Assorted personal political thoughts.

[Ajidica]

Ah, now, see, I would describe an electrical bill as extortion, and that's precisely why I reject the claim that Abegweit can be described as an "anarchist". It's "property is theft", ken, not just "other people's property is theft from me".

I'm still confused at how one can view an electrical bill as extortion. You used a service that you were not required to use (nobody is forcing you to use the grid), and so you have to pay for it.
Extortion suggests that the payment is not part of a freely made agreement.

 

[LightSpectra]

Going back to page two about my beliefs on the welfare state.

The fallacy that people will simply be unfed or die on the streets if it weren't for the federal government intervening is fallacious. It's a false dichotomy: "unless Capitol Hill enacts legislation on X, it will simply be ignored." You're ignoring state and local governments (hi Tenth Amendment!), and private charities as well. Federal bureaucracy, in fact, dictates that they're the least appropriate to handle aid for the poor: the more a certain function is abrogated by a larger institution, the less care is given for individual cases; whereas more care has to be given to procedure. The result is that for every dollar that goes into the federal welfare state, a large portion of it is lost in administration and political machinery. Yet that doesn't stop politicians (of both wings) from rattling that anybody who wants to fix the situation, clearly just wants poor people to starve to death.

Anyway, as I said before, I am something close to a socialist, so I would prefer institutional collectivization far more to a welfare state. The welfare state is driven by the egos and careers of politicians, more than good will to help the very poor. It has adverse effects that generally are unacknowledged because of the aforementioned false dichotomy; if you don't support it, then it can't be because you think it can be done a better way. If you don't support it, it HAS to be because you're a heartless or greedy bastard.

One of my favorite writers is Thomas Sowell:

August 20th marks the 40th anniversary of one of the major turning points in American social history. That was the date on which President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation creating his "War on Poverty" program in 1964.

...

In the liberal vision, slums bred crime. But brand-new government housing projects almost immediately became new centers of crime and quickly degenerated into new slums. Many of these projects later had to be demolished. Unfortunately, the assumptions behind those projects were not demolished, but live on in other disastrous programs...The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life.

War on Poverty Revisited by Thomas Sowell, Source

 

[bathsheba666]

I'm not sure I would use a fairy tale as the supporting foundation of my argument. Where do the 7 dwarves fit in?

In the adapted words of an old 80s UK advert ....

"I thought 7-Up was a soft drink until I discovered Smirnoff"
- Snow White.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm still confused at how one can view an electrical bill as extortion. You used a service that you were not required to use (nobody is forcing you to use the grid), and so you have to pay for it.
Extortion suggests that the payment is not part of a freely made agreement.

Any such agreement is premised on the conviction that one party somehow possess an exclusive right to make use of power-generating facilities, which is clearly spurious. Only through the use of violence is the so-called "owner" able to enforce his exclusive control of these facilities, and only on this basis is he able to extract money from people in exchange for access to electricity. The relationship is therefore an extortionate one.

 

[innonimatu]

Which is essentially how the NHS works; it only works because most people don't need to use it most of the time, otherwise it would be as expensive as private healthcare. The argument often is that even if you don't use its services per se, you do benefit from it - the fact that your child's schoolteacher has free healthcare means that he takes less time off work and is therefore able to teach your child more effectively - and so you ought to pay something in recognition of that. This was particularly strong in the debate over university funding, since so many non-graduates would directly benefit from other people having gone to university for free, but in the end individualism won out somewhat.

I didn't choose that example innocently. It is one where experience has shown time and gain that foregoing cooperation in setting up a collective system for the sake of supposed "individual choice" results in many many cases of individual losses and few cases of wins. And it's not only because of what you state above. It's also because "collective bargaining" with a collective health care system (citizens pay for it and own it though the state) works better than individual bargaining with a "choice" of several systems: what negotiating power individuals win though that supposed "choice" does not make up for what they lose by negotiating individually instead of collectively.

Oh, and this works for worker unions vs. private employers also. Which is why employers hate them so much, and have always tried to neutralize them with the "freedom to work" (in truth, freedom of the employers to fire and replace striking workers) mantra.

 

[Cutlass]

Going back to page two about my beliefs on the welfare state.

The fallacy that people will simply be unfed or die on the streets if it weren't for the federal government intervening is fallacious. It's a false dichotomy: "unless Capitol Hill enacts legislation on X, it will simply be ignored." You're ignoring state and local governments (hi Tenth Amendment!), and private charities as well. Federal bureaucracy, in fact, dictates that they're the least appropriate to handle aid for the poor: the more a certain function is abrogated by a larger institution, the less care is given for individual cases; whereas more care has to be given to procedure. The result is that for every dollar that goes into the federal welfare state, a large portion of it is lost in administration and political machinery. Yet that doesn't stop politicians (of both wings) from rattling that anybody who wants to fix the situation, clearly just wants poor people to starve to death.

Anyway, as I said before, I am something close to a socialist, so I would prefer institutional collectivization far more to a welfare state. The welfare state is driven by the egos and careers of politicians, more than good will to help the very poor. It has adverse effects that generally are unacknowledged because of the aforementioned false dichotomy; if you don't support it, then it can't be because you think it can be done a better way. If you don't support it, it HAS to be because you're a heartless or greedy bastard.

One of my favorite writers is Thomas Sowell:

The problem with this theory is that nearly everything that is wrong with welfare in the US is wrong because it is not exclusively a federal system. The problems with it are all the state and local bureaucracy which interfere with actually delivering relief to the needy. After all, the feds would not be involved at all if it were not for the tragedy and fiasco of leaving it to the states, locals, and private charities. It's not an accident that the most effective, as well as the lowest administrative costs welfare program in the US is Social Security, which is exclusively federal.

 

[Leoreth]

Any such agreement is premised on the conviction that one party somehow possess an exclusive right to make use of power-generating facilities, which is clearly spurious. Only through the use of violence is the so-called "owner" able to enforce his exclusive control of these facilities, and only on this basis is he able to extract money from people in exchange for access to electricity. The relationship is therefore an extortionate one.

So two plant owning corporations buying electricity from each other is not objectionable?

 

[Traitorfish]

No, that still assumes that they are able to mobilise state violence against, firstly, third parties who might wish to make use of their facilities and, secondly, the workforce from who the money and/or commodities involved in the exchange are exploited.

 

[LightSpectra]

The problem with this theory is that nearly everything that is wrong with welfare in the US is wrong because it is not exclusively a federal system. The problems with it are all the state and local bureaucracy which interfere with actually delivering relief to the needy. After all, the feds would not be involved at all if it were not for the tragedy and fiasco of leaving it to the states, locals, and private charities. It's not an accident that the most effective, as well as the lowest administrative costs welfare program in the US is Social Security, which is exclusively federal.

What? Social security is the "most effective" welfare program? I'm sorry, are you aware that it's projected to be a complete financial failure in about two decades? I don't see how you could possibly call a program running such a huge deficit to be a success.

Medicaid and medicare, as well, are running huge deficits and fail to accommodate the needs of everybody. And that's definitely not because it's "not federal enough"; it's because the U.S. government totally bungled it up.

Since 2010, Social Security has been paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes, adding to the urgency for Congress to address the program's long-term finances.

"To me, urgent doesn't begin to describe it," said Chuck Blahous, one of the public trustees who oversee Social Security. "I would say we're somewhere between critical and too late to deal with it."

The Social Security trustees project the surplus will be gone in 2033. Unless Congress acts, Social Security would only collect enough tax revenue each year to pay about 75 percent of benefits, triggering an automatic reduction.

Source

 

[Cutlass]

What? Social security is the "most effective" welfare program? I'm sorry, are you aware that it's projected to be a complete financial failure in about two decades? I don't see how you could possibly call a program running such a huge deficit to be a success.

Medicaid and medicare, as well, are running huge deficits and fail to accommodate the needs of everybody. And that's definitely not because it's "not federal enough"; it's because the U.S. government totally bungled it up.

The changes needed to make SS permanently solvent are pretty trivial. Just no politician is currently willing to touch in. But, in the meantime, yes it has in fact been the mist successful anti-poverty program in US history. With Medicare not far behind.

For 70 years now SS has vastly reduced the poverty of the American people. Even with pending future problems, problems caused mainly by politics, not by the system itself, you can't point to anything that has been anywhere near as effective.

And if it wasn't for the slowdown of economic growth and stagnation of wage gains that is the hallmark of Reaganomics, it would not even be in that much trouble.

Now the question of fixing Medicare is a much more difficult one. A federal takeover of health care in some form of universal healthcare is not optional to salvaging any part of the American health care system. Getting the state out of Medicare would be a major improvement. However Medicare cannot be "fixed" separate from fixing health care itself. And UHC is the only option for that.

 

[JollyRoger]

What? Social security is the "most effective" welfare program? I'm sorry, are you aware that it's projected to be a complete financial failure in about two decades?

Yep, it's been projected to be a complete financial failure in two decaes for about 3 or 4 decades now.

 

[Abegweit]

Yep, it's been projected to be a complete financial failure in two decaes for about 3 or 4 decades now.

Right. Then in the eighties, Reagan and his Democrat cronies about doubled the amount stolen from poor young folk.

Unfortunately, you can't repeat that trick again and the two decades are now up.

 

[JollyRoger]

So if we are judging government programs by profitability, shouldn't we look at the Department of Defense first?

 

[Abegweit]

I read your last post to be a claim that SS is financially responsible. Am I wrong?

As for the larger question, the number of government programs which are profitable is exactly zero. They all destroy wealth.

 

[JollyRoger]

Nope, my post was just taking up the profitability point made by others and applying it.

 

[Abegweit]

Nope, my post was just taking up the profitability point made by others and applying it.

Bull. The only person on this thread who brought up profitability was you. What exactly did you "apply it" to anyway?

As for your claim that murder is less profitable than theft, I gotta agree with that. But I do want to know why you think that this is an argument in defence of stealing.

 

[JollyRoger]

LightSpectra brought up the financial failure angle and premised it on claims of deficit impact - aka non-profitability.

 

[Abegweit]

LightSpectra brought up the financial failure angle and premised it on claims of deficit impact - aka non-profitability.

IOW, he actually made a sane point, although he was wrong about when the piper will play the tune.

Meanwhile you made some cheap retort about how people have been saying this for four decades. True. They have. For more than that actually. Does this mean that they are wrong?

And you never ever answer the question I have asked repeatedly: why do you think that theft is profitable for the victims? It's past time to come clean.

 

[JollyRoger]

Wait, when did we switch from talking about social security to theft? What theft statutes do you want me to opine on?

 

[GhostWriter16]

I think social security is pretty obviously theft because it was originally taken in order to give to those who did not put into it and will in the future be unable to support those who did. That's pretty blatant theft from my generation or some future generation to pay for the elderly of the New Deal generation.

This is pretty basic stuff IMO.