Venezuela continues its attack on freedom.

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So what, what about the freedoms being repealed right now by the american government? Or what about the US governments plan to invade cuba in the fifties by deliberately manufacturing false attacks? Either way, if you were in Chavez's situation and understood all the details, you would most likely have a different and more nuanced understanding of the situation other then "he's attacking freedom" like some armchair political analyst.

To pass judgement from our small chairs across the internet is one thing, to actually live in the country and be subject to information we are not privy too is another.

Still, that doesn't cancel out Venezuela which is close to us, and a vocal enemy of ours.


We are thoroughly indoctrinated? And that is why we have abolished all tariffs and all minimum wages? Actually, economist Bryan Caplan complained of the opposite, that people have an anti-market bias and that even programs that many economists are behind, the people are not because of their biased tendencies. Not only that but given that almost all Americans are forced to read The Jungle and no capitalist counter claim or anything of that nature, to argue that we are indoctrinated seems ridiculous.

Some of the acts by the government is unfortunate. I already know that our government has dirty hands. Considering that Chavez was a leader we attempted to assassinate, I would understand why he would hate us. Mordy, I gave the dumbed down version of the entire article because kt-64 apparently thought we were only going into a hate Chavez session, we are not but reacting to some news and some of us do dislike the person.

Ok, but what is the point of a political forum then? You just explained away the reasons why we are here. All issues have information that we do not have in some form or another. We discuss them, it doesn't matter whether it is Sarkozy, Chavez or whomever, we discuss the issue, not ignore it.

I'm just being the devils advocate.

I would say that you could be more effective if you focused more on an opponent. A devil's advocate attacks someone's argument because that is more effective in argumentation.

Obviously. However, if America was truly in for it for oil Canada would be a easier target then Iraq. Also, while it would kick up plenty of difficulty, it America was ruled by some tyrant with absolute power, it wouldn't matter much because he could trade with the types that didn't much care about stuff like that (such as the Chinese, the South Africans, the Russians, and on occasion the French)



Saudi Arabia has more oil then Iraq. Iran has lots of oil, but then again that's a more difficult invasion. Kuwait has plenty of oil. Of course, there are easier ways of getting oil short an invasion (that would be assuming we got lots of oil which we didn't). One method would be drilling domestic sources, which we don't right now.



Again, yes, but I am not speaking so people who share that view (with is essentially my own) but who think that Bushitler is up to intentional no good.



I disagree. Canada's military is undersized even taking into consideration it's small size.

Canada's military
Canada's Population: Almost 33,000,000(1)
Army: 64,000 Active + 23,000 Reserve(1) (60th largest in the world)
Navy: 32 capital ships plus 4 submarines, 9,500(2) sailers
Air Force: 14,500 + 2,600 reserves + 2,500 civilians (1)
Total Military Personal (including reserves): 116,100 (0.35% of population) (The United States, near it's lowest point since the start of the Cold War is at 0.47%)
Military Budget is $16.9 billion (Canadian) or 1.1% of GNP (ranks 128th) (The US, which admittedly has a much higher GDP, spends 3.7% on it's military budget.

(1)Wikipedia
(2)Canadian News Network

I tried to find a good graph but was unable to. However this PDF seems to provide some good ones, although it ends at 2003.



Canada is not a vassal of the United States, nor is there any evidence that American administrations attempt to "buy out" Canadian politicians. If you are referring to lobbying groups, we have them in the United States too. There are some politicians in Canada that attempt to get elected by bringing out the anti-America card (which is similar to tactics American and politicians in any other other country use).

Canada's main export partner is the United States (not surprisingly) at 89.2%. However, Canada only imports 58.9% of it's goods from the United States (although again it's by far the largest partner).

...



This is simply false. In all honesty, the average Americans view on economics is probably not much different from the average Canadians. The average American/Canadian doesn't know the rules of economics to know the cost/benefits of this, that, of the other thing. Hence trying to argue the futility of price controls to the average anybody when gas prices are high is meaningless because because the average everybody just sees greedy corporate types making millions off him struggling to pay the bills. In all honesty I would guess the average American (including many Republicans), and possibly Canadian views on economic policy are rather reactionary. Not stupid mind you. Not at all.

You are wrong about "only intellectuals and high IQ types are left leaning." I would never make such a claim in the opposite. I also don't dispute it's possible you might find some survey that finds liberals or left-wingers have higher IQs; but that confuses intelligence with wisdom. Let me add in yet another disclaimer then I am not saying that liberals are not capable or processing wisdom, or that it is somehow all-encompassing.

I would dispute that the population is Christian and pro-capitalist through "massive propoganda programs." I where these programs come from. Do they come from the media, which often have movies, TV shows, and documentaries which question traditional viewpoints on religion? Do I get turned into a capitalist from television coverage of corporate scandal or Hollywood entertainment depicting heroic lawyers taking down rich criminals every other week?



What is the relationship between Intelligent Design (of which I don't really have an opinion of except maybe slightly negative) and capitalism? I don't see big corporate donors rising to raise money for The Center for Science and Culture.



I have honestly never heard a serious religious Christian using that quote (assuming it is a real quote) as a defense for keeping poverty in existence. I guess some weird Christian somewhere did. I mean, I personally don't think poverty is entirely going away anytime soon, but that doesn't make me for poverty, that just means I have a rather practical view of things. Religious people also tend to donate money and their time to charity more then secular people (generally) (source).

I was all for Chavez until he didn't step down after the rules he helped write and get approved (the Constitution) said he had too.

Seriously, I even gave like $5 to the man.

Name some and we (or I) can debate it.



Governments always have plans. Wasn't this the opening to Loose Change? The US never launched a full scale invasion of Cuba, however it did assist a poorly executed attempt have exiles invade the island. The exiled were promised support, but the promise was not delivered on. In all honesty I don't think there was anything unethical about launching a full scale invasion of Cuba to topple Fidel Catro (who lied through his teeth when he promised free elections). It has not been a remote possibility since the Cuban Missile Crisis.



I believe that shutting down independently owned television stations for obviously spurious reasons is unethical. I think I can reasonably say so without despite the fact I don't live in Valenzuela. Homosexuals are jailed in Cuba for being homosexual. I am not privy to every specific detail but I can still say it's wrong.



I don't think there is any evidence we tried to kill him.

Related:



(the original link is no longer available, I found the article here)

The US did actually have plans for invading Canada, back in the 1930s.

Yes, in fact here is the document: (link). It is worth noting that this event (noted as the "largest "in peacetime history) occurred in a time of extreme isolationism in the United States, and not at a time of a large defense build up. FDR was elected in '32 and he was not anti-British or anti-Canadian. This were peacetime maneuvers of a small absurdly underarmed military. The subcommittee chairman is only a major, which speaks rather notably as to it's importance.

The US and Canada had, in fact, have come to come somewhat to very close to war before previously through a border dispute involving British Guyana and Valenzuela during the Cleveland administration, (unjustified) raids by the Fenian Brotherhood after the Civil War, and the Caroline Affair. Of course Canada and the United States fought each other once nearly two hundred years ago.

The military, and intelligence community make many plans almost none of which are carried out. The United Kingdom had there own strategic and tactical plans in the inter0war years, and conducted war games, some of which had the United States as a adversary, some as an ally. Canada did as well.

There is some more on this at The Straight Dope.

ADDENDUM: I noticed I made a faulty supposition while attempting to addressing one of Anubis' points. The correction is after the bold print "correction" here (link).

I think you are right now that I did some research.

That has nothing to do with being anti-market, there is no such thing as a "Free market" and many economists today are like priests, they are disconnected from peoples circumstances.

And yes a good majority of americans are indoctrinated, how do you think people like bush get elected? Or the privitization of social security for instance, etc? All bad ideas.

freedom to leave.


you can't sell you home and move out, you're assigned a smaller apartment. for the greater good...you are a prisoner of your country.


that's pretty scary.


and you talk about "oh that's just one freedom." well here in the US that means that every single person who spoke out against the war in iraq would be undermining the government and due to be throw away in jail or killed for treason. that's a pretty f*****g big loss of freedom.

There is a such thing as a free market. As wiki states "A free market is a market where the price of an item is arranged by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers, with the supply and demand of that item not being regulated by a government" That currently exists. Even when controlling for income and political beliefs economists still believe more in the market than the rest of the populace, that doesn't strike me as a horrible disconnect. Rather, it strikes me as a sign that economists know what they are talking about. Not only that but as education increases thinking like an economist increases.

Bush got elected the first time partially due to the influence of Ralph Nader, partially because at the time many thought he would be less interested in aggressive foreign policy, and also partially because many did not like the sexual misconduct in the Clinton administration and that is something that Bush used in that election. The second time it was because even though people didn't like Bush, they also didn't like John Kerry much. It boiled down to picking a lesser of 2 evils, not only that but I think that Kerry also tended to be a bit less likeable. The privatization of social security is actually a good idea as market returns are a lot higher than the returns given by the current system, not only that but it would put the money there to work as financial capital and essentially work to increase the savings rate. If done correctly it can be helpful. Not only that but the money essentially belongs to the people who earn it, I think that it would be best to give them control and let them allocate it. Finally, that money would not be affected by the whims of congress meaning that there is insurance against negative political action. Really though, based on a statistical survey of the AEA, it seems that most economists believe that the current social security system has funding problems, and economists think that privatization is a better option than tax increases for dealing with this issue.