Do they not teach logic in your country? The argument that something is true because “everyone else says so” is a fallacy known as an Argumentum ad Populum.
Edit: Oh wow. Check out the politics going on in that Wiki article. Hilarious.
This fallacy is sometimes committed while trying to convince a person that a widely popular theory is true.
9 out of 10 of my constituents oppose the financial rescue package, therefore it is a bad idea.
Since 88% of the people polled believed in UFOs, they must exist.
Since citizens have to pay taxes and are ruled by the government, the state must be a judicial reasoned and rightful institution.
You are much more uninformed than I am. Of course logic is taught in Venezuela and in any country of the world. No wonder a lot of people worldwide resent the fact that many Americans wish to lecture the world on everything and some do not even know which countries are on which other continents.
Anyway, please provide actual reason why we should like Obama? As far as I know, he is a regular statist. He love interventionist policies with things like increasing the minimum wage and affrimative action.
There is no reason to like or dislike anyone. Minimum wages and affirmative action are specifically targeted to help the need and can save lives. In my opinion, this compensates the inconvenienvces such policies can inflict on people who have been more fortunate since their birth.
Minimum wages do not guarantee a certain income for everyone, but rather constitute a wage hurdle one has to be able to jump over in order to get a job. The needy who are not capable of doing so will wind up without a job.
Affirmative action, if we put its questionable premises aside for a moment, creates a legal minefield, thus giving employers a good reason to think twice before hiring someone. This, again, tends to hurt people on the margin of society, those who you’d qualify as “needy”.
You can’t be serious. Why not take good corneas from the sighted and give them to those with cataracts? After all: inconveniencing the sighted is a small price to sight those with cataracts.
Or do you lack the courage of your convictions? You realize that if you do not support the above, you necessarily are a hypocrite.
To remove someone’s corneas would not be to inconvenience the sighted. That would be to utterly harm them. Affirmative action does not promote trafficking organs.
I agree that the two criticisms you make are major ones. I meant when it saves lives in an indirect way, through better survival possibilities. However countries like Germany have very high minimum wages and Germany was about the last country which just entered the recession.
It may be true that the vast majority of the world was worried about Hitler, but much of the world, including the United States, were supportive of Stalin early during his rule. What this tells us is that the world can be incredibly mistaken about the consequences of the rise to power of men in other countries. I don’t personally think Obama will be worse than Bush, but the opinion of “most people” does not make something true.
There is a good reason Austrian scholars oppose affirmative action and minimum wage.(Minimum wage reduce the number of jobs available/negotiation power of the employees and affirmative actions put races over other attributes) By supporting such positions, you have demonstrated your ignorance of Austrian economics and by extension the lack of reading you have done so far. If not, than you failed to give convincing arguments(or lack of) on why these economic intervention would work.
Given your long posting history, I would have thought that you picked up on these ideas already. But sadly, either your reading list is less intensive than mine or you lack reading comperhension skills.
Emotional bashing? That has always existed on this forum, and everywhere else on the internet, but it is very minute now as it always has been. As for a state of pessimism, what else do you want? A very leftist President with a large Democratic majority spells disaster for our economy.
And you replied with a second material fallacy, the red herring.
For the record, I’d describe my earlier question as more rhetorical than sarcastic. Though in the USA its true that logic courses virtually don’t exist before college level.
What is the “will of the people”? How does it justify Barack Obama’s rule?
Why does something that is “agreed upon by the rest of the world” suddenly make right, when not everyone agrees to it. How can the majority determine what is right? What about the minority? Why is democracy beneficial?
Why does “pessimism” automatically deserve criticism, while “feasty and hopeful” automatically deserve praise?
Your time frame is just slightly off. The tone of this forum changed as soon as you began posting on it. As a group, Austrians have a very deep knowledge of economics founded by an intense desire to understand and appreciate freedom. You began posting on this forum the very things that have been disproven by some of our most trusted and respected economists. The words you say and ideas you somehow find reasonable are completely bogus, and we have refuted the things you have said multiple times, yet you insists on changing subject, changing face, and repeating to insist upon fallacious arguments.
Yes, Ruben the tone has changed, because we have tried vehemently to explain to you what we believe and you continue to speak of the virtues of your false idol of statism.