My humble opinion is that everyone should take responsibility for his/her situation and improve your own conditions. I’d hate to live in a progressive world where everything is unjust and unfair, and can only be corrected by co-opting the rights, property and wealth of others.

1. I support living in a racially diverse, "liberal," open-minded, accepting society; however, I also support absolute equality under the law, without preferences and redistribution.
2. I support adherence to the rule-of-law. For example, I support increasing legal skilled immigration from everywhere, but limiting unskilled illegal immigration.
3. The basis of my philosophy is that the world is fair (excluding socialism, fascism, stateism, collectivism and communist systems). I support minimal Government, economic liberty and unalienable private property and unalienable civil rights, because free individuals who work hard will earn their wealth.
4. All individual Americans deserve life, liberty and to right pursue happiness without Government intervention. Some groups do earn more wealth than others, because those groups have cultures that stress education and work ethics, and those diverse results are fair. Diversity of outcome is liberty. Equality of outcome is oppression.
5. Government should do NOTHING to promote racial or economic equality, besides enforcing the law equally. Basically, in a free market economy, the economic distribution patters are always fair, and redistribution is always vile (distortive and oppressive).
6. Government should do nothing to prevent business failure. Furthermore, Government should neither grant favors nor pick winners. Bankruptcy and reorganization is the market solution. Corrupt business should fail. Government is our most corrupting element. Bad management is punished by the free market, but bailout and Government distortion allows bad managers to stay in place. The free market insures that bad managers are soon without a job. The free market continuously insures that better business practices replace worse.
7. Once a Government becomes too powerful, then people are powerless to prevent tyranny, so encroaching Government power must ALWAYS be limited! We are currently on the Road to Serfdom where Government is usurping power, and violating the U.S. Constitution, which I consider to be the greatest political document ever written.
8. Capitalism, coupled with civil liberties, best combats poverty while preventing tyranny: The free market solution for the poor - in a free society - is to work hard, gain skill, become educated, save capital for investment and move up an organization based on merit or invest in your own business. Additionally, free markets lead to free minds and free peoples. Free markets also create mutually beneficial wealth and prosperity, while free trade promotes peace and understanding.
9. I support minimal, less intrusive, more-efficient Government, the Constitution, free-markets and unalienable individual and private property rights. My arguments are aligned with andare also based on Thomas Jefferson’s views. As the US is, in fact, the “Jeffersonian Democracy,” I consider his views more relevant than Marx, Chomsky, Keynes, Krugman or Obama. I argue for returning to the original intent of our founding fathers; adhering to the Constitution; income is private property, which is constitutionally respected; excessive taxation is slavery; and too large and too powerful Governments are inefficient, wasteful and oppressive. I argue for liberty and against against Big Government tyranny.

Jefferson Quotes:

1. A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
2. Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
3. I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
4. I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
5. It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes.
6. Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.
7. Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.
8. My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
9. Never spend your money before you have earned it.
10. The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
11. To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
12. When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
13. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life (not government provided human zoo socialism), liberty (not Marxist equality), and the pursuit of happiness (not economic justice).
14. "That government is best which governs the least”
15. "Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values."

Ayn Rand Quotes:

1. Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).
2. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue.
3. Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.
4. Government "help" to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.
5. The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
6. We are fast approaching the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force

Capitalism = make a profit no matter who it hurts. If stealing and lying is profitable, it is good. People don't count, money counts.

Capitalism is only an acceptable life philosophy if you worship money.

“make a profit” – implies earning your wealth. Making a profit is creating wealth. Creating wealth results in a mutually beneficial snowball effect that is capitalism. Creating wealth is sharing wealth with all those who earn it. Capitalism is the economic engine.

Socialism is to take others' wealth under the threat of physical force and arrest. Socialists are parasites the prey on others, Socialism is like overhead; It costs, but as socialism grows its value diminishes.

"Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values."

Your thoughts on the virtue of free-market capitalism are nothing new, and their flaws have been well-known for a long time, too.

Your philosophy is a great example of what's called "magical thinking" - if only we had X, everything would be better! It applies to the real world about as well as the "fairy godmother" model - or Marx's communist utopia model.

Apply a little empirical analysis and you'll see that unlimited free markets work to consolidate power among the wealthy. Democratic government, while flawed, provides a means to counteract this unnatural and oppressive consolidation.

The real world is a complex place, and simplistic solutions, such as yours and Rand's, don't work in it. Mature economic and political models account for this. Yours is for babies.

P.S. just a quick note on vocabulary: an unalienable right is one that cannot be abrogated under any circumstances. An unalienable property right is one that you cannot lose; in other words, you will always own your property, no matter what. Selling it, trading it, or giving it away cannot cause you to no longer own it. I suspect you don't really mean "unalienable."

Fitzpatrick - <link> - A libertarian view of inalienable rights is man has a right to ownership over his life and therefore also his property, because he has invested time (i.e. part of his life) in it and thereby made it an extension of his life. However, if he initiates force against and to the detriment of another man, he alienates himself from the right to that part of his life which is required to pay his debt: "Rights are not inalienable, but only the possessor of a right can alienate himself from that right – no one else can take a man's rights from him."

An unalienable right is a basic human right which cannot be taken away by government.

17th-century English, philosopher John Locke discussed natural rights in his work, identified them as being "life, liberty, and estate (property)" and argued that such fundamental rights could not be surrendered in the social contract.

Thus in discussion of social contract theory, "inalienable rights" were said to be those rights that could not be surrendered by citizens to the sovereign. Such rights were thought to be natural rights, independent of positive law. However, many social contract theorists reasoned that in the natural state only the strongest could benefit from their rights. Thus people form an implicit social contract, ceding their natural rights to the authority to protect them from abuse, and living henceforth under the legal rights of that authority.

Neither can any state acquire such an authority over other states in virtue of any compacts or cessions. This is a case in which compacts are not binding. Civil liberty is, in this respect, on the same footing with religious liberty. As no people can lawfully surrender their religious liberty by giving up their right of judging for themselves in religion, or by allowing any human beings to prescribe to them what faith they shall embrace, or what mode of worship they shall practise, so neither can any civil societies lawfully surrender their civil liberty by giving up to any extraneous jurisdiction their power of legislating for themselves and disposing their property

Empirical studies: I challenge you to provide any measurable evidence that Government intrusion into markets results in better economic growth than Laissez Faire. You made a claim. Defend your assertions. Counter with research.

What does research tell us about the best balance between economic liberty and socialist quasi-slavery? <link> The indices of economic freedom attempt to measure (free market) economic freedom, and empirical studies based on these rankings have found them to be correlated with higher living standards, economic growth, income equality, less corruption and less political violence. For a sample example, see:

1. The Path To Sustainable Growth, Lessons From 20 Years Growth Differentials In Europe: (THE PATH TO SUSTAINABLE GROWTH)"Big government" is the main cause of Europe's weak performance. The oversized Public-Sector lacks productivity and undoes the entire productivity gains of the Private Sector, eradicating all of its outstanding performance and productiveness. Europe can improve its overall performance by copying the Irish success formulas: Scaling down Public Spending, downsizing bureaucracy, and shifting the tax burden from income on consumption. This book demonstrates why the Lisbon Agenda and decades of Keynesian inflationist demand stimulation have failed. It develops alternative and workable supply-side strategies as well as effective cures for humane growth and a financially sustainable social security… The main conclusion is that two factors of the public policy mix cause weak growth performances: excessive public spending and a demotivating tax structure, on the one hand, and over- consumption with a lack of savings and investment on the other hand. We conclude that the public sector in most European countries is far too large, depriving the private sector of the recourses to realize its full wealth potential.

2. US Joint Economic Commission: <link> -Government serves many useful functions, including some economic ones. The findings here support the view that the growth of government in newly emerging nations and economies tends to increase output. Presumably this reflects the reduction in transactions' costs and the improved environment for investment associated with a rule of law and enforceable property rights. At the same time, in modern times relative American federal government spending has expanded rapidly, reflecting sharp increases in transfer payments. The evidence suggests that large transfer payments in particular have negative consequences for growth. The results for the federal government are confirmed for state and local governments and several other countries. The findings suggest that a federal budget strategy of constraining spending growth below output growth, with particular attention paid to constraining transfer payments, would have positive effects on economic growth.

3. Economic Freedom Indexes: <link> "Public spending" or "Government size" or taxation" is different than "economic freedom." The curve shows that governments mostly tax, redistribute and spend themselves into economic destruction - even in nations with high degrees of economic freedom. The curve proves taxation, redistribution, and government size hinders economic growth in most Western nations because most nations tax their populations too much for optimal tax rates. The study tries to find the optimal tax rate which generates the most tax revenues. I would prefer to have less revenues and smaller government over the optimal rate.

Very recommended links:

1. 5% growth is no utopia. Causes of Growth differentials in europe. (Abstract WFA Study)

2. Causes of Growth Differentials in Europe: (Full Report of the WFA Study):

3. The myth of the Scandinavian Model. (The Brussels Journal)

4. Europe's Ailing Social Model: Fairy-Tale & Facts

5. Can we still avoid Inflation ( Friedrich A. Hayek on inflationary policies )

6. The Swedish model: Admire the best, forget the rest (The Economist)

7. Decay and the welfare state, Time to Reevaluate the European Social Model. Has the time come? (FT)

8. Dr Robert A. Mundell's Nobel Prize Lecture: "A Reconsideration of the 20th Century" claiming that Supply Side Economics leads to growth and price stability.

9. THE PATH TO SUSTAINABLE GROWTH - Lessons From 20 Years Growth Differentials In Europe.

More Research on Europe:

1. Is Europe Doomed to Continued Economic Stagnation? <link> Europe suffers from particular weaknesses. 2007 Index of Economic Freedom says, "Europe suffers from the second-worst regional score in labor freedom and is dead last in fiscal free­dom from government.… [S]trong state sectors and rigid labor markets have already prompted significant social turmoil, not least in France."

2. Jean-Claude Trichet, "The Need for Structural Reforms in Europe," lecture to the Lisbon Council, June 4, 2007, at www.ecb.eu/press/key/date/2007­­­/html/sp070604.en.html#fnid2­­ (June 7, 2007).

3. OpenEurope, "ICM Survey of Chief Executives for Open Europe," at www.openeurope.org.uk/research­­­/businesspres.pdf

4. "The Road to Hell Was Paved with Good Intentions," The European Journal, March/April 2006, pp. 19–21, at <link>

5. Sean Dorgan, "How Ireland Became the Celtic Tiger," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1945, June 23, 2006, at <link>.

As for further evidence that the New Deal failed see these articles:

1. FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate
Why the New Deal Failed

2. <link>

3. FDR's programs didn't succeed in pushing unemployment below 20 percent.

4. New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America."

5. Cato's Jim Powell makes the case against the New Deal.

Oh, Muffy! There you go again! You should scrub that hard drive so you aren't tempted to trot out the cut n paste spam constantly.

Smores:

Empirical studies: I challenge you to provide any measurable evidence that Government intrusion into markets results in better economic growth than Laissez Faire. You made a claim. Defend your assertions. Counter with research.

I never made that particular claim. You're arguing with yourself. Also Capitalizing Excessively - a habit of True Believers, one that undermines your ethos.

The rest of your post is the internet equivalent of pamphleteering.

The definition of "inalienable" you provide contradicts itself. I won't bother repeating myself - just add that it's a useless term in a discussion of economics. It applies to freedom of conscience, and nothing more, in common western usage. Consider the Native American conception of land use (probably apocryphal, but illustrative nonetheless) - the right to use land is inalienable under that worldview. Thus land sales, and ownership of the produce of the land, are meaningless concepts. Surely that's not what you promote.

Private property was developed as a way to exert power over other humans, then an aid to defining justice, and eventually was recognized as a means to promote productivity. It's not a first principle, but a means to an end.

You criticize word choices and my writing style, but do not defend your dogma with ideas or research. Hmmm?

Why do you debate vocabulary instead of ideas? Is it because your dogma is indefensible?

Okay- just to play your straw man game (because I was hoping for an intellectual challenge), I’ll debate private property too: Private property was developed as humans evolved from hunter gather societies into an agrarian society. People wanted to control the fruit of their own labors, and did not want to work for others, so they claimed ownership over their work and land improvements. The fact that some cultures have different perspectives of land ownership is irrelevant because we are part of Western Civilization. Cultural relativity is irrationals well. Why?

Is simpleminded Marxist owner versus worker, victim versus oppressor the basis of all your dogma? Do you have anything else of intellectual value to offer?

BTW: Feudalism, Mercantilism, Fascism and Corporatism are not Laissez faire, which is what Rand advocates.

I have no dogma, and no interest in repeating myself.

I bring up vocabulary and style because they are indicators that you cannot properly express yourself. Your misuse of the term "straw man" reinforces this impression, so I won't be wasting any more time with you.

A straw man is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to "win" an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic.

Two questions:

1. Did the progressive bring up irrelevant topics in order to divert attention from the original issues?
2. Did the left-winger run away from an intellectual challenge?

No, it's not. Look it up.

I see that my original assessment of your childishness was correct.

a straw man is making up an opponents arguement and then beating it down.its not about distracting people from a issue but creating a fake one in order to try to make your point seem logical.

Wikipedia: Straw man <link>

What the hell are you talking about Smores? A straw man is when you claim that someone else made an argument (usually an extreme and cartoonish one) and then procede to argue against it. It has nothing to do with leading attention away from the argument and has everything to do with putting words into your opponent's mouth.