What annoyed Libertarians today? (Political Annoyances.)

[Pablo]

[Samadhi]

JF: I think your arguments boil down to a couple that are refuted far better than I could manage in this blog post.

The replies would be to:
3) The protections of the Free Speech Clause properly apply only to individuals, not corporations.
[Short answer, there is long precedent for the First Amendment to be extended to large groups be they commercial or political.]

The follow up:
4) A deluge of corporate and union speech will corrupt the democratic process.
[Short answer, this is a decidedly illiberal argument. The principles of the First Amendment imply that it is best for individuals to decide what they believe versus the government preemptively censoring.]
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And he lived happily ever after. Except for the dieing at the end and the heartbreak in between.

[JF*]

[Death Mage]

Have you ever heard of "unions" before?
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[Samadhi]

JF: Then you would also have 5) This decision will radically increase powerful corporate influence in politics, compared to the status quo.
as an objection. =)
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And he lived happily ever after. Except for the dieing at the end and the heartbreak in between.

[Johny Fake]

Very good blog, thank you Sam.

I especially like the point that such "donations" are already being made through lobbyists and other, in my own words, shady practices. I'll have to think some more bout this. However, my practical concerns, as mentioned earlier, still remain.

[Pablo]

Again, the more power that exists in central government, the more power that is for sale. All the laws and "safeguards" in the world won't matter. If the power is there, it will be sold to the highest bidder without regard to the welfare of the American people.
The solution is to spread the power out as much as possible.

It may not be easy, but it is simple.
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All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Johny Fake]

[Pablo]

[Scurra]

OK - here's the problem, Pablo.

In order to cut all those government workers, you need to get into some sort of position where you can do it. Let/s say being a Senator would be enough (although, frankly, you apparently need 60 of them in your weird system.*)

How likely is it that you (and all your colleagues) would get elected on that platform? (Remember - the voting public are the most hypocritical people around; they say they want cuts until they are actually faced with them.) Assuming that you aren't planning on flat-out lying, of course.

I do actually agree with you that the system is beyond broken; that much of the western government model as it currently stands is a gigantic pyramid scheme that needs to go bust - except that the cost of it going bust would make the bank failures look trivial. And no, I don't really have an answer.


(*this guy who has just been elected was elected on, what, 52%? Why didn't he need 60% in order to avoid being filibustered out of taking his seat? No, obviously I'm not being serious.)
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_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[Pablo]

First, there are a few large departments that could be eliminated or drastically reduced. But even if that were politically unlikely, how about a hiring freeze? Let attrition take its course for a couple years. People could be moved around from dept. to dept. to balance needs.

Also, we could change the retirement age so that it was more in line with the private sector. As it stands, government workers can retire after 30 years (or something like that) so that some retire in their 50's while private sector workers can't now retire until......well......never. We have to keep paying taxes to support the government retirees.

You can find problems with all the proposed solutions, but none of those problems compare with the problems of runaway government growth.
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All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[JF*]

It appears that the pyramid scheme may come crashing down faster than I expected. Start popping some corn people, there's going to be a spectacle to watch.

[Samadhi]

I liked Heinlein's suggestion for a Congress (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress I think). Bicameral, one needs 2/3 to pass a law the other needs 1/3 to repeal it.
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And he lived happily ever after. Except for the dieing at the end and the heartbreak in between.

[Pablo]

I'm so glad I don't live in Oregon any more.
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All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Samadhi]

[JF*]

Our 2011 budget in graph form. Social security should not be a part of our budget. If we want to maintain such a program, fine; but the funds invested and paid should be kept out of the politicians hands during the interim. I miss Gore's 'lockbox'.

The National Defense budget could be completely eliminated, and we would still be in the red.

This article talks about how the budget will remain squeamishly high for another decade.

[Pablo]

This annoyed infuriated me today.
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All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[JF*]

There's also this. The 3 to 4 most recommended comments tor this article are spot on.

[Death Mage]

I think they're a bit off as to when this "age of entitlement" all began. I'm not entirely certain about before hand, but I do know that a tax-grab in 1935 was a driving factor in a lot of the "government owes us" mentality of today. You might have heard of it.

"Social Security"
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[Trojan Horse]

"Social Security"? Oh yeah. That's one of those taxes I have to pay out of each paycheck.

But wait; you're calling Social Security an "entitlement"? You mean people actually get money OUT of Social Security? That concept is completely foreign to me.

I know I won't get any money out of Social Security.

[Jack_Ian]

[Samadhi]

My mom just retired and between her government pension and social security she's making more than she did before retiring. I'm uhhh so proud. =/
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And he lived happily ever after. Except for the dieing at the end and the heartbreak in between.

[LordKinbote]

[RSA*]

[Pablo]

[JF*]

[Pablo]

It annoys me when people take my posts far more seriously than I mean them. In fact, it more than annoys me. It makes me want to rip out their esophagi. Especially Zag's.
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All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[JF*]

The Palin speech at the Tea Party convention.

These people are totally taking what Ron Paul started, and twisting it for their own purposes.

[Death Mage]

A strong national defense is one of the things the government is actually supposed to do.
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[Samadhi]

[Lepton*]

In spite of the positions I occasionally take in debates here, my personal leanings are a pretty equal balance of fiscally conservative and socially liberal: let lesbians have abortions at private clinics that submit to occasional government quality control. Jon Stewart on Bill O'Reilly: both made good points. Something like that. So I couldn't agree more with JF's anger that Palin's camp has taken over the "tea party" movement. SOME mainstream-accepted grassroots organization needs to do for small government what the evangelicals did for (religious!) social conservativism up to, and during the GWB presidency. An actual small government push would make both the Dems and GOP rush for such policies. Unfortunately, Palin shows no signs of being anything other than the next GOP talking-point repeater. In the uninformed opinion of a simple-minded foreigner, of course.

[JDTAY]

[Samadhi]

We were under the impression at my work that you could work 6 hours if you didn't take a break or up to five then break then the rest of your time. It was just put out that they were wrong. Here is how it was put out and this is in essence correct: If I work even 1 minute more than 5 hours I am breaking the law. Thanks nanny state!
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And he lived happily ever after. Except for the dieing at the end and the heartbreak in between.

[Johny Fake]

[Mackay]

[Death Mage]

[Fried Egg]

Ooh, I like the idea behind this thread. As someone with strong libertarian inclinations, I frequently get annoyed by things I read in the news. Here are a few that got my goat recently:

In the Guardian Newspaper: Ireland's suffering offers a glimpse of Britain's future under the Tories

Basically, suggesting that if the Tories win the upcoming election and we adopt more drastic spending cuts (than Labour are currently proposing) to tackle our ballooning public debt, we will "suck the demand out of the economy" thereby trash our delicate recovery.

Obviously, such reasoning is rooted in the Keynesian way of thinking (that is enjoying a resurgence at the moment) but besides this, it's just wrong on so many levels. Public borrowing is just channeling funding away from private sector investment into public sector consumption. Even ignoring this increased cost to companies seeking investment funding, it simply eases some of our immediate short term pain, imposing the cost on future tax payers.

In the Telegraph: Harriet Harman backing move to ban the term chairman for being 'sexist'

Along with numerous other words that the government has decreed that we no longer use (such as fireman, actress), Chairman is next for the chop. Presumably by eliminating the word "man" from chairman, we can get more women doing the jobs...yeah right!

[Samadhi]

According to this around 60 percent of families get more in government spending than they pay in taxes.

We Are Doomed.
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And he lived happily ever after. Except for the dieing at the end and the heartbreak in between.

[Pablo]

[Samadhi]

They're not considered to be benefiting just because they're paid by the government if that's what you're wondering.
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And he lived happily ever after. Except for the dieing at the end and the heartbreak in between.