Saturday, August 11, 2012

If I Decide to Vote...

...Paul Krugman has been arguing very persuasively that I should vote for Obama:

"Neither candidate is offering a realistic tax plan, because the fact is that the federal government is going to need more revenue than either is currently proposing. But the two men are not equivalent in their unrealism: Obama is proposing to raise revenue by around $80 billion a year compared with current policy, while Romney is proposing to cut revenue by around $450 billion a year compared with current policy. Obama is inadequate; Romney is intensely, screamingly irresponsible."

....but I still haven't decided to vote, yet.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you think that taking more money from the people to give it to the pubblic admnistration will improve the situation vote Obama.

GringoRoyale said...

How about for the one who thinks human life has inherent value so as to not kill it when it is at it's most innocent and defenseless stage?

Bilbo said...

Hi Anon,

Nobel prize-winning Keynesian economist Paul Krugman has argued very persuasively that the best way to get us out of our long-term recession is by larger government stimulus to the economy. But of course, this means that somebody would have to pay for it. We used to have a much higher marginal tax rate on the wealthy than we currently do. I'm all for going back to what worked in the past.

Bilbo said...

Hi Gringo,

I'm assuming you are talking about abortion. I've always thought it was strange that Democrats didn't care about fetuses and Republicans didn't care about anyone who was already born, except the rich. I would prefer a party that cared about both. But I sympathize with those who can't vote for Democrats because of the abortion issue. I'm not sure I can vote for anybody who can't support a new 9/11 investigation. Since neither Democrats nor Republicans would support it, I'm not sure I can bring myself to vote at all.

GringoRoyale said...

Hi Bilbo,

I hear that said alot "but Republicans don't support those already born". Whether true or not (I assume "not").

But the issue here is this:
Even if it were true - Republicans don't claim that those already born do not have an inherent right to life. Maybe they should do more to help those others along - but they don't make the statement "you have no inherent right, by virtue of what you are, to life".

Pro-Abort/Choice (whatever) Democrats essentially say that some humans (humans that aren't on this side of the womb) do not have an inherent right to life. That being a human does not entail the right to not be killed. Some justification is given (as justifications are always given to kill the inconvenient) to excuse the murder.

But I think of it this way: if at your most innocent, defenseless, helpless stage you did not even have the right to carry on with your life.... what possible right could that person (if they weren't aborted) even have?
From the pro-abort position who really cares if Republicans don't continue to support the living.... because that pro-abort didn't even think that person worthy enough to live if that life was an inconvenience to the woman carrying it.

Anonymous said...

" I've always thought it was strange that Democrats didn't care about fetuses and Republicans didn't care about anyone who was already born, except the rich."

Well you have there a big difference, one thing is allow anyone to kill another and a different one is not take from the rich to give to the poor.
Avoid the first is a goverment duty, do the second no.

Anonymous said...

"We used to have a much higher marginal tax rate on the wealthy than we currently do"

Take care on that, I live in a country where doing that reach the level where people with an income of a poor american pays high taxes.

Bilbo said...

Gringo:
From the pro-abort position who really cares if Republicans don't continue to support the living.... because that pro-abort didn't even think that person worthy enough to live if that life was an inconvenience to the woman carrying it.

I think the pro-choice position would be that the woman has a right to decide to do whatever she wants with her body. (I would disagree with that position. We don't allow her to take illegal drugs or commit suicide.) However, it doesn't follow that because a pro-choice person doesn't think the right of the fetus to live is greater than the woman's rights over her body that a pro-choice person thinks that other people don't have an inherent right to life. Even pro-life people think that if the woman's life is in danger that we have a right (obligation?) to kill the fetus. This would suggest that the fetus is in a different status from other human beings. So we should be cautious when reasoning from how one regards fetuses to how one regards other human beings.

Bilbo said...

Anon: Take care on that, I live in a country where doing that reach the level where people with an income of a poor american pays high taxes.

I'm not sure what country you are referring to. Here in America, there was a time (from the New Deal until JFK) when the marginal tax rate was up to 90%. But we still had plenty of rich people.

GringoRoyale said...

Bilbo,

I find it upsetting that you make this distinction of 'fetus' and 'human'.


"So we should be cautious when reasoning from how one regards fetuses to how one regards other human beings."

A fetal human is a human, a teenage human is a human, a senior human is a human.

I hear it said alot "where the woman's life is in jeopardy". I hear this said alot but I can't think of many instances where it actually comes to play. C-section are very successful procedures.

I would wager the amount of instances where the mere presence of a child in a woman, at one moment opposed to another when he/she was already in utero, where this presence is of such a dire consquence that the woman's life is in such jeopardy is terribly small.


"However, it doesn't follow that because a pro-choice person doesn't think the right of the fetus to live is greater than the woman's rights over her body that a pro-choice person thinks that other people don't have an inherent right to life."

how could it not follow? Unless you're going to claim that others get to determine when some other humans life has value, so as to not be murdered. In that case then life doesn't have inherent value. It's value is given from without by some other person. Regardless - in what you're saying then a human life does not have an inherent right to life.

If a human doesn't have an inherent right to live then every other right we talk about is certainly not inherent either. The right to live has got to be the foundational block from which we can structure any other right that we believe human's have. Unless we're going to say it's all arbitrary and simply a matter of will to power. Guy with the biggest gun gets to determine who has what rights.

Bilbo said...

I could be mistaken about this, Gringo, but I think historically (even before Roe v Wade), that causing the death of a fetus was not given the same status as causing the death of a born human being. If I have time, I'll look it up. But maybe you already know. If this is the case, then it could follow that one could regard a fetus as having less right to life than other human beings.

As to the life of the mother having priority over the life of the fetus, the point is not how often one might have to choose between the two. The point is that if one had to choose, we know which comes first.

But meanwhile, since you are attacking the liberal position, I might as well attack the conservative position: As far as I can tell, the conservative position is no different from Social Darwinism. The individual has a right to live, but no one has an obligation to make sure she lives. Thus the mother would not be allowed to get an abortion, but no one needs to make sure she or the fetus has proper health care, food, clothing, and shelter, either before or after birth.

At least the Liberal would insist that we as a society are obligated to help the mother and the fetus to live and live with some level of quality of life. From what I can tell, the Conservative sees no such obligation for society.