Bag Tax Dilemma

Not answering the question... let's try again...

Are all libertarian/conservative politicians hypocrites in your world, or is this just an argument of convenience you trot out against posters you don't like?

Was Ron Paul a hypocrite for working for government and collecting a salary? I've certainly heard progressives make that argument. Is it your argument as well?

Thanks for shitting on another of my threads, Steve. Always a pleasure when you comment. I can't imagine why this forum is down to 6 regular posters.

Steve I doubt he even read the Ted Keer article I posted, which I might add took some time for me to find!  His reply to it? "Why should I pay attention to it."

I agree he would rather go around and around in circles on any given topic even when lead by the nose...must be a government employee thing...

Do you mean to say that you don't understand how an elected member of the legislative branch of government, like Ron Paul was, is not in the same category that you are?  Or, are you a politician who ran for office on libertarian principles?  Is that what you are trying to say to Jules?

That's not the pertinent issue. It has nothing to do with being elected versus unelected, or which branch of government a libertarian occupies. The issue before Jules for clarification is if simply participating in government and drawing a salary makes a libertarian a hypocrite. I don't think it does. Do you?

Fred - Perhaps you should have a word with Steve, who just stated that, "No one here is claiming that the current headcount is where it should be." If he doesn't speak for you on this topic, you should let him know that.

Jules - It's the nature of the positions that is the distinction. Still not reading what I wrote, I see. And still not answering the question.

Jules - You're mixing different lines of thought here. Let's be surgical in our analysis - what is it that makes someone in the public sector a hero or parasite?

You say, "It depends on the area of government." But I dont think this is the critical distinction at all. It's way too over- and under-inclusive.

If a libertarian joins an unnecessary department and reduces waste by 30%, would you still consider that being a parasite?

If a libertarian joins necessary department, like a police force, and misappropriates money to all sorts of wasteful personal and social causes, would you consider that being a hero?

Of course not, and I don't think you believe that either. So isn't the REAL determining factor the net effect the person is having by their involvement? In other words, are they making government bigger, more intrusive, more wasteful - or are they making it slimmer, less intrusive, less wasteful by their participation?

The biggest problem with the military and welfare programs is that there is no fixed scope or number of participants, so when someone new signs up, the program expands proportionally. Steve admitted the military is already too big, so new applicants are having a net effect of making government larger and more expensive. In the case of a Congressman or a designated policy position, such as I fill, the cost is fixed and resigning has no effect on the size of government, so the critical element - as you implicitly acknowledged with Ron Paul - becomes what the person who fills the position does with their power and whether they are a better alternative than the next guy. I think we need more libertarians in these positions if we are ever going to turn this whole thing around.

(Edited by Robert Baratheon on 3/16, 7:39am)

A libertarian by his nature would NEVER enter INTO a government sector job that was not a moral roll of government PERIOD.   Only parasites who want to perpetuate that system enter into those positions. 

 

This is absolutist and short-sighted logic. It's also plainly untrue. Observe the following hypothetical:

Let's say Rand Paul wins as President in 2016. Having to appoint someone to head the Social Security Administration and lacking the authority to close it, he chooses a proven small-government advocate to clean up the department and reduce its scope. Over four years, this person reduces the tide of Social Security Disability and Medicare fraud by 30%, cuts wasteful contract spending, and comes in under budget. 

You're seriously going to tell me that this appointee is unethical simply for participating in the system, and the taxpayers would be better off if he resigned and the usual expansionist progressive appointee directed the department instead? 

Your approach is counterproductive to the cause you claim to care about and totally divorced from political reality.

President Rand Paul could go to the FDR memorial and make the following speech:

"SS in its present defined benefits form was a one time thank you to the Greatest Generation. They are gone now.    It is time for the present generation to accept its generational share of the freedom load, and convert SS to a defined contribution plan, which will never be in actuarial peril,   Yes this means accepting less benefits than once politically promised by politicos long dead, but it is no longer sustainable.    So buck up; accepting less benefits than once promised is not the same as losing a leg in Normandy.  Get over it. precious..   Want more benefits?  Than do what the Greatest Generation did; have more kids and fewer second vacation homes.   Send them to school, feed them, bandage their skinned knees, be a parent.   Or, don't, and live with the results in this 'pay as you go' pension plan.  That defines generational fairness, not your ability to mob up and endlessly borrow from your neighbor's kids."

Ditto all those cushy defined benefit public pensions; it is unethical to fund them by endlessly taxing folks limited to funding their own defined contribution plans. 

Run the government, fund the plans.   When it is time to fund the pensions, look in the account and see what you got.   If you've run the government efficiently, there is a lot in the pile.  Well done, state plumbers, you've actually earned your state plumbers pension.   If not, then the fix is not to aim a gun at the frustrated subsidizers of the extended welfare state--your victims-- and demand more to make up a deficit caused by decades of your own incomptent half-efforts waiting for lunch and calculating your vacation time.

Congress is about to adjourn for ia seven week break to go run for re-election.   Not the 1/3 of the Senate that is up, but the entire Ssenate and House.  Worn out after that big push after the holidays, no doubt, and looking forward to that big summer vacation...  And still the nation survives.  

See?  No need for Rand Paul to dissolve SSA.    Just needs to snap it back to a sustainable reality.

True, some won't like it all, and that is how you identify the parasitic weasels.

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 3/16, 8:55am)

Robert:

Some argue for a larger or smaller total force size, as in, in the breakup of the USSR, Clinton and any sane POTUS did and would have leveled off the Reagan defense buildup. and reduced the total size of the federal government(including force levels)to non WWII levels of scope and spending. Today we call this sane policy the catastrophe of sequestration and/or austerity.

A totally separate issue is, the makeup of that force at any level of force; at whatever level of force projection this nation sanely maintians, it is an absolute necessity that force stucture include things like supprt and logistics.   Professionals who constanty rethink and reshape that force structure may over time move from 'support battallion' to 'brigade support battalion' concepts as part of some more 'modular' force structure, but the fact remains that the ratio of support to combat troops is large as a necessity, not as a goal(as in, some fede rral union of support battalion troops padding the roles by design.)  The professionals who volinteer to project force on our nation's behalf want the highest number of troops available at the pointy end of the stick as possible supported by the least number of support troops necessary, and in spite of that, the necessity of how force is projected at distance shapes the structure we have.

See for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/296th_Brigade_Support_Battalion    I didn't just add this/make it up; it is a reality of force structure.

And so, to conflate those two -- that somehow,  pointing out the modern support heavy reality of force structure(true at any practical level of force) is in conflict with those who advocate a lower overall force level, is either incompetenc/lack of comprehension or deliberate malevolence.   There is no third possibility.  

Please tell me it was incompetence; I could forgive that.   Otherwise, it is intellectual dishonesty, and just like virginity, credibility can't be lost twice.   Again.