Do conservative principles work in reality?

Question

What does real-world evidence tell us about the conservative principles of unconstrained laissez faire capitalism & minimal government?

To answer, let's look at the laboratory where these principles take their purest form - Texas.

Ranked per capita (adjusting for pop.) murder rate, five of the nation's most murderous cities are in Texas. If you look at overall violent crime (including rape, assault, etc.) Texas does even worse. And property crimes (e.g., theft, burglary) are worse still!

Texas has two of the nation's ten most polluted cities. It houses many of the nation's biggest polluters (#1 - BP refinery in Texas City).

Texans have the lowest level of educational attainment measured by the proportion of the population holding at least a high school diploma. It leads the nation in the number of people without access to healthcare, including the highest rate and number of uninsured children.

Is Texas a BASKET CASE due to Con ideas/control?

Answer 1

Well, I'm not trying to start something, but I happen to be a Texan.
Yes, these little factoids sound really bad- but do you live in Texas? Do you really know what's going on?
"Ranked per capita, blah blah blah..." That's because we are the biggest state, besides Alaska. That means we have A LOT of people, so really, proportionally, those figures mean nothing.
And last of all, please note the country that Texas happens to share a border with. Aliens are dirty people. (Note to people of Hispanic descent: I did not say Mexicans, and I am not talking to you personally. I'm talking about the illiterate people that run across the border.)

Answer 2

-Ranked per capita (adjusting for pop.) murder rate, five of the nation's most murderous cities are in Texas. If you look at overall violent crime (including rape, assault, etc.) Texas does even worse. And property crimes (e.g., theft, burglary) are worse still!

And where do most of the liberal Democrats live-- In the cities. and the majority of those crimes are commited by people who vote Republican? I don't think so. Republican will rape your pocket but they let you live.

-Texas has two of the nation's ten most polluted cities. It houses many of the nation's biggest polluters (#1 - BP refinery in Texas City).

Once again who lives in those cities? And I'm not just talking about Texas-- Liberal Democrats

-Texans have the lowest level of educational attainment measured by the proportion of the population holding at least a high school diploma. It leads the nation in the number of people without access to healthcare, including the highest rate and number of uninsured children.

I'm not sure what the cause is but I don't think the reason is capitalism.

Answer 3

First of all, Texas is nowhere close to being a model laboratory for conservative principles. Just because you say so, doesn't mean it's true.

Second, if you are going to try to use statistics to prove your case, you must provide citations. For all we know, you are making the numbers up. Without a source you information is meaningless.

The best current laboratory that would be representative of conservative principles is the Internet. It is open to everyone, and has virtually no government regulation. The Internet is truly the land of the free and thus far has been hugely successful. It will remain a success as long as the government keeps it's hands off.

Answer 4

Yes.

You forgot to prove that Texas is the "purest form" of conservative principles. I'm sure if you could eliminate the illegals crossing the border, the crime rate would go down and the education level would go up.

Do you know why the education level is so low across America? It's because of welfare. Kids are growing up in homes with no role models. They see mommy sitting on the couch all day watching Jerry Springer, so how are they supposed to learn how to become productive citizens?

Let's look at liberal principles:

1 - Take from those who work and give it to those who don't. This creates resentment from the working people and encourages people not to work. If I can live a better lifestyle by taking advantage of government programs, why in the heck would I want to work?

2 - If you don't like what someone else is saying, shout them down or pass a law making it illegal for them to say it. I guess book burnings will be next, huh?

3 - Take away the law-abiding citizen's ability to protect himself from the criminals. What happens? The crime rate goes up. In cities that allow their citizens to be armed, the crime rate is low. Cities like Chicago and NY that have outrageous gun control laws have the highest crime rates because the criminals have no fear of being harmed.

4 - Make all kids attend government schools and pay the teachers outrageous salaries for working nine months a year. Government schools are a joke. They're more concerned with teaching kids liberal morals than teaching them how to read and write. Why not allow vouchers so that people can start their own schools? If government schools are so great, then won't everyone just stay there?

.

Answer 5

Because "economically", in case you haven't noticed, we are out of options and the futuristic flux capacitor will have to wait intil it becomes (economically) viable as a "solution" and not science fiction. Social Democrats want to throw away (by regulation) the internal combustion engine BEFORE we have an alternative! Let's look at the Social Democratic "solution" of last summer: ethanol. It cost 9 gallons of FOSSIL FUELS to produce one gallon of ethanol. Gas prices at the pump did not go down but rose. Ethanol was not widely commercially available because it could not be produced in vast quantities to keep up with the demand and, in places where it was available, cost as much as petroleum. The cost of corn went up so the many farmers switched crops to cash in on the "cash cow" thus raising the price of other crops. What got solved? Not a thing as ethanol has been scrapped (for the most part). In any case, more people believe in "global warming" than they do that Muslims flew planes into the Towers: why? Because the information is skewed! You used to be able to go on-line and actually research various theories but now it is all PRO- Perhaps because the BILLIONS to be made from government contracts is too lucritive to pass up at the expense of truth or knowledge? People find it easier to believe one fictitious conspiracy but cannot accept a more fact-based one... 25-years ago, scientists believed in global COOLING... what has changed that makes WARMING factual?

Answer 6

I think your question and examples show that Bush-style "conservatism" doesn't work in principle. You could do a similar comparison on many similar issues for the US as a whole before and after Bush and come up with the same results.
Oh, and by the way, despite Bush executing some 470 prisoners while governor of Texas, they still have some of the highest crime rates -- there goes that whole "deterrent" idea :)

The problem with just calling this stuff "conservative" is that it's NOT classical conservatism. Bush and the vast majority of republicans today aren't conservatives by any stretch of the imagination. Conservatives are for shrinking goverment -- Bush has expanded the US government more than any other president in history. Conservatives are for balanced budgets -- Bush has run up the highest annual deficits and national debt in US history. Conservatives are for getting government OUT of personal lives -- Bush wants to police what you do in your bedroom, with your sex partners, with your own body, on the internet, on the phone, etc. and make anything he and his religious-right followers don't like illegal.

None of those things are conservative -- and they're certainly not liberal. They're quite simply the agenda of the religious right, which has hijacked and controls the republican party...which is by no means "conservative." It's theocracy and idiocy, plain and simple :)

Answer 7

What you cite is unrelated to capitalism, laissez faire or otherwise. What capitalism has to do with the murder rate or violent crime rate isn't even discussed. To throw these two disparate ideas together and then say that one is the cause of the other is utterly ridiculous. I don't even think you know a stinking thing about conservatism. Maybe you could read a book now and then. Just a friendly suggestion.

Answer 8

As someone currently living in Texas, I disagree with your premise. I do not believe Texas to be the "laboratory where these principles take their purest form." One of the many places where I have lived other than Texas was the state of UT where I would argue conservative principles are more "pure." Even then, UT has a large population of liberals and they are well represented in the state.

Answer 9

Ha! Texas is a bad example because you liberals have ruined so much in our country they they, like every state, is being drug down into the abyss of socailism.

Want to see how laissez faire capitalism and minimal government works? Look at the remarkable turn around in Estonia since it instituted many of Milton Friedmans ideas.

Oh wait you wouldn't do that. You will just go on spewing your liberal lies.

Answer 10

I would say the idea is control, the presumption that Texas is a basket case is a radical point of view. It is not as complicated as you understand the complicity of the role of politics and the role of a one world government or of global capitalism.