiction of the capitalist ideal, by which said company supposedly came to acquire said clout.  Destroying the clout of the company REQUIRES a force from outside the market, as the market is under their thumb already.  But any force outside of the market acting upon the market is against the capitalist ideal."

The capitalist system is like Unstable uranium, it's really great for a while, when competition is still existing and monopolies haven't formed, but after they do it's a gradual path to lead.

>>1
>>2
That's just like your opinion, man

Ok, fine monopolies and evil coorporations bribing bureaucrats is bad, but can someone explain why in the fuck the same people who love to point this out think having one huge governemnt controlled monopoly will solve this problem?

>>22
Says who?

Last I checked, people who are aware of the dangers of corporate power are all very aware of the dangers of government power.

The problem is, if you get rid of government, you're left with a power vacuum. Leaving private interests unchecked is just as bad as letting a government run roughshod over our rights.

You won't find any easy answers here.

>>23
There are no answers in politicsm, it's not like maths where every answer is a certainty. You have to make the best decisions and use the best ideas to solve problems.

A good solution is to have the government do nothing but preserve liberty by enforcing justice and give power to the people so they choose which political party has the best ideas for the purpose of finding the best balance between enforcing justice and the cost needed. People will have economic freedom, but not be allowed to implement monopolies or other arrangements which allow people to extort other citizens.

>>23
What do you mean by "get rid of government"?

We'd still have laws, police, military, firemen, etc, if the libertarians had their way, it's not like we'd have anarchy..

The problem is many people looks at the corporations as the reason why capitalism is bad, but the truth is that corporations (as they exist now) are completely against the idea of pure capitalism (that is, separation of business and state).  Corporations have only achieved their status and power through greasing the palms of the politicians, the idea that America has ever been a laissez-faire capitalist country is false. The problem really goes back to the source of government power and corruption.  In a libertarian type government where the politicians don't have the power they do in our system today the corporations would either not exist or would be much less powerful.