[javert]

I'm so sick of online American-bashing, which is a fad. Please stop. Where someone has lived has nothing to do with it whatsoever.

27% of the entire economy shifted entirely to government consumption? That's a humongous amount of the economy. It's almost 1/3.

[seanmcdirmid]

I'm not bashing America, I'm even American. I just get so tired of those of us who complain about paying so much taxes and so much for gas for our SUVs and so much rent for our McMansions. And here I am living in a country where I can't even buy a car, live in a small apartment, and pay 40% income tax, and a pair of jeans sets me back 800RMB. And you know what...it's not the end of the world, it works out.

And...our government consumes less than 1/3rd of the GDP when social spending in other developed countries is at 1/2 or more! Libertarians would have us be like Somalia.

[javert]

> Libertarians would have us be like Somalia.

It's important to realize that that's not actually true. I think we should have a small government that protects citizens from force and violence. That still includes all the core functions of government (e.g. police, courts, military, I don't care if you throw in basics like roads).

That is a world apart from Somalia, or anarchism. It's actually just a return to earlier ideas of American government that served us well at the time.

To be clear, I'm not a libertarian, for reasons that aren't relevant here.

[seanmcdirmid]

> I think we should have a small government that protects citizens from force and violence.

How about protecting us from peasant revolts when our social services suck so much that people lose hope and take advantage of their second amendment rights? Or how about just avoiding the revolts in the first place by having a decent moral government that evens the playing field between rich and poor?

> It's actually just a return to earlier ideas of American government that served us well at the time.

This is BS rosy-tinted glasses revisionism that has no grounding in real history. Like how everything was better in the 50s if you just ignored segregation and the 90% tax rate we had on the rich. Did isolationalism serve us well before WWI and II? Did our hands off approach prevent the dishonest greed and speculation that led to the depression? The 1800s weren't that much better, just look at all the crashes and war that went on then.

> To be clear, I'm not a libertarian, for reasons that aren't relevant here.

Good, because libertarians tend to be bad historians and have a poor understanding of human nature.

[javert]

I think your viewpoints are completely inane.

For example, our current economic model is completely unsustainable. It's not going to prevent the "peasant revolts" you talk about. It's going to guarantee them. Yet you seem to be calling for more of the same.

I wasn't talking about the 1950s, but pre-WWI. And, yes, isolationism did serve us well pre-WWI, though I am not an advocate of isolationism at all, as a principle.

Now, to get to the interesting bit.

> having a decent moral government that evens the playing field between rich and poor

Pray, tell me where you have found a rational, reason-based morality that makes you so certain that the rich need to be punished and sacrificed to the poor? Where have you found a rational, reason-based economic philosophy that can prove that doing so will be good for the economy, instead of furthering its destruction?