| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"stillsunny" |
| Date: |
26 Jul 2003 01:00:49 AM |
| Object: |
Re: OT: Conservative or Liberal? |
(Arturo Magidin) wrote in message news:<bfpoq3$1tta$1@agate.berkeley.edu>...
In article <c472f5b5.0307241136.4380fd3b@posting.google.com>,
stillsunny <stillsunny1@yahoo.com> wrote:
[.snip.]
You snip -- I'm not going to touch it.
So -- what is a conservative, and what is a liberal?
Oh, the meanings have changed radically over time. 100 years ago,
Churchill was a member of the "radical wing" of the Conservative Party
in the UK, and that meant a lot of what we would now consider "radical
politics", not extreme-right politics as one might guess. Certainly
the identification of "republican=conservative/ democrat=liberal" of
latter day America is fairly new...
What does it mean these days depends a lot on just where you go. In
Mexico, for example, the 'conservative party' is the PAN, whose
old-guard members advocate a very pervasive paternalism of government
over workers (with the government overseeing the well-treatment of
workers through expansive labor laws), something which would send
shudders through large portions of the 'conservative establishment' in
the US.
Different cultures, do you think?
What it is supposed to mean, of course, is that a "conservative" is
one who more or less supports the status quo, while a liberal is one
who more or less supports expansive experimentation in possible
changes.
*That's* what I was thinking, and thank you.
Conservatives over the years have tended to support a society
with rather rigidly defined roles and strata, while liberals tend to
support homogeneization of the strata and the breaking of traditional
roles. That's why you had early 20th century conservatives in the UK
supporting labor laws: they saw it as the only way to sustain the
status quo and prevent a worker rebellion; at the same time, the
conservatives in the US were supporting laissez-faire capitalism,
because it was the non-interference of the government that was keeping
the status and classes in place.
As the status quo changes, what a liberal and what a conservative are
both socially and economically changes as well. Today, in the US, in
economics, "conservative" is ->supposed<- to stand for fiscal
discipline, while "liberal" is ->supposed<- to stand for wide-ranging
fiscal experimentation (the government spending a lot of money to get
things going). But that may be little more than inherited from the New
Deal, when the conservatives were confident that a laissez-faire
government who did little or nothing was the way to go to jump-start
the economy again through tax-incentives, while the liberals supported
expansive government programs and spending to jump-start the
economy. Certainly if we go back 20 years, we discover that
"conservatives" have advocated deficit-spending, while "liberals" have
instead been the fiscally responsible (at least in terms of spending
within limits; on the other hand, it is also true that over the last
20 years, it has been conservatives who have drastically reduced the
->number<- of venues in which the government spends money, while
liberals have tended to drastically increase them; that tends to blur
the issue as well).
Can you expound a little further?
I get the gist of what you're saying, but I'm not clear on how a
government can increase the role of government, vis-a-vis number of
venues, while simultaneously decreasing the cost over any extended
period of time.
Socially, these days in the US "conservatives" stand for old-style
moralism, what one could call "fundamentalist" if the name were not
co-opted: it's "back to basics", "abandon experimentation and get
things to work", "give me that old-time morality." Basically, the old
English adage: if it ain't broken, don't fix it. "Liberals", by
contrast, stand for role-breaking and social experimentation. Social
experimentation, by its very nature, often involves and/or requires
government forces to ensure that the changes do take place, and so the
tendency to equate 'liberal' with 'big government'. Again, this is a
bit of a misnomer: it seems that over the past two decades in the US,
'liberals' have tended to reduce the overall size of government while
enlarging its pervasiveness; while 'conservatives' have enlarged the
overall size while reducing its sphere of action.
Overall size meaning number of people actually employed by government
in any one venue, or dollars spend in that venue?
It is also the case that postmodernist philosophies have found a haven
almost exclusively within the 'liberals' community, which has also
caused a certain amount of blurring:
Huh. That may well explain my antipathy to self-identifying as
liberal, because I certainly do not self-identify as postmodernist.
the tendency to identify liberals
with relativistic morality, with 'the important thing is for school
children to feel good about themselves, not for them to learn', and
with political correctness. But, in my view, postmodern philosophies
and political correctness are in reality as oppressive as the
"conservatives" they decry. Likewise, the conflict between individual
responsibility versus "group rights" has, I think, its roots more in
postmodernism than in liberalism, despite its current identification
with the latter in the U.S...
But I seem to have wandered...
To my pleasure and edification :-)
The main difficulty, of course, is that
the meaning of words changes as their common use changes. The current
pervasive identification of 'conservative' and 'liberal' with
->specific<- issues may very well end up supplanting their meaning.
I think so, too; hence, the question. There seem, in politics, to be
an awful lot of people slinging invective at each other with those
loaded words. I wondered what people, individually, associated with
those words.
Alternately, I have read that there is no real
conservative party, that most of those in power are rather mushy
conservatives, whose positions bear great similarity to the left wing
in all but name. Both sides seem to quote heavily from the founders,
both sides seem to want to ascribe to the other every excess of every
fascist regime in history.
This is a function of geography, and the mistake of thinking that
"conservative/liberal" refers to specific issues. In that respect,
must of the US political struggle is often seen as one-sided in
countries which encompass a much wider political spectrum, such as
France for example.
What you describe as "conservatism" is really a collection of issues:
the evil of unopposed government, the free citizen and individual
liberty as the ultimate goal. But then, "unopposed government is evil"
was the rallying cry of the radical leftists at the end of the 19th
century!
No wonder I'm confused...
What you describe as your "bleeding heart" is also an aspect of a
certain amount of 'classical conservatism': the patronage, the
obligation of the better-off towards the not-so-well-off. That's the
stereotypical patrician attitude, and patricians tend to be, by their
very nature, conservative: their priviledged position ->depends<- on
the status quo.
Ouch, Arturo.
In my own defense, my bleeding heart is (at least in my perception) a
recognition that there are always going to be some who just can't do
it; and especially, that there are going to be those young people who
need encouragement and active assistance to succeed. I expect that my
belief that some just aren't going to make it in society, no matter
how egalitarian that society is, is itself conservative, but there it
is - I *do* think that, and I think history bears me out. And I also
think that, at very least personally, if I am capable of accruing a
little extra in the society as it presently works, then some of that
needs to go to those who just simply can't.
Sunny
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| User: "stillsunny" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Conservative or Liberal? |
26 Jul 2003 04:43:18 PM |
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(Arturo Magidin) wrote in message news:<bfufd5$1ul6$1@agate.berkeley.edu>...
In article <c472f5b5.0307252200.438d4187@posting.google.com>,
stillsunny <stillsunny1@yahoo.com> wrote:
(Arturo Magidin) wrote in message news:<bfpoq3
<snip>
What it is supposed to mean, of course, is that a "conservative" is
one who more or less supports the status quo, while a liberal is one
who more or less supports expansive experimentation in possible
changes.
*That's* what I was thinking, and thank you.
For what? Agreeing with you? (-:
For providing a concise general definition not dependent on a specific
context.
And the agreeing with me is nice, even though I'm more conservative
than you are :-)
<snip>
Certainly if we go back 20 years, we discover that
"conservatives" have advocated deficit-spending, while "liberals" have
instead been the fiscally responsible (at least in terms of spending
within limits; on the other hand, it is also true that over the last
20 years, it has been conservatives who have drastically reduced the
->number<- of venues in which the government spends money, while
liberals have tended to drastically increase them; that tends to blur
the issue as well).
Can you expound a little further?
Well, go back even to Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush. Carter and
Clinton are the ones who brought government expenditure down to its
own income level; Reagan and the Bush's are the ones who did a LOT of
deficit spending.
Yes, they did.
Now, the reason why you have the apparent dissonance of Reagan, Bush,
and Bush also reducing the number of venues in which the government
spends money is that there are a couple of venues that take up a LOT
of money; specifically, Defense and Law Enforcement. Clinton brought
spending under control among other ways by cutting defense (remember
those base closures?), while Reagan and the Bushes increased defense
spending a lot.
At the same time, you have Dubyah cutting on enforcement of
government legislation in other areas, thus reducing the number of
venues: the 'conservatives' support drastically (direct federal) government
involvement in education, land management, and industry. And, most
especially, in social issues. While 'liberals' tend to support direct
federal involvement in those issues; but the truth is that the amount
of money that those issues involve is not that much comparatively
speaking.
So you have Bush talking about how he is "shrinking" government, by
reducing the absolute number of spheres of influence, but at the same
time he is actually increasing the number of people in the government
and the amount of money being spent in that government.
Do you consider what any one venue costs to the average taxpayer,
aside from outright taxes, in your figures? In addition to what I
wrote Ted King, I'll draw an analogy to, for instance, violent
prisoners. If it costs X amount per year to keep them incarcerated,
and the prisons are overburdened with, say, pot smokers, then the
response has been early parole and so forth -- yet there's a cost to
society with a high recidivism rate, which isn't factored into the
direct cost of keeping people in prison.
(can you tell I'm rather eternally frustrated with the way the
government manages to intrude into my daily life?)
Overall size meaning number of people actually employed by government
in any one venue, or dollars spend in that venue?
Well, a bit of both. The Bush federal government has more employees
and spends more money than the Clinton one right now, as I understand
it. Again, that tends to blur the issue a bit. Bringing a bunch of
agencies together into Homeland Security does NOT, as Bush originally
claimed, reduce the number of employees by removing redundancies. The
truth is that this sort of centralization has always ->increased<- the
number of employees because it requires a much larger support and
liasion staff. It's not true that an agency with 100 people uses
exactly half the support staff of an agency with 200 people: the
support and liasion staff tends to increase exponentially, not linearly.
Do you think it was a bad idea, then?
To be frank, nearly every initiative that stemmed from 9/11, I have a
sort of knee jerk aversion to. However, I have to admit that for
years I've been aware of ways different agencies didn't share
necessary information, so that all of them worked more inefficiently.
<snip>
In my own defense, my bleeding heart is (at least in my perception) a
recognition that there are always going to be some who just can't do
it; and especially, that there are going to be those young people who
need encouragement and active assistance to succeed.
Look, you don't need to ->defend<- it. The point is, that sort of
attitude usually comes from someone who ->can<- do it, and so is
looking at society from an at least somewhat priviledged position. It
is rare that someone who is in a priviledged position wants the social
structures to radicaly change.
That's true. Of course, I think most people's positions depend on
what they perceive as their own self interest.
Do you mind if I ask you in what way you consider yourself liberal?
Sunny
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| User: "Arturo Magidin" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Conservative or Liberal? |
27 Jul 2003 02:08:01 PM |
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In article <c472f5b5.0307261343.77cdf6b3@posting.google.com>,
stillsunny <stillsunny1@yahoo.com> wrote:
magidin@math.berkeley.edu (Arturo Magidin) wrote in message news:<bfufd5$1ul6$1@agate.berkeley.edu>...
In article <c472f5b5.0307252200.438d4187@posting.google.com>,
stillsunny <stillsunny1@yahoo.com> wrote:
magidin@math.berkeley.edu (Arturo Magidin) wrote in message news:<bfpoq3
<snip>
What it is supposed to mean, of course, is that a "conservative" is
one who more or less supports the status quo, while a liberal is one
who more or less supports expansive experimentation in possible
changes.
*That's* what I was thinking, and thank you.
For what? Agreeing with you? (-:
For providing a concise general definition not dependent on a specific
context.
Which may or may not be accurate. "IMHO" and all that...
[.snip.]
So you have Bush talking about how he is "shrinking" government, by
reducing the absolute number of spheres of influence, but at the same
time he is actually increasing the number of people in the government
and the amount of money being spent in that government.
Do you consider what any one venue costs to the average taxpayer,
aside from outright taxes, in your figures?
I'm talking about constant dollars spent in the national budget,and
to constant dollars revenue for the national government. I realize
that some of these expenditures may be financed by taxes, but the fact
is that the Bush budget right now is larger than the Clinton budget,
in constant dollars. Not only that, but the revenues in the Bush
budget are smaller than the revenues in the Clinton budget, if I'm not
mistaken.
Yes, I know that "government money" is "tax money." On the other hand,
I do not think that calling tax money "my money" or "our money" is
terribly accurate.
In addition to what I
wrote Ted King, I'll draw an analogy to, for instance, violent
prisoners. If it costs X amount per year to keep them incarcerated,
and the prisons are overburdened with, say, pot smokers, then the
response has been early parole and so forth -- yet there's a cost to
society with a high recidivism rate, which isn't factored into the
direct cost of keeping people in prison.
There's a fair point to be argued over long-time costs of certain
programs, certainly. But I believe I was talking about what the
'common consensus' meaning of 'economic conservative' and 'economic
liberal' were supposed to be: economic conservative was supposed to be
fiscal responsibility: that does not translate into what programs yes
or not, or long-term costs. It is supposed to be based on the maxim
"You do not spend more money than you take in." And the typical
'economic liberal' is supposed to be someone who spends money
regardless of how much money they take in; coupled with liberal
experimentation through government action, it has taken a meaning of
'spend a lot of money through government action and programs.'
[.snip.]
Overall size meaning number of people actually employed by government
in any one venue, or dollars spend in that venue?
Well, a bit of both. The Bush federal government has more employees
and spends more money than the Clinton one right now, as I understand
it. Again, that tends to blur the issue a bit. Bringing a bunch of
agencies together into Homeland Security does NOT, as Bush originally
claimed, reduce the number of employees by removing redundancies. The
truth is that this sort of centralization has always ->increased<- the
number of employees because it requires a much larger support and
liasion staff. It's not true that an agency with 100 people uses
exactly half the support staff of an agency with 200 people: the
support and liasion staff tends to increase exponentially, not linearly.
Do you think it was a bad idea, then?
I think the Dept. of Homeland Security is a monumentally bad idea. It
is superficially attractive, but it seems to me to have been mostly
palliative: a way to make it seem that the government is doing
->something<-. They didn't even go all the way, by folding in the FBI
into the department (which would make sense given the purported reason
for its creation, that of consolidating intelligence gathering,
prevention, and law-enforcement).
But worst of all, a lot of the consolidations just don't make sense,
and trust me, we still haven't seen all its effects: putting the Coast
Guard into Homeland Security is a mistake. The Coast Guard does a
->lot<- more than simply patrol the shores and prevent illegal
entrance. The Coast Guard also designates navigation routes, provides
advisory, support, and rescue to sea activity near the shores, etc. We
are going to see a steady rise in botched sea rescues and sea
accidents because of this.
Likewise, the Customs Department. Now, this has been done before, in
many countries: the Customs Department is often seen as being
security-related, crime-enforcement, etc. But the truth is that the
main role of Customs in all countries is not crime-related, except
marginally: the real function of Customs is tariffs and taxes. That's
why Customs functions best in the Treasury. It's been tried in many
countries in many other places (the equivalent of the Justice
Department, the Defense Department, or even as an independent
department). It simply works best as an arm of the Treasury. We are
also going to see a drop-off in income because of that.
And, finally, creating a super-department like this does NOT increase
communication. What has been done is taken a bunch of independent
offices and put them all under a single umbrella. In practice, this
means that you have created even more government bureaucracy to deal
with the sundry independent departments, who will ->still<- not talk
to each other except vertically. They have NOT created horizontal
lines of communication between these departments. If all you wanted
was vertical communication, then it would have made much more sense to
make something similar to the National Security Office, a
clearinghouse for policy and information set on top of all these
agencies, and let the agencies continue where they were. It is what
they started doing, before they decided to show they were really doing
"something".
To be frank, nearly every initiative that stemmed from 9/11, I have a
sort of knee jerk aversion to. However, I have to admit that for
years I've been aware of ways different agencies didn't share
necessary information, so that all of them worked more inefficiently.
The Homeland Department doesn't solve those problems. And many of
those problems are statutory: the CIA, television shows to the
contrary, is forbidden by law from having operations inside the United
States. All of their operations are on foreign territory. As soon as
the thing goes inside the country, it has to be turned over to the NSA
(who is the main counter-espionage agency) or the FBI. Not that the
FBI, the CIA, or the NSA are part of Homeland Security: no, I think
only the Secret Service became part of it. And maybe the ATF.
You know the three areas in which the Secret Service has authority?
Illegal alcohol, counterfit money, and protecting the president. The
first two are treasury functions, which is why the Secret Service was
a branch of the Treasury Department. They were given the third in an
ad hoc manner following the assassination of McKinley, because they
were the most organized law-enforcement agency available to the
Federal Government.
Nah, Homeland Security may sound like a good idea on paper, but I
don't think it is one even in theory. And its execution was
lousy. More about seeming to do something than actually doing
something.
[.snip.]
In my own defense, my bleeding heart is (at least in my perception) a
recognition that there are always going to be some who just can't do
it; and especially, that there are going to be those young people who
need encouragement and active assistance to succeed.
Look, you don't need to ->defend<- it. The point is, that sort of
attitude usually comes from someone who ->can<- do it, and so is
looking at society from an at least somewhat priviledged position. It
is rare that someone who is in a priviledged position wants the social
structures to radicaly change.
That's true. Of course, I think most people's positions depend on
what they perceive as their own self interest.
I like a line from G'Kar in Babylon 5: "The universe is run by the
complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and
enlightened self-interest."
I am priviledged, I freely admit that: I was born into a middle-class
family, I was able to attend private school, and the only reason I
attended a public university was because it was the best around at
what I wanted to do: I could have easily attended a private one. I am
heads above the vast majority of people in Mexico around which I grew
up. I grew up in a family that prized knowledged and encouraged me to
pursue it at my leisure. That said, I was not by any means "rich", and
at times we dropped from middle-middle class to lower-middle class as
the fortunes of Mexico varied (both my parents are working
professionals: my mom has been teaching at the National University for
over 30 years, and for a long time my dad was a civil servant. Working
professionals took the brunt of the economic woes of Mexico through
1975-1988). We have never even made it to "upper middle-class."
But at the same time, I do not suffer from a common ailment of the
middle-class: class guilt. Of my four grandparents, only one had a
university degree, and he got it in night school while working. They
were all immigrants who arrived in the country with little or
nothing. My paternal grandfather had to flee Cuba (where he had moved
a few years earlier with nothing from Bielorus) overnight because he
found out he was on the list of people the government wanted to meet
the dawn from the bottom of Havana Harbor due to his political
views. My family has always put a premium on hard work. So, I'm in
favor of offering opportunities, as much as possible, but I am in no
mood to offer hand-outs.
Do you mind if I ask you in what way you consider yourself liberal?
Well, first, I believe that by and large the status quo is not
working. It does not offer the opportunities it should to those less
fortunate, not even the opportunities it did 50 years ago. I support
vigorous experimentation in changing things. And I believe that it is
the job of the government to foster those experimentations: that the
truth is that society is not at a point where we can trust it to
experiment or support those changes on its own. I am an anarchist at
heart, in so far as I think that, under ideal circumstances, anarchism
would be a wonderful way to live. But I am convinced that we are too
far from those ideal circumstances, and that libertarians and
anarchists today simply don't understand that they need to foster
changes that will create those circumstances, not just advocate for a
lack of government.
So, I think that the goals of affirmative action were great, but I
think that it is fairly clear that affirmative action failed in those
goals. I think we need to try other ways of achieving those ends, but
I think we should not get rid of affirmative action until we can
replace it with something else to achieve them. I support the idea
that the government should finance the finding of, and the
experimenting in, those other ways. I think the government should be
in the business of college loans through subsidies, rather than in the
business of taxing fellowships (which it has been since Reagan). I
think the government should be in the business of regulating practices
that have a long-term benefit but a short-term shortfall, such as
environmental regulations and so on, because I am enough of a cynic to
believe that, contrary to what libertarians assert, we ->cannot<-
trust most of society to do what will be right on the long term if it
will be a problem on the short term.
So, I am in favor of social experimentation in those areas that I
perceive as a problem, and there are many. And I think that it is
through government action that those experiments will occur. At the
same time, I am a great believer in personal liberty and
responsibility, and most important of all: personal
accountability. So, I align myself with the great liberals of history
who supported experimentation through legislation and education:
Holmes and Brandeis, FDR, Kennedy, Bertrand Russell. I may not be
Limbaugh's or Coulter's image of a liberal, and maybe not even a
liberal's image of a liberal (I went from being called a communist in
High School to being called an elitist ultra-conservative at
University, to a borderline conservative at Berkeley, to now a liberal
in Montana) all without ever actually changing my positions or views...
======================================================================
"It's not denial. I'm just very selective about
what I accept as reality."
--- Calvin ("Calvin and Hobbes")
======================================================================
Arturo Magidin
magidin@math.berkeley.edu
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| User: "Arturo Magidin" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Conservative or Liberal? |
27 Jul 2003 03:41:24 PM |
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In article <bg17uh$lma$1@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Arturo Magidin <magidin@math.berkeley.edu> wrote:
[. An add-on.]
So, I am in favor of social experimentation in those areas that I
perceive as a problem, and there are many. And I think that it is
through government action that those experiments will occur. At the
same time, I am a great believer in personal liberty and
responsibility, and most important of all: personal
accountability.
At this point I should add that despite my general inclination for
social experimentation and so on, I have found myself opposed in
recent years to many ideas and programs that are billed precisely as
social experimentation; school vouchers are probably the best example.
I am not in favor of change for change's sake, and I am not in favor
of experiments "just to see if it works." When proposing a social
experiment, I want to know goals, I want to know reasons for it, and I
want to know just how the experiment is supposed to address
them. Ideally, though I think we have never seen it, I would like to
see a move towards establishing criteria for failure and success of
those experiments ->a priori<-. I oppose school vouchers because I
tend to disagree with the very basic premise that underlies the entire
argument: the idea that the money the government spends in public
schools is somehow money you give the government for that purpose, and
that you have a say on exactly how it is spent at the moment of
expenditure. But that is a different topic altogether.
======================================================================
"It's not denial. I'm just very selective about
what I accept as reality."
--- Calvin ("Calvin and Hobbes")
======================================================================
Arturo Magidin
magidin@math.berkeley.edu
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| User: "Arturo Magidin" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Conservative or Liberal? |
30 Jul 2003 03:30:36 PM |
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In article <c472f5b5.0307291525.3c38ed32@posting.google.com>,
stillsunny <stillsunny1@yahoo.com> wrote:
magidin@math.berkeley.edu (Arturo Magidin) wrote in message news:<bg17uh$lma$1@agate.berkeley.edu>...
[.snip.]
Do you consider what any one venue costs to the average taxpayer,
aside from outright taxes, in your figures?
I'm talking about constant dollars spent in the national budget, and
to constant dollars revenue for the national government.
That's fair.
I did wonder, based on your comment about increasing the venues while
not increasing cost, if the amount it costs the average citizen to
comply with those agencies factored into the equation. In essence,
I'd say there's a direct government cost to fund the military, but not
much by way of incidental cost. Conversely, it may not cost much to
fund, say, the EPA, but the cost of compliance with the mounds of
regulations for citizens is measurably higher (with no comment
regarding whether that's good or bad, because I think it's both).
You need to amortize, though. How much is the current deficit going to
cost, when everything is said and done? I'll wager it is far more than
those tax refund checks most people got. It is, I think, far too
complicated an equation to figure out sitting here. But, yes,
out-of-pocket expenses always seem larger than long-term amortized
expenditures, which is why there is a certain amount of glamour to the
economics of Reagan and the Bushes over the economics of Clinton for
the average tax-payer.
[.snip.]
Do you think it [Homeland Security] was a bad idea, then?
I think the Dept. of Homeland Security is a monumentally bad idea. It
is superficially attractive, but it seems to me to have been mostly
palliative: a way to make it seem that the government is doing
->something<-. They didn't even go all the way, by folding in the FBI
into the department (which would make sense given the purported reason
for its creation, that of consolidating intelligence gathering,
prevention, and law-enforcement).
I'm exposing my ignorance, but do you have any idea of *why* they
didn't fold the FBI into there?
Because it is too important to the Justice Department, and Ashcroft is
too much in the deep counsils of Bush to allow that huge chunk of his
empire to be taken away; it is a huge part of its mission and if you
take the FBI away from Justice, you essentially emasculate it. And if
there is someone in the Cabinet who is not going to stand for
emasculation is Ashcroft.
But also, because the FBI's involvement with homeland security is even
more tangential than the Coast Guard and Customs. The FBI's main
mission is the investigation of federal crimes and the enforcement of
federal criminal laws. Foreign terrorism (as opposed to homegrown
terrorism a la Unabomber) really 'sneaks in' into the FBI's radar
almost fully formed.
<snip Coast Guard and Customs>
Though I can easily see why you say lodging these departments under
one umbrella will not increase responsiveness, I am having trouble
understanding, if they remain independent departments, how they will
actually become less effective doing their jobs -- ie, the botched
rescue attempts and decreased tariff revenue you mentioned.
Because their mandate is going to be different. When Customs is part
of the Treasury Department, the success of its mission is measured
differently than when it is part of Homeland Security. Although
Homeland Security has not established horizontal lines of
communication between these departments (the avowed purpose of putting
them all together, supposedly), it ->has<- created vertical lines: the
mandates for Customs are not going to come from the Secretary of the
Treasury, they are going to come from the Secreatry of Homeland
Security. When Customs reports that they got this much in tariffs, and
stopped this much commercial contraband, do you think Tom Ridge is
going to say "Good job", or do you think he is going to say "What have
you done to help stop terrorism?" The workers are going to have a
different mission, and they are going to be judged on different
standards. Their successes are going to be measured differently, and
what was solid performance before is not going to be solid performance
now. They are bound to affect how they do what they do.
[.snip.]
Do you mind if I ask you in what way you consider yourself liberal?
Well, first, I believe that by and large the status quo is not
working. It does not offer the opportunities it should to those less
fortunate, not even the opportunities it did 50 years ago. I support
vigorous experimentation in changing things. And I believe that it is
the job of the government to foster those experimentations: that the
truth is that society is not at a point where we can trust it to
experiment or support those changes on its own. I am an anarchist at
heart, in so far as I think that, under ideal circumstances, anarchism
would be a wonderful way to live. But I am convinced that we are too
far from those ideal circumstances, and that libertarians and
anarchists today simply don't understand that they need to foster
changes that will create those circumstances, not just advocate for a
lack of government.
I agree with that.
Oh, then it must be true, surely. (-:
If you've got the patience and time, I'm interested in what ways you
think the status quo isn't working, and more specifically, *why* it's
not working.
Well, ->why<- may be well beyond my means. I can certainly pinpoint
several symptoms: there aren't enough opportunities for advancement
across the board, and particularly within certain groups. By far, the
biggest problem is poverty, not race, but in certain regions and
certain groups, race and poverty are too highly correlated to
ignore. I think that our society does not provide a safety net, and it
should. The safety net should be high enough to actually save people,
but should be low enough that most people would rather be out of it
than in it, and it would not be too difficult to do so. There has
always been a huge gap between the very rich and the very poor, but
there is a much more important gap that is widening, and which is very
dangerous: the gap between the moderately rich (upper middle-class and
up) and the professional (lower and mid-middle class). The middle
class is being squished to the end points, and that is bad, bad, bad,
in the long run.
I'm not entirely sure this belongs here, but I'd be happy to take it
to e-mail if you want...
I have some ideas about that, including the bit about
diminishing opportunity. At least from my experience, there are a
combination of factors, and some of it I see as an increasing lack of
motivation -- which *may* be caused, in part, by a lack of belief that
effort will accomplish much.
I think that this is one of the major things that killed the soviet
union and the stalinist version of communism, as it happens. If
everyone is going to get the same regardless of how hard you work,
then you will not work hard: there is no point. Interestingly, Lenin
understood the problem: just before his stroke he had taken steps
almost identical to what Gorbachev later called
"Perestroika". Introduction of private property in everything except
the heavy industry (which was still to be under the aegis of the
state), particularly in commerce. It all got pushed back by the
triumvirate after his stroke, though.
But, yes: if hard work will not net you anything, then why work hard?
Why be motivated? There was a time when a working professional could
see himself giving his children a much better life than he had through
sheer hard honest work. These days, saddled with college loan debt and
other problems, this is no longer the case. It may very well be a
function of diminishing returns to a certain extent (these are the
children of ->those<- professionals, after all; they started at a
higher level than they did), but it is bound to be demoralizing...
(I personally am getting depressed on my own prospects, having spent
the last year saving not a single nickel and working harder than I had
ever before; and with identical prospects for the coming academic
year. And I'm in a certain extent lucky: I am single and have no
dependents, can move to a new job easily, etc.)
So, I think that the goals of affirmative action were great, but I
think that it is fairly clear that affirmative action failed in those
goals.
Oddly enough, I don't think it failed. I just think it wasn't enough,
in isolation, to achieve the ends it sought, and I think it's probably
time to call an end to it.
It depends on what you mean by "worked." Reading what you wrote, I can
see that you are identifying some very important things that
affirmative action accomplished, particularly making a new generation
grow up ->knowing<- that people of all races could be in a position of
authority, and I do take your point that this was a very important
thing.
On the other hand, that was not the stated intent of affirmative
action. The stated intent was to break the vicious circle: by
shortcircuiting it and putting these minorities in higher positions,
offering them opportunities that had been denied to them, this was
supposed to allow the next generation to progress through it, rather
than through continued affirmative action programs. The failure of
this to work may also be in part due to the same reason that middle
class is being squeezed out: for the most part, affirmative action
gave the oppressed minorities access to professional environments
where, in the past, people would improve through hard work. In so far
as people are not being able to make that much improvement through
that hard work, it is unrealistic to expect affirmative action to work
in that respect.
(Another good reason why social experiments should have clearly stated
goals, as well as failure and success criteria... Affirmative action
worked in some senses, failed in others)
[.snip.]
I think we need to try other ways of achieving those ends, but
I think we should not get rid of affirmative action until we can
replace it with something else to achieve them. I support the idea
that the government should finance the finding of, and the
experimenting in, those other ways. I think the government should be
in the business of college loans through subsidies, rather than in the
business of taxing fellowships (which it has been since Reagan). I
think the government should be in the business of regulating practices
that have a long-term benefit but a short-term shortfall, such as
environmental regulations and so on, because I am enough of a cynic to
believe that, contrary to what libertarians assert, we ->cannot<-
trust most of society to do what will be right on the long term if it
will be a problem on the short term.
I'm a cynic, too, Arturo,
I just read someone, I think George Carlin, who said "Scratch a cynic
and you will find a disillusioned idealist..."
and in theory, I have no problem with
governmental regulation of things relating to the environment. You
don't have to look far back in history to discover corporations doing
whatever they could possibly get away with, irrespective of the harm
to the entire community. And after all, I never forget that the "job"
of a corporation is to make a profit for its shareholders, so I don't
really trust them to either finance research into ways they might be
causing harm, or be proactive about those murky environmental issues
if there *is* suspicion they're causing harm.
But the EPA is one branch of government (of many) I have a sort of
automatic antipathy towards, not because I think its aims are
unworthy, but because its regulations are so burdensome, and often
make absolutely no sense at all. It seems one of the more politically
driven agencies, to me, which means all sorts of things, none of them
good. One of the bigger objections I have to the EPA, (and a host of
other government agencies), is simply that they are often "winners" in
any dispute because they have the full weight and power and money of
the US government behind them, which makes it economically unfeasible
to contest their actions or decisions, irrespective of how right or
wrong they are in any one instance. (can feel myself falling into a
tirade, will stop now)
There is a tension between regulation and business, always. Too much
regulation stifle small businesses; too little regulation also kills
small businesses (can you say "trust" and "monopoly"?). These things
tend to go in cycles, alas. The EPA was woefully underfunded in the
70s, and legislation then was also woefully inadequate. As it
accumulates more power, slowly, it tends to go to
over-regulation. There is nothing wrong with cleaning house, and I
would like to see a lot of the green pseudo-science kicked out of
politics and the public discourse once and for all. I think that if
you did that, a lot of your complaints would disappear.
Your final complaint, of course, is just as true in private
disputes. How often does the big business crush the small business
because the small business simply cannot afford to fight the big one?
Insurance claims, corporate spying, etc?
[.snip.]
Always a pleasure, Arturo.
Likewise, Sunny.
======================================================================
"It's not denial. I'm just very selective about
what I accept as reality."
--- Calvin ("Calvin and Hobbes")
======================================================================
Arturo Magidin
magidin@math.berkeley.edu
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| User: "Arturo Magidin" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Conservative or Liberal? |
01 Aug 2003 03:47:41 PM |
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In article <c472f5b5.0308010503.4c965c2d@posting.google.com>,
stillsunny <stillsunny1@yahoo.com> wrote:
magidin@math.berkeley.edu (Arturo Magidin) wrote in message news:<bg99tc$2s0o$1@agate.berkeley.edu>...
In article <c472f5b5.0307291525.3c38ed32@posting.google.com>,
stillsunny <stillsunny1@yahoo.com> wrote:
magidin@math.berkeley.edu (Arturo Magidin) wrote in message news:<bg17uh$lma$1@agate.berkeley.edu>...
<snip>
If you've got the patience and time, I'm interested in what ways you
think the status quo isn't working, and more specifically, *why* it's
not working.
Well, ->why<- may be well beyond my means.
Well, then I'll throw out a few tentative ideas, mostly because (as I
noted elsewhere) I'm much more interested in things which will address
the problem itself, rather than ameliorate only the effects of the
problem. These are very general, and it's perhaps a combination of
these factors combined with maybe some I've missed.
First, I think overall society has become less flexible, and that for
a number of reasons itself, including 1) discovering what methods work
fairly efficiently, resulting in accrual of power and money to those
who employ those methods, leading to resistance to altering those
methods,
But this is a constant throughout history. We had the merchant
magnates in the 16th and 17th century. We had Land Barons, because
owning huge tracts of land was the most efficient way to accrue power
and money. Then we had Train Barons who wielded enormous power. Then
we had the steel magnates; then, briefly, we had the dot.commers who
seemed to have discovered a new method.
2) federal regulation which discourages innovation in ways of
doing things in the private sector,
I don't buy this in its entirety, sorry. It's too easy and too much of
a blanket claim. I can certanly agree that certain areas may be
overregulated, but laissez-faire capitalism did not lead to great
innovation either. In fact, I would say it did not lead to any more
innovation than the current climate.
Regulation and lack-thereof are always blamed for problems. I would
love to see a study on this, along the lines of a study in taxation
vs. production that came out some years ago. As I recall, they were
looking at capital gains taxes across a century in the U.S. They were
trying to see if higher taxes really did discourage investment, lower
taxes really did encourage it, etc. What they found was that,
completely regardless of the tax rate, the investment as a constant
percentage of the GDP had remained practically constant, never
changing more than 1%; and the rise and fall of the GDP had absolutely
no correlation whatsoever with the tax rate. This included periods
where capital gains taxes had been as high as 75% and as low as
nothing...
3) and simply size, ala the old adage about how long it takes to turn
a moving ship.
I would point to the dot.com boom as an example of just how quickly we
turned a moving ship (much to the dismay of many 8 years later when it
all came crashing down)...
Secondly, I think the we're overall rather well off, and fairly
efficient at meeting our basic needs, leading to a sense of
complacency (at least among those that have, and I'll get to the have
nots in a minute). Years ago, US industry was driven by tangible
products, things people actually needed. Today, those things are
cheap and plentiful, or no longer necessary, so there's no real "need"
among most of the population to spur productivity. In other words,
it's no longer a matter of plain survival, but a matter of levels of
lifestyle (again, for most people).
Thirdly, I have to say (and I'm going to sound _very_ conservative
here) I think there's some merit to the argument that we're inclined
toward a sense of entitlement, nearly all of us. Those things the
government began providing as a measure of a prosperous and generous
society have come to be taken as the normal and natural order of
things -- and I'm not just including welfare here, but a diverse range
of things now routinely provided for the benefit of the entire
population (though welfare is included). There's a lot I could
speculate on in this area, but I think I'll leave it as a generality
unless you're interested in specifics.
I'm not entirely sure on how this creates problems, though...
And I have to say -- television :-) Don't laugh. We're a TV watching
society. I can't recall the statistics on how many hours average the
American citizen watches, but it's frightening. And though TV brings
information and some good things, it is also an extremely passive sort
of activity. There is no actual participation by the viewer, as there
is with reading or something. You just sit, and it's designed to
engage you, to keep you there. To prevent you getting bored, it
switches picture frames every couple of seconds. It directs your
laughter, your tears, and tells you what to think. Why dig through
history books to sort through the complexities that led to, say, WWII,
when you can be entertained by bloody scenes set to dramatic music
which depict battles? Why take an extra class in the evenings, or get
a second job to better yourself, when you can push a button and live
vicariously the life of someone wealthy and privileged? TV meets, in
a superficial way, a lot of the sense of "lack" that would drive
someone to achieve; it placates.
That's off the cuff :-)
In my experience, kids tend to survive schools mostly unscathed; that
may sound as an irrelevant comment to your TV comment, but I think it
is not.
How many people really dug through history books before television?
Before radio? Carl Sagan used to tell the story of going to the public
library and asking for a book "on stars", and getting a book with
pictures of Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis, and the librarian being
both surprised and impressed when he explained what he meant. Children
may not have sat in air conditioned living rooms watching television,
but they weren't exactly going in droves to the library either, and
neither were adults. Those that took that extra class in the evening
and got a second job solely to better themselves did it because
something in them drove them. I watch a lot of television (although I
use it a lot as background noise), but I read enormous amounts of
stuff for pleasure. I also play a lot of computer games (maybe more
than I should), and so on.
Yes, we point to television and we blame it for how badly our children
are doing in school, but our children were not doing better in school
before because they used their free time to study instead of to watch
tv. They were doing better because teaching was a respected and
honorable profession, in which a person could make a living, and
because the community took care of their schools.
Sure, you can blame television and Hollywood for the abysmal state of
California schools, but I lay the blame at the feet of Proposition 13
(old numbering; they restarted numbering their propositions a few
years ago, and I'm sure there's been a new Prop. 13 since then...).
I can certainly pinpoint
several symptoms: there aren't enough opportunities for advancement
across the board, and particularly within certain groups. By far, the
biggest problem is poverty, not race, but in certain regions and
certain groups, race and poverty are too highly correlated to
ignore. I think that our society does not provide a safety net, and it
should. The safety net should be high enough to actually save people,
but should be low enough that most people would rather be out of it
than in it, and it would not be too difficult to do so.
How would you accomplish that, and where do you think that safety net
is now?
I don't think we have much of a safety net right now. How to
accomplish it... well, I think we could learn a thing or two from the
scandinavian countries, which have much higher funded social services
than we do. But 'socialising medicine' and so on causes so many red
ghosts to jump out of cupboards in the US...
The idea behind the work programs associated with unemployment welfare
was good, but the implementation rated several dozen hoovers in a
scale of suckiness.
To be honest, I don't have great ideas to redo our society. That's
just one of the many many reasons I'm not running for office. But
that's also one of the reasons why I am happy to encourage
experimentation.
There has
always been a huge gap between the very rich and the very poor, but
there is a much more important gap that is widening, and which is very
dangerous: the gap between the moderately rich (upper middle-class and
up) and the professional (lower and mid-middle class). The middle
class is being squished to the end points, and that is bad, bad, bad,
in the long run.
I can see that happening, being in that second category :-)
I'm not entirely sure this belongs here, but I'd be happy to take it
to e-mail if you want...
If you tell me you received that last email, I'll be glad.
I got one e-mail from you, in response to an e-mail I sent in your
exchange with Elroy. That's it.
I got a
message from "postmaster" which I declined to open, as so many have
come lately which have virii, but which showed up right after I
attempted to send you something. No one's screaming yet, but I'm glad
to proceed as you direct me.
Then again, nobody seems to be caring much either, so maybe we're just
being ignored... (-:
[.snip.]
But, yes: if hard work will not net you anything, then why work hard?
Why be motivated? There was a time when a working professional could
see himself giving his children a much better life than he had through
sheer hard honest work. These days, saddled with college loan debt and
other problems, this is no longer the case. It may very well be a
function of diminishing returns to a certain extent (these are the
children of ->those<- professionals, after all; they started at a
higher level than they did), but it is bound to be demoralizing...
Do you think that it is possibly at least partially a function of how
well society managed to give better lives to their children the last
couple of generations?
"It may very well be a function of diminishing returns" is I believe
what I said. Isn't that the same thing, more or less?
It seems to me that there are tons of stories
of grandparents who overcame tremendous odds to provide secure,
comfortable lives for their kids; which leads me to believe that,
overall, society got better, or at least more comfortable.
Oh, there can be little doubt that society got better, overall. But
that has always been the case. We would probably find the living
conditions of the very rich in the mid 18th century unbearable and
foul, particularly with all those chamber pots lying around...
[.snip.]
For those who are minorities, I do think affirmative action increased
a sense that good jobs were due them, irrespective of personal
striving for excellence. For those who are not minorities, I think it
also diminished the motivation to strive, since a position qualified
for might be given to someone else based on criteria other than
competence, simply to meet societal quotas. I know that's a
contentious thing to assert, and don't think it's nearly all the
equation -- but I do think it has shaped society's perception of how
to advance, in a negative way. Which is why, as I said, I think it
accomplished some worthwhile things, and it's time to move to end it.
The trouble is, ending it is going to mean a period of hardship for
minorities, as everyone gets used to being measured only by
accomplishment. We are always hesitant to take those steps which we
know are going to mean discomfort, even if that discomfort is
temporary and even ultimately necessary.
I think we should be looking for something to replace affirmative
action with. I think simply ending it is not just "a period of hardship
for minorities", but a mistake, because we have not broken the vicious
circle. But I really think we should be spending a lot of our
energies searching for something to replace it with to achieve those
goals which affirmative action failed to achieve, instead of spending
it trying to either keep it running or remove it entirely.
(Another good reason why social experiments should have clearly stated
goals, as well as failure and success criteria... Affirmative action
worked in some senses, failed in others)
I agree with that, and would add that there needs to be some backbone
in government, to eliminate those things which aren't working. We're
very good at making laws. We're not so good at eliminating those
laws, when they prove unworkable, obsolete, or even harmful to the
stated goals. Because once we create a law, or a protected class, we
also create those whose status/power depends on keeping things as they
are.
And you want to know one thing that is eroding that backbone? Term
limits.
That backbone is what you can expect from a seasoned law-maker, with a
long career who can point to his overall accomplishments rather than
just the latest vote; who can go across the aisle and create
coalitions of legislators, and who can afford to defy the National
Committee who is more preoccupied with the next election cycle,
because he has a record he can run on and does not rely on the
national party organization for his next job.
I have yet to see a good argument for term limits, but we are having
them pop up all over the place. All the arguments for term limits I
have heard are really arguments about things that can be fixed through
campaign finance and expenditure reform, and the only thing I see term
limits creating is partizanship. Even the impression that has been
created that a "long-term politician" is a bad thing is strengthening
the central party structure, killing the moderates on both sides, and
creating partizanship, at all levels.
Oh, the lack of backbone has so many roots... You also need to fix
this silly impression people have that the United States is a
democracy. It is not, it never has been. In all of history, there have
only been two democracies: Athens, which only functioned because in
the entire city of Athens there were only 50 or 60 citizens. The only
other true democracy involved the entire adult population, with each
community electing representatives who had to vote a given way in the
next level and so on up to the national level. You may not remember it
very well, because although it had a nice name ("National
Convention"), it is remembered in the history books with another name,
and it lasted only about a year: "The Terror", after the French
Revolution.
No, this is not a democracy. It is a representative republic. Our
"elected leaders" are not supposed to come back and ask what we want
every time they need to make a decision. We are supposed to be
electing people whose judgement we trust and let them use that
judgement, even if it is not what we want done...
But don't get me started on this one...
[.snip.]
I'm reading at the moment a persuasive book which makes the argument
that the root of the problem is the philosophy of the law itself. In
a nutshell, he argues that the country grew under statutory law, which
was flexible and circumstance dependent, using as its criteria what a
reasonable person would have done.
I think you qouted this wrong; surely he meant "common law", not
"statutory law"?
He says this began to change in
the 60's, when statutory law had the lofty ideal of making rules to
cover every eventuality; they sought to eliminate potential for abuse.
He traces the thought for this back to the enlightenment: "The
philosophy of rationalism held that relations between citizens and the
state would be predetermined in advance, that a natural order of
government could be found similar to the order that Isaac Newton
thought he had found in nature." So that, in essence, law becomes
about creating pages and pages of detailed legal documents designed to
cover every eventuality, but which fail to recognize that each
situation is going to involve humans. Instead of being governed by
reason, it's governed by rule; and the rules are often, in specific
situations, not only ludicrous, but sometimes even create results
contrary to the stated purpose of the law itself.
I hate to disagree, but I do. This is not the inheritance of the
enlightenemnt, it is the inheritance of the Roman Empire and the
philosophers of law during the enlightenment, who were working in
countries that followed the legal tradition of the Roman
Empire. England had always had a dual system, in which statutory law
coexisted with common law, which in turn also coexisted with equity
law and all sorts of other facets. But you only have to turn to Oliver
Wendell Holmes's _The Common Law_, written in the second half of the
19th century, to see a time when people were arguing that common law
was itself "a natural order predetermined in advance".
The problem with common law is that its nature prevents it from
adapting easily, and the 20th century has seen too quick a change in
situations to be able to deal effectively with society exclusively or
almost exclusively through common law (again, remember, there has
always been statutory law in the norman tradition of the law). Common
law had all sorts of common sense things to deal with commerce and the
transference and carrying of goods. But is a conversation carried
along a wire a good? Is the company who provides the wire and the
telephone a "carrier"? It would have taken, based on experience, about
50 years of common law cases before the matter was decided, and it was
just not realistic to wait that long. So we got a statutory law
saying, "yes, they are carriers, and the common law of carriers
applies to them."
Right now we have a similar situation with copyrights of programs and
algorithms. The ->industry<- cannot afford 50-75 years for the cases
and controversies to settle into a coherent statement of common law
that can be reasonably predicted; what we ->need<- is statues that
settle the matter ->now<- so the thing can grow.
A society with too much law is stifled into stagnancy; you cannot do
anything because your entire life is regulated. A society with too
little law is destroyed into anarchy, where you cannot do anything
because you do not know if you will be punished for it or not.
[.snip.]
Your final complaint, of course, is just as true in private
disputes. How often does the big business crush the small business
because the small business simply cannot afford to fight the big one?
Insurance claims, corporate spying, etc?
That's true, but...
The difference is that big business does not have the full weight,
power, and authority of the federal government to back up its
excesses, and justify them using pages of documents.
I'm sorry, but they do and they did. When individuals sue insurance
companies, their lawyers get flooded with dozens if not hundreds of
boxes of documents. When the workers tried to sue the companies (or
the unions tried to go against the companies), they were flooded with
motions and legal documents that either drowned them, or made the
litigation so costly that the companies won by default. When one party
can afford to hire 15 lawyers, and the other party can barely afford
1, you will get the one lawyer flooded with motions, because that way,
he cannot be well prepared or it will be too expensive to continue.
What those big
businesses did might be immoral, wrong, and detrimental to society.
But while the practices, at least for a period of time, might not have
been specifically *illegal*, what they were not were specifically
justified by statutory law.
Some of them were. There was a time when breaking up a union, or
sending people to beat up those picketing the factory, was
specifically justified by statutory law. And before that, there was a
time when minimum salaries were struck down on "common sense" common
law grounds.
======================================================================
"It's not denial. I'm just very selective about
what I accept as reality."
--- Calvin ("Calvin and Hobbes")
======================================================================
Arturo Magidin
magidin@math.berkeley.edu
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| User: "Ted King" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Conservative or Liberal? |
26 Jul 2003 08:03:26 AM |
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In article <c472f5b5.0307252200.438d4187@posting.google.com>,
(stillsunny) wrote:
magidin@math.berkeley.edu (Arturo Magidin) wrote in message
news:<bfpoq3$1tta$1@agate.berkeley.edu>...
In article <c472f5b5.0307241136.4380fd3b@posting.google.com>,
stillsunny < > wrote:
[snip]
Conservatives over the years have tended to support a society
with rather rigidly defined roles and strata, while liberals tend to
support homogeneization of the strata and the breaking of traditional
roles. That's why you had early 20th century conservatives in the UK
supporting labor laws: they saw it as the only way to sustain the
status quo and prevent a worker rebellion; at the same time, the
conservatives in the US were supporting laissez-faire capitalism,
because it was the non-interference of the government that was keeping
the status and classes in place.
As the status quo changes, what a liberal and what a conservative are
both socially and economically changes as well. Today, in the US, in
economics, "conservative" is ->supposed<- to stand for fiscal
discipline, while "liberal" is ->supposed<- to stand for wide-ranging
fiscal experimentation (the government spending a lot of money to get
things going). But that may be little more than inherited from the New
Deal, when the conservatives were confident that a laissez-faire
government who did little or nothing was the way to go to jump-start
the economy again through tax-incentives, while the liberals supported
expansive government programs and spending to jump-start the
economy. Certainly if we go back 20 years, we discover that
"conservatives" have advocated deficit-spending, while "liberals" have
instead been the fiscally responsible (at least in terms of spending
within limits; on the other hand, it is also true that over the last
20 years, it has been conservatives who have drastically reduced the
->number<- of venues in which the government spends money, while
liberals have tended to drastically increase them; that tends to blur
the issue as well).
Can you expound a little further?
I get the gist of what you're saying, but I'm not clear on how a
government can increase the role of government, vis-a-vis number of
venues, while simultaneously decreasing the cost over any extended
period of time.
[snip]
more revenue, more venue without deficit
;-)
Ted
Who thinks that wealth is not magically distributed by mystical
objective worth in our present system of "free" enterprise and doesn't
mind paying more taxes to provide help to those who work hard but don't
get paid very much or have a need through no fault of their own.
.
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| User: "stillsunny" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Conservative or Liberal? |
26 Jul 2003 02:52:19 PM |
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Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<lodited-9854E0.05541526072003@newssvr24-ext.news.prodigy.com>...
In article <c472f5b5.0307252200.438d4187@posting.google.com>,
stillsunny1@yahoo.com (stillsunny) wrote:
<snip>
Can you expound a little further?
I get the gist of what you're saying, but I'm not clear on how a
government can increase the role of government, vis-a-vis number of
venues, while simultaneously decreasing the cost over any extended
period of time.
[snip]
more revenue, more venue without deficit
;-)
Well, that certainly cleared that up :-)
I think one of the unspoken questions I have here is, how does one
define cost?
Direct cost, meaning how much the government actually has to spend to
administer any one program?
Or are there other "costs" associated with an increasing role of
government, which are more difficult to factor accurately, but
certainly very real?
I'll give two examples. The first is paraphrased from a book called
_The Death of Common Sense; How Law is Suffocating America_, and the
other is from personal experience.
To begin with, I think we can all agree that cleaner air and water are
a good thing, and that being able to have a cool drink and some oxygen
falls right close to the "rights" category (at least insofar as no one
has the right to deprive you of these necessary things).
So we have the EPA, who with teams of experts having hearings and so
forth for five years, put out a thirty-five page rule which mandated
specific equipment to capture benzene escaping from pipeline waste.
Amoco spent some 31 million dollars upfitting their pipes at a
Yorktown, Virginia refinery with this new gadgetry (their teams of
lawyers all agreed that it wasn't a good idea to argue with the EPA).
One day, on an airplane, James Lounsbury from the EPA happened to sit
next to Debora Sparks from Amoco, and a discussion regarding the
frustrations of environmental law developed. This conversation
eventuated in a trip by the EPA to Amoco, where Amoco ("with some
trepidation") led the EPA around the facility, and it was discovered
that their high priced gadget wasn't working -- the benzene was
escaping during the pumping from barges, in the main, and not from the
pipelines. Once it was identified, it was fairly easy and inexpensive
to fix -- and fix it, they did. But the point is, they'd spent tons
of money and time complying with a rule they were afraid to question
(due to the weight and power of the EPA), which rule didn't effect the
"cure" it was supposed to.
And then there's my husband, who owns a small sign company. I mean,
it's small. Just me and him :-) For a while, he had a partner. But
he's never grown bigger, because he already spends an inordinate
amount of time and money complying with all the regulations regarding
how corporations work. Between mandatory unemployment payments, and
insurance, and all the other paperwork he has to go through each month
(including the company matching his Social Security), and the money he
has to pay professionals to help him keep it sorted out, it became
clear to him that, if he hired employees, he'd have to work twice as
hard just to make sure he made enough money to pay them and all the
extras that went with it. Do you know, because he's an employee of
his own company, he's required to pay himself a certain amount each
week -- or EEOC (I think) said they would come investigate him for
unfair labor practices; meaning, they'd be concerned about how poorly
he was treating himself as an employee? Which means, during lean
times, he doesn't have the option of just not paying himself and
leaving the money in the account for materials.
In both those cases, I'd say that even if the direct cost of those
government regulations is minimal, the total cost is much higher.
Ted
Who thinks that wealth is not magically distributed by mystical
objective worth in our present system of "free" enterprise and doesn't
mind paying more taxes to provide help to those who work hard but don't
get paid very much or have a need through no fault of their own.
I don't mind paying taxes to help people, either, buddy, though I
don't think we'd qualify as financially rich by any stretch of the
imagination. It's just that -- my pragmatic self notes that when
someone's handing out goodies, those goodies don't all go to those who
really are needy. Plus, I'm much more supportive of initiatives that
try to help level the playing field, so that everyone has a chance to
succeed. Having just graduated one child, I'm aware (based on
watching him do schoolwork) that in this day and age, access to a
computer and the internet is almost a requirement to excell in school;
and those kids whose parents can't afford either are at a severe
disadvantage.
I think I'm more inclined to "programs" which address the root of the
problem, rather than simply ameliorating the effects of the problem
(how's that for an ambiguous generalization?)
Sunny
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| User: "stillsunny" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Conservative or Liberal? |
27 Jul 2003 01:56:09 PM |
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Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<lodited-030FE8.16291826072003@newssvr23-ext.news.prodigy.com>...
In article <c472f5b5.0307261152.33aac84a@posting.google.com>,
stillsunny1@yahoo.com (stillsunny) wrote:
<snip>
Well, that certainly cleared that up :-)
I thought I'd just frankly state that Clinton didn't get to a balanced
budget solely by reducing funds to some government programs (like
defense), he also increased taxes on the wealthy. Of course, he also had
the benefit of increased government revenues from economic growth -
stemming, I think, in large part from increased productivity and a
general sense of optimism.
It's funny, isn't it, how people's feelings actually influence the
total economy.
I think one of the unspoken questions I have here is, how does one
define cost?
Direct cost, meaning how much the government actually has to spend to
administer any one program?
Or are there other "costs" associated with an increasing role of
government, which are more difficult to factor accurately, but
certainly very real?
<snip examples>
In both those cases, I'd say that even if the direct cost of those
government regulations is minimal, the total cost is much higher.
I'm in favor of taking into account total costs, though calculating that
is often very tricky. I would extend the concept of calculating total
costs to things like the costs of using nuclear power to produce
electricity.
Government regulation is a tough balancing act. Too much regulation is
truly burdensome and can cause much more harm than benefit. But too
little regulation can also quickly lead to more harm than benefit (e.g.,
Reagan administration's reduced regulation of Savings and Loans).
The book I'm reading is fascinating, and talks about how the notion of
a rational law, designed to cover every eventuality, has replaced a
more common sense, event specific understanding of the law. It points
out that the entire government -- house, senate, administrative
branch, judicial branch, and general rights of individuals -- are all
codified in one smallish document which itself was designed to be
flexible, and uses terms like, "general welfare". I'm not through
with it yet, but he's making a compelling case that, in trying to make
the law cover every eventuality, we have made the law too burdensome
to be effective at all. Meaning, instead of looking at a circumstance
and using human judgment about a human circumstance, the criteria
being "what a reasonable and prudent person would do in that
circumstance," we flip through volumes of legal small print, trying to
find which rule governs any one situation.
<snip>
though I
don't think we'd qualify as financially rich by any stretch of the
imagination. It's just that -- my pragmatic self notes that when
someone's handing out goodies, those goodies don't all go to those who
really are needy.
Too true. Corporate farms are being paid by the government not to grow
anything on some of their lands when the avowed purpose of the program
was to help out struggling family farms (IIRC, corporate farms actually
get much more of the benefit than family farms do).
<grin>
Plus, I'm much more supportive of initiatives that
try to help level the playing field, so that everyone has a chance to
succeed. Having just graduated one child, I'm aware (based on
watching him do schoolwork) that in this day and age, access to a
computer and the internet is almost a requirement to excell in school;
and those kids whose parents can't afford either are at a severe
disadvantage.
I think I'm more inclined to "programs" which address the root of the
problem, rather than simply ameliorating the effects of the problem
(how's that for an ambiguous generalization?)
Sunny
I agree in general, but I think there are important exceptions - like a
hard working family with no medical insurance getting government help
with large medical expenses.
As I have a sister who earns little and owns nothing, and whose
medical bills are already in the tens of thousands of dollars, I have
to agree :-)
Sunny
.
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| User: "Ted King" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Conservative or Liberal? |
27 Jul 2003 06:54:28 PM |
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In article <c472f5b5.0307271056.23283cc3@posting.google.com>,
(stillsunny) wrote:
Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<lodited-030FE8.16291826072003@newssvr23-ext.news.prodigy.com>...
In article <c472f5b5.0307261152.33aac84a@posting.google.com>,
(stillsunny) wrote:
<snip>
The book I'm reading is fascinating, and talks about how the notion of
a rational law, designed to cover every eventuality, has replaced a
more common sense, event specific understanding of the law. It points
out that the entire government -- house, senate, administrative
branch, judicial branch, and general rights of individuals -- are all
codified in one smallish document which itself was designed to be
flexible, and uses terms like, "general welfare". I'm not through
with it yet, but he's making a compelling case that, in trying to make
the law cover every eventuality, we have made the law too burdensome
to be effective at all. Meaning, instead of looking at a circumstance
and using human judgment about a human circumstance, the criteria
being "what a reasonable and prudent person would do in that
circumstance," we flip through volumes of legal small print, trying to
find which rule governs any one situation.
What goes on in schools with behavior "rules" is a good microcosmic look
into that phenomenon. There are always some teachers wanting to create a
new rule for problems that come up with the students (in my case it's
middle school, so there are plenty of those). I keep trying to convince
some of the other teachers that the more specific rules we have, the
more likely it will be that the students will plead in their defense
that there wasn't any rule against specific act X (the gifted kids that
I work with sometimes seem to all be future lawyers in training).
An example of how things can go wrong by making a bunch of rules in
small print - it started happening around school that some kids were
calling other kids "gay" in a manner that was clearly intended to be
derogatory. I tried to make the case that we could deal with it under
more general guidelines of maintaining a learning environment where
everyone felt physically and emotionally safe; but it was decided
instead that anyone even saying the word "gay" would get an automatic
referral. It wasn't long before the word popped up in a story the
students were reading for language arts - of course in the context of
the story it just meant something like "having a good time". When the
kids came and complained to me about the unfairness of it, I couldn't do
much more than shrug my shoulders.
<snip>
I think I'm more inclined to "programs" which address the root of the
problem, rather than simply ameliorating the effects of the problem
(how's that for an ambiguous generalization?)
Sunny
I agree in general, but I think there are important exceptions - like a
hard working family with no medical insurance getting government help
with large medical expenses.
As I have a sister who earns little and owns nothing, and whose
medical bills are already in the tens of thousands of dollars, I have
to agree :-)
Sunny
When you are really physically challenged to recover, you sure as heck
don't need the extra challenge of worrying about how to pay for the
medical care you needed and will continue to need to recover.
Ted
.
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| User: "stillsunny" |
|
| Title: Re: OT: Conservative or Liberal? |
29 Jul 2003 10:02:30 PM |
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Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<lodited-B1A402.16534827072003@newssvr21-ext.news.prodigy.com>...
In article <c472f5b5.0307271056.23283cc3@posting.google.com>,
stillsunny1@yahoo.com (stillsunny) wrote:
Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<lodited-030FE8.16291826072003@newssvr23-ext.news.prodigy.com>...
In article <c472f5b5.0307261152.33aac84a@posting.google.com>,
stillsunny1@yahoo.com (stillsunny) wrote:
<snip>
The book I'm reading is fascinating, and talks about how the notion of
a rational law, designed to cover every eventuality, has replaced a
more common sense, event specific understanding of the law. <snip>
Meaning, instead of looking at a circumstance
and using human judgment about a human circumstance, the criteria
being "what a reasonable and prudent person would do in that
circumstance," we flip through volumes of legal small print, trying to
find which rule governs any one situation.
What goes on in schools with behavior "rules" is a good microcosmic look
into that phenomenon. There are always some teachers wanting to create a
new rule for problems that come up with the students (in my case it's
middle school, so there are plenty of those). I keep trying to convince
some of the other teachers that the more specific rules we have, the
more likely it will be that the students will plead in their defense
that there wasn't any rule against specific act X (the gifted kids that
I work with sometimes seem to all be future lawyers in training).
An example of how things can go wrong by making a bunch of rules in
small print - it started happening around school that some kids were
calling other kids "gay" in a manner that was clearly intended to be
derogatory. I tried to make the case that we could deal with it under
more general guidelines of maintaining a learning environment where
everyone felt physically and emotionally safe; but it was decided
instead that anyone even saying the word "gay" would get an automatic
referral. It wasn't long before the word popped up in a story the
students were reading for language arts - of course in the context of
the story it just meant something like "having a good time". When the
kids came and complained to me about the unfairness of it, I couldn't do
much more than shrug my shoulders.
This book references problems with schools, too. In a nutshell (and
because I haven't read all of it yet) he points out that between
federal mandates, fear of litigation, the whole issue of children's
rights, and a sense that the rules can cover every eventuality, we've
created a situation where teachers are paralyzed to effectively handle
problems. In essence, we are paying professionals to spend an
inordinate amount of time defending their professional judgments, and
are consequently discouraged from making them.
<snip>
As I have a sister who earns little and owns nothing, and whose
medical bills are already in the tens of thousands of dollars, I have
to agree :-)
Sunny
When you are really physically challenged to recover, you sure as heck
don't need the extra challenge of worrying about how to pay for the
medical care you needed and will continue to need to recover.
No kidding. I'll tell you, though, it's no fun trying to jump through
the beaurocratic hoops when you're horribly sick, either. It's
strange to me. My sister has absolutely nothing, and can't qualify
for Medicaid. But if she had a child, or was pregnant, she'd qualify
automatically.
I'm so torn on the whole issue.
Did you ever see the movie "John Q"?
(Denzel Washington, mmmm...)
Really, it wasn't the greatest movie in the world, but the subject
matter was thought provoking. Short synopsis: Dad's been cut to part
time at the plant he's worked at forever; insurance has been cut, but
he doesn't know it; kid ends up with defective heart and needs
transplant; dad doesn't have insurance, and makes too much money to
qualify for assistance, not enough money to pay the huge cost; takes
the hospital hostage, and finally gets his son a heart.
The movie did a fair job of representing the issues, I thought, even
though it was clear it was on the side of the dad. There were no real
"bad" guys. It was simply a matter of, it's an expensive operation,
for a whole lot of reasons. And you'd want *everybody* to have access
to every single thing that could help them live long and healthy
lives, but the money, the profit, is a good chunk of what keeps
driving the newer procedures, or the doctors who perform those
procedures, or the newer and better technologies in hospitals for all
sorts of things. So where do you draw the line at what's allowed, or
what's not? And if you don't draw the line, how do you pay for all
the newest stuff that's come out for everybody, and how do you not
dampen the profit motive that drives a lot of the incentive to create
more new stuff?
So I just don't know. I have to admit, though, I'm increasingly
persuaded of the benefits of a universal health care system. We're
already halfway there, anyway. I'm thinking lately about some sort of
government insurance program, available to those who are otherwise
uninsured, perhaps means tested; or perhaps univeral basic health
care, and if you want extra insurance to cover experimental
procedures, then you can purchase it yourself. Something. It does
seem to me that there are a lot of people who, if they *had*
insurance, would go to the doctor earlier, and be more easily treated.
Had a professor once who ended up in horribly poor health, with a
hugely compromised immune system, because he was sick and didn't go to
the doctor because of no insurance, until he was *so* sick that he had
to.
And *then* there's the whole issue of medical malpractice, which is
driving a whole lot of very excellent doctors out of the profession.
But that's another subject...
Sunny
.
|
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| User: "Ted King" |
|
| Title: Re: OT: Conservative or Liberal? |
30 Jul 2003 10:15:41 PM |
|
|
In article <c472f5b5.0307291902.1c1ed1a9@posting.google.com>,
(stillsunny) wrote:
Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<lodited-B1A402.16534827072003@newssvr21-ext.news.prodigy.com>...
In article <c472f5b5.0307271056.23283cc3@posting.google.com>,
(stillsunny) wrote:
Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<lodited-030FE8.16291826072003@newssvr23-ext.news.prodigy.com>...
In article <c472f5b5.0307261152.33aac84a@posting.google.com>,
(stillsunny) wrote:
<snip>
This book references problems with schools, too. In a nutshell (and
because I haven't read all of it yet) he points out that between
federal mandates, fear of litigation, the whole issue of children's
rights, and a sense that the rules can cover every eventuality, we've
created a situation where teachers are paralyzed to effectively handle
problems. In essence, we are paying professionals to spend an
inordinate amount of time defending their professional judgments, and
are consequently discouraged from making them.
Yeah, it's bad enough that rules tend to proliferate, but being able to
give meaningful consequences has become severely constrained. I sure
don't think we should go back to the days of hitting kids by any means,
but I gotta think making kids pick up trash around the school grounds
isn't all that onerous - but here in California it isn't allowed as a
consequence because it is too demeaning. Good grief.
<snip>
As I have a sister who earns little and owns nothing, and whose
medical bills are already in the tens of thousands of dollars, I have
to agree :-)
Sunny
When you are really physically challenged to recover, you sure as heck
don't need the extra challenge of worrying about how to pay for the
medical care you needed and will continue to need to recover.
No kidding. I'll tell you, though, it's no fun trying to jump through
the beaurocratic hoops when you're horribly sick, either. It's
strange to me. My sister has absolutely nothing, and can't qualify
for Medicaid. But if she had a child, or was pregnant, she'd qualify
automatically.
I'm so torn on the whole issue.
Did you ever see the movie "John Q"?
(Denzel Washington, mmmm...)
Really, it wasn't the greatest movie in the world, but the subject
matter was thought provoking. Short synopsis: Dad's been cut to part
time at the plant he's worked at forever; insurance has been cut, but
he doesn't know it; kid ends up with defective heart and needs
transplant; dad doesn't have insurance, and makes too much money to
qualify for assistance, not enough money to pay the huge cost; takes
the hospital hostage, and finally gets his son a heart.
The movie did a fair job of representing the issues, I thought, even
though it was clear it was on the side of the dad. There were no real
"bad" guys. It was simply a matter of, it's an expensive operation,
for a whole lot of reasons. And you'd want *everybody* to have access
to every single thing that could help them live long and healthy
lives, but the money, the profit, is a good chunk of what keeps
driving the newer procedures, or the doctors who perform those
procedures, or the newer and better technologies in hospitals for all
sorts of things. So where do you draw the line at what's allowed, or
what's not?
very tough call - extremely tough call; but I'm sure you'd agree that
isn't any reason to throw up our hands and say we can't afford to do
quite a lot - even if not *every* possible thing - for those who have a
need and can't afford it. In a society where the wealthy think it is
worth spending money to get their favorite pet an MRI, it sure seems
like there should be resources available for any child to get one that
has a need.
And if you don't draw the line, how do you pay for all
the newest stuff that's come out for everybody, and how do you not
dampen the profit motive that drives a lot of the incentive to create
more new stuff?
You probably can't, but maybe there is some way to keep a medical
related industry from having the largest profit margins of any industry;
i.e., pharmaceutical companies. At some point keeping the status quo to
provide incentives to medical industries will end up breaking our
economy. At an individual level, how much value is there for a person
who has to give up eating what they need to stay healthy so they have
enough money to pay for a medicine that doing without would make them
sicker quicker than not eating healthily?
So I just don't know. I have to admit, though, I'm increasingly
persuaded of the benefits of a universal health care system. We're
already halfway there, anyway. I'm thinking lately about some sort of
government insurance program, available to those who are otherwise
uninsured, perhaps means tested; or perhaps univeral basic health
care, and if you want extra insurance to cover experimental
procedures, then you can purchase it yourself. Something. It does
seem to me that there are a lot of people who, if they *had*
insurance, would go to the doctor earlier, and be more easily treated.
Had a professor once who ended up in horribly poor health, with a
hugely compromised immune system, because he was sick and didn't go to
the doctor because of no insurance, until he was *so* sick that he had
to.
There are only less bad alternatives to choose from when it comes to
health care. One argument I don't buy is that if government plays a role
in medical care, the government bureaucracy will be so bad it won't be
workable. There is good reason to suspect a government bureaucracy, but
I can tell from personal experience with many "private" insurers that
they often are just as bureaucratic and ridiculous as the government
would be.
And *then* there's the whole issue of medical malpractice, which is
driving a whole lot of very excellent doctors out of the profession.
But that's another subject...
Sunny
I think there does need to be reform of the medical malpractice system,
but I would feel a lot better about that reform if it was tied to real
reform in the agencies that oversee the professional licenses of
doctors. It's ludicrous that some doctors are allowed to keep their
licenses even after strong evidence of repeated or gross ineptitude.
Ted
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