[ksrugis]

I don’t see a way to private message any members here, but if anyone wants to add me on facebook it is Facebook.com/ksrugis. It seems my most lively discussions about libertarian topics come up there and it would be nice to have more Austrian minded folks as friends there.

I posted Paul Krugmans’ Twinkie manifesto, and commented that we should destroy some of the most productive industrialized sections of the world to get our factories humming again. To which the liberal friend I often post here about replies,:

” Certainly WW2 played a factor in our success at that time, but to suggest that it was entirely a result of the war, and not the tax rates, and that effect lasted until the 70’s seems far fetched, and ignores the many advances and benefits that tax base created for us, including an infrastructure unmatched elsewhere, and a standard of living that attracted smart and talented people from across the world.

I think if we returned to the kind of tax policies we had during our most prosperous period, and gave our american workers a stake back in the game, we’d see an economy that flourished and was again the envy of the world. Think we can’t compete paying labor good wages, when other countries do it for less? I say we pressure them to come up to our standard, not force us down to theirs. When they pay all but slaves wages, we stop trading with them. Think business will simply go elsewhere? Let them. We still have a large ready workforce, great ideas and innovators (a supply of which we will not lose, because while smart people in other countries may get trapped in factories, we find ways to give them a chance to be more), and natural resources. We have everything we need right here, so screw em. Let them leave, and if they go to one of those slave wage countries, we stop letting them do business with us, which is a market no one wants to lose.

We can do better, and force the world to meet us up on our level.”

I simply said to him that he sounds a lot like some of the great soviet leaders and that seemed to work very well for them…, and left it at that. Sometimes you just have to laugh. It seems to me that I view the economy and the forces that work within it as natural laws, like supply and demand. While he and others like him, view it as something man-made, something we engineer and perfect–take supply and demand and “Screw ’em” we can do better! is the attitude…we can “make” it work better, as if there is something better than the natural laws of economics.

[porphyrogenitus]

I’ll be happy to add people from here on Facebook. ^_^

I’m http://www.facebook.com/james.ruhland.7 there.

But I doubt I’ll participate in many facebook discussions on other people’s pages, especially ones involving third-parties.

1) facebook is a time sink.
2) I used to discuss/debate things like this with people all the time in various random forums, but it’s almost always a waste of time trying to convince anyone. (I think Tom made this point on his blog awhile back, too); you can beat your head against the wall and not get anywhere. Not that it *never* happens; some people are open to good, persuasive arguments. And non-participating lurkers may very well be convinced. So I don’t want to push that point too far. And you’re more likely to be successful with your friends than a random individual would be.

2a) I’ll recommend this which I’ve seen “studies show” works best – asking people questions about their beliefs and asking them to explain why they hold the views they do, and continuing to ask in regression form (“ok, so you believe x because of y, but why do you believe y? You said you also believe n, how does that fit with y? Doesn’t it contradict it?”) can help. But I’m never very patient with that, I tend to just write out where they’re wrong and why and what I think is correct. Not very Socrates of me, but, then, Socrates was the world’s foremost pre-internets troll, and where did that lead him? (That’s what happens when you push your trolling too far. . .I mean, trolling them to give him free foods for the rest of his life?)

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