Small human sufferings and UK government cuts

[JimC]

Mention must also be made of the ludicrous, sneering and deeply sneering dismissal of the work done by government employees in any modern, complex, democtatic country with a mixed economy. Even with a large proportion of economic activity being, quite appropriately, in private hands, there remains a large range of vital activities that simply must be done at a governmental level. Many of these are "public goods", activities which benefit the commonweal, protect and support the vulnerable, and keep an eagle eye on the rapacious.
Allowing for the fact that government-run activities can become a little over-blown at times, and require some judicious pruning, it is laughable to make a blanket dismissal of such jobs as "non-productive" or "sucking from the government teat" Just as a society needs a variety of commonly owned infrastructures, it also needs the same in human services, applied to help all, in particular the most vulnerable, without commercial greed or narrow self-interest being the over-arching metaphor. I do not wish to live in a society governed by the ethics of Gordon Gecko...

Like what?

The only things I can think of that "must" be done at the federal government level is resolving trade disputes among the several states, international diplomacy and treaty-making and the military. And the reason the federal government must control the military is not because it's more cost-efficient or effective, but because the most cost-efficient and effective method of managing a military, which is a mercenary army, is very politically dangerous to the nation. When mercenaries get bored and have no fighting to do, they start eying the Presidential Palace or they start stirring up trouble.

Almost everything else can be done better at the state level, or through cooperative inter-state agreements, and even there, the only thing the state really needs to do is to exercise the police powers to prevent the use of force or fraud. This includes enforcing criminal laws and providing for a civil court system.

Below that, local governments need only handle law enforcement and public safety, some public utilities at the city level like sewer and water systems, and streets, roads and bridges, and even roads and bridges are questionable and can often be more efficiently and cheaply managed by private industry and tolls rather than tax money.

Almost everything else is best handled by private industry, competition, free markets and private contract. Social services should NOT be handled by government, but by charity, which prevent precisely the problem we face today with the dependent class becoming more and more dependent upon the forcible expropriation of wealth from others.

You present this nonsense as factual, when in fact it is a minority political opinion of very little worth indeed...

You can live in your libertarian fantasy world, but the rest of us will deal pragmatically with society as it actually exists.

[Seth]

Mention must also be made of the ludicrous, sneering and deeply sneering dismissal of the work done by government employees in any modern, complex, democtatic country with a mixed economy. Even with a large proportion of economic activity being, quite appropriately, in private hands, there remains a large range of vital activities that simply must be done at a governmental level. Many of these are "public goods", activities which benefit the commonweal, protect and support the vulnerable, and keep an eagle eye on the rapacious.
Allowing for the fact that government-run activities can become a little over-blown at times, and require some judicious pruning, it is laughable to make a blanket dismissal of such jobs as "non-productive" or "sucking from the government teat" Just as a society needs a variety of commonly owned infrastructures, it also needs the same in human services, applied to help all, in particular the most vulnerable, without commercial greed or narrow self-interest being the over-arching metaphor. I do not wish to live in a society governed by the ethics of Gordon Gecko...

Like what?

The only things I can think of that "must" be done at the federal government level is resolving trade disputes among the several states, international diplomacy and treaty-making and the military. And the reason the federal government must control the military is not because it's more cost-efficient or effective, but because the most cost-efficient and effective method of managing a military, which is a mercenary army, is very politically dangerous to the nation. When mercenaries get bored and have no fighting to do, they start eying the Presidential Palace or they start stirring up trouble.

Almost everything else can be done better at the state level, or through cooperative inter-state agreements, and even there, the only thing the state really needs to do is to exercise the police powers to prevent the use of force or fraud. This includes enforcing criminal laws and providing for a civil court system.

Below that, local governments need only handle law enforcement and public safety, some public utilities at the city level like sewer and water systems, and streets, roads and bridges, and even roads and bridges are questionable and can often be more efficiently and cheaply managed by private industry and tolls rather than tax money.

Almost everything else is best handled by private industry, competition, free markets and private contract. Social services should NOT be handled by government, but by charity, which prevent precisely the problem we face today with the dependent class becoming more and more dependent upon the forcible expropriation of wealth from others.

You present this nonsense as factual, when in fact it is a minority political opinion of very little worth indeed...

You can live in your libertarian fantasy world, but the rest of us will deal pragmatically with society as it actually exists.

I point out that nearly every socialist/Marxist society is in grave trouble right now because of the very factors I illuminate regarding the dependent class delusion of liberals and Marxists.

[mistermack]

I point out that nearly every socialist/Marxist society is in grave trouble right now because of the very factors I illuminate regarding the dependent class delusion of liberals and Marxists.

Swallowing a dictionary hasn't helped you make sense.
Perhaps if you NAMED these alleged societies instead of making an empty claim, you might be taken more seriously.
Are you referring to China, a country in so much trouble, it was revealed recently they actually owned 30% more of US debt that even the experts realised.
Where is Joe McCarthy when you need him? I'd love to see his face when they told him.
The states COULD balance it's books, by making the rich pay their share of tax.
Instead, they would prefer that unborn children should be paying off the chinese communists all of their lives, rather than today's millionaires paying a bit.
That's what you get, when you have democracy mixed with an electorate of gullible people who get fed what they want to believe.
The politicians just want to get elected, because in the US, it's a ticket to a lot of money, so they will say and do and say whatever they think the voters want to hear.

[Seth]

I point out that nearly every socialist/Marxist society is in grave trouble right now because of the very factors I illuminate regarding the dependent class delusion of liberals and Marxists.

Swallowing a dictionary hasn't helped you make sense.
Perhaps if you NAMED these alleged societies instead of making an empty claim, you might be taken more seriously.

Pick one. Any one. They all operate on the same economic principle, and they will all fail when the OPM and natural resources run out. That's an economic fact.

The states COULD balance it's books, by making the rich pay their share of tax.

No, it couldn't. There is not enough capital in the entire system to pay off our debts at the moment. Even if the government seized every piece of private property and all the cash, it still wouldn't pay off our debt. That will only be paid off by the creation of wealth over time, something the US used to be very, very good at.

And taxing "the rich" is a sure course to economic destruction because it is "the rich" who ALREADY pay the vast majority of tax revenues to the government. The bottom 50 percent of the US population pays less than THREE PERCENT of all tax revenues. The top 50% pay 97 percent, and the top 1% pay more than 45 percent of all revenues.

You really need to go read the fable about the goose who lays the golden egg and try to inculcate it into your thinking somehow.

[JimC]

I point out that nearly every socialist/Marxist society is in grave trouble right now because of the very factors I illuminate regarding the dependent class delusion of liberals and Marxists.

Swallowing a dictionary hasn't helped you make sense.
Perhaps if you NAMED these alleged societies instead of making an empty claim, you might be taken more seriously.
Are you referring to China, a country in so much trouble, it was revealed recently they actually owned 30% more of US debt that even the experts realised.
Where is Joe McCarthy when you need him? I'd love to see his face when they told him.
The states COULD balance it's books, by making the rich pay their share of tax.
Instead, they would prefer that unborn children should be paying off the chinese communists all of their lives, rather than today's millionaires paying a bit.
That's what you get, when you have democracy mixed with an electorate of gullible people who get fed what they want to believe.
The politicians just want to get elected, because in the US, it's a ticket to a lot of money, so they will say and do and say whatever they think the voters want to hear.

I suspect that he thinks that every country in the world (apart from the US), give or take the odd dictatorship or theocracy, can be described as either socialist (very bad indeed) or Marxist (incredibly fucking bad). I suppose it is all a matter of perspective; when you are looking at the world from his point of view, the labels makes a kind of twisted sense...

To me, it is similar to sandinista's sneering dismissal of progressive, socially liberal mixed economy democracies as capitalist sweat shops, to be swept away in a brave new Marxist dawn...

Darwin save us from such extremes...

[von Starnberg]

I point out that nearly every socialist/Marxist society is in grave trouble right now because of the very factors I illuminate regarding the dependent class delusion of liberals and Marxists.

Swallowing a dictionary hasn't helped you make sense.
Perhaps if you NAMED these alleged societies instead of making an empty claim, you might be taken more seriously.
Are you referring to China, a country in so much trouble, it was revealed recently they actually owned 30% more of US debt that even the experts realised.
Where is Joe McCarthy when you need him? I'd love to see his face when they told him.
The states COULD balance it's books, by making the rich pay their share of tax.
Instead, they would prefer that unborn children should be paying off the chinese communists all of their lives, rather than today's millionaires paying a bit.
That's what you get, when you have democracy mixed with an electorate of gullible people who get fed what they want to believe.
The politicians just want to get elected, because in the US, it's a ticket to a lot of money, so they will say and do and say whatever they think the voters want to hear.

I suspect that he thinks that every country in the world (apart from the US), give or take the odd dictatorship or theocracy, can be described as either socialist (very bad indeed) or Marxist (incredibly fucking bad). I suppose it is all a matter of perspective; when you are looking at the world from his point of view, the labels makes a kind of twisted sense...

To me, it is similar to sandinista's sneering dismissal of progressive, socially liberal mixed economy democracies as capitalist sweat shops, to be swept away in a brave new Marxist dawn...

Darwin save us from such extremes...

As Herr Dawkins has it, the "tyranny of the discontinuous mind". Is it not so?

[Atheist-Lite]

I point out that nearly every socialist/Marxist society is in grave trouble right now because of the very factors I illuminate regarding the dependent class delusion of liberals and Marxists.

Swallowing a dictionary hasn't helped you make sense.
Perhaps if you NAMED these alleged societies instead of making an empty claim, you might be taken more seriously.
Are you referring to China, a country in so much trouble, it was revealed recently they actually owned 30% more of US debt that even the experts realised.
Where is Joe McCarthy when you need him? I'd love to see his face when they told him.
The states COULD balance it's books, by making the rich pay their share of tax.
Instead, they would prefer that unborn children should be paying off the chinese communists all of their lives, rather than today's millionaires paying a bit.
That's what you get, when you have democracy mixed with an electorate of gullible people who get fed what they want to believe.
The politicians just want to get elected, because in the US, it's a ticket to a lot of money, so they will say and do and say whatever they think the voters want to hear.

I suspect that he thinks that every country in the world (apart from the US), give or take the odd dictatorship or theocracy, can be described as either socialist (very bad indeed) or Marxist (incredibly fucking bad). I suppose it is all a matter of perspective; when you are looking at the world from his point of view, the labels makes a kind of twisted sense...

To me, it is similar to sandinista's sneering dismissal of progressive, socially liberal mixed economy democracies as capitalist sweat shops, to be swept away in a brave new Marxist dawn...

Darwin save us from such extremes...

As Herr Dawkins has it, the "tyranny of the discontinuous mind". Is it not so?

[mistermack]

Pick one. Any one. They all operate on the same economic principle, and they will all fail when the OPM and natural resources run out. That's an economic fact

Unfortunately, facts of ANY kind are not your strong point. Bullshit flows freely, but when you're invited to back it up, you've got nothing. I invited you to name these societies, it seems you can't. Why else would you reply with more bullshit?

No, it couldn't. There is not enough capital in the entire system to pay off our debts at the moment. Even if the government seized every piece of private property and all the cash, it still wouldn't pay off our debt.

Well, now you're being specific, so I assume you can tell us where you got that from, so we can see for ourselves? I would like to take your word for it, but your track record isn't great.

And taxing "the rich" is a sure course to economic destruction because it is "the rich" who ALREADY pay the vast majority of tax revenues to the government. The bottom 50 percent of the US population pays less than THREE PERCENT of all tax revenues. The top 50% pay 97 percent, and the top 1% pay more than 45 percent of all revenues.

As above. You must have the references for these figures. Surely you're not a complete bullshitter? Or are you so completely ignorant of facts, that you are just quoting federal income tax, and ignoring all other taxes completely? Lets see your links!