TheAgitator.com
Lefty Bloggers: State Your Limits
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009Over at Hit & Run, I’ve put up a post challenging lefty bloggers and opinion makers to state what they believe ought to be the upper limits on various indicators of the size and scope of the federal government.
The idea here is to get some people on record, both to see just how much government interference some on the left believe is tolerable, but also to see what happens if and when the Obama administration’s spending exceeds those limits.
Little typo in your article.
*Progressive Taxation
The bottom 50 percent of earners pay 3 percent of taxes.
*Income Equality
The bottom 50 percent of earners make 13 percent.
Interesting concept. Unfortunately, the instant you begin thinking seriously about these issues, you can’t really be a leftist anymore. As soon as you begin the train of thought, “Wow, these programs sound great, but whose going to pay for this…?” you’re entering conservative territory.
A common attack on conservatives from the left is that they are just heartless and cruel because they don’t support (insert entitlement program here) without understanding that in general, conservatives are not opposed to the goals of the programs, they are just a.) skeptical about how much the program will actually achieve it’s stated goals, and b.) concerned about how much it will cost/who will pay for it/how will the country pay for it. Leftists confuse heartlessness with realism. Which isn’t to say there aren’t conservatives out there who really are heartless curmudgeonly old bastards.
Anyway, point is I seriously doubt most leftists have given even a passing thought to these issues. If your quiz actually suceeds in prompting this kind of thought from a self-indentified leftist, I’d be willing to wager his/her first realization would be something along the lines of, “Holy shit, the way we’re spending is completely unsustainable!” I know that’s what happened to me.
Just for shits and giggles, it would also be fun to come up with some kind of quiz like this for cops, something along the lines of, “at what point would you be satisfied with the level of authority given to police.” My guess is the general consensus among them, not explicitly state of course, would be, “never.”
My guess most lefty bloggers will answer “As big as it needs to be” or some other answer. I seriously doubt they have any qualms about the size or scope of the fed or the national debt.
Will the next one be asking about how much police state the righty bloggers are willing to accept?
MDGuy that was really well said. Great analysis!
While MDGuy’s post was well-articulated, I find the traditional liberal-conservative dichotomy too confining. This is a libertarian blog, after all.
Well MattH, I’m not a Libertarian or even a libertarian, but I go with the general rule that unless you are willing to lock up anyone who doesn’t agree with the proposal then the government probably shouldn’t be involved and definitely should not be using tax monies for the proposal. No matter how wonderful the idea is, you have to realize that if the government is doing it than they are using force to implement it, and unless you are willing to use force to support that idea then the government shouldn’t be doing it.
Those are all about money. Money isn’t the way you should be measuring this. All that matters is that people are happy and happiness isn’t measured in dollars. Happiness is letting gays get married, eliminating child abuse, giving people jobs at a living wage, changing over to clean green energy, buying American, universal health care, eradication of smoking, and having a house with an affordable mortgage.
Not everything is about money. In any case, if you greedy “righty” capitalist bloggers would stop lining the pockets of rich corporations with money that would otherwise be going to help the poor, the country’s financial problems would be solved and none of us would have to worry about whether our children will be getting any dinner tonight.
Conservatives don’t have a corner on the market when it comes to being “heartlessness and cruel”. Some folks actually think (although not openly, of course) that people should be taxed proportionately to how much government they use and that even a flat tax would be progressive by that standard.
Radley, some of these questions are so rationally posed, I’ll be surprised if you get more than 3 responses.
MDGuy, I think a survey of LEOs is a great idea.
Question 1: Is one taser enough?
Question 2: When serving a warrant, how long after you’ve busted down the door should you shout “police”?
Question 3: Should police officers be allowed to put low-level street dealers in “stress positions” in order to find out their source?
Hi Radley –
Will you be responding to some of the criticisms over at the H and R site? I agree that leaving social security out of one question but including it in another doesn’t make sense, and at first glance your summary of the World Bank report seems a little misleading, since (if I am reading it correctly – always a questionable proposition) it includes corporate taxes in it’s summary of the average tax rate.
Despite it’s flaws, an interesting thought experiment. Thanks.
ginger dan-
you’d have to include at least a few more…
Question 4: when are you allowed to testify against another police officer?
Question 5: should you automatically charge anyone who questions your authority with ‘resisting arrest’?
Question 6: how many times should someone who’s been charged with ‘resisting arrest’ be tased?
Question 7: how many dogs are you allowed to shoot in a shift?
MattH, I agree with you that the “liberal vs. conservative” dictomoy is confining; maybe I should have qualified the terms with “fiscal” or “socially,” although even those terms have their limits. I mean, “conservatives” have been known to howl in rage at unrealistic and costly social programs, all while vehemently supporting even more costly and unnecessary wars. Both sides seem to be okay with massive spending as long as it’s their turn at the trough.
Marty — I was just getting the list started, combined I think those are 7 solid questions, questions that will never be answered.
LOL! Love the cop questions. This is precisely the kind of stuff that gives this website its irresistible charm! :)
What a great idea! Although “ALL YOUR LIFE* ARE BELONG TO US” is most likely what they’ll put up with, it is fair to ask just what limit MIGHT exist.
*earnings, education, health, travel, dog licenses, yogi license tax…
MDGuy,
In politics (as in business), skeptics are realists and proponents are best-case-scenario optimists. I think we can throw out any real definition for Dems/Repubs/Liberals/Cons/Leftists/Capitalists since all these get reducto’d to Us vs. Them on Capital Hill.
Make no mistake, the current debt CANNOT be paid back…ever. Which, I believe, is one reason why we’re seeing historic spending by everyone except Ron Paul. Congress/Exec are spending like crazy before the credit cards get cancelled.
I’m not sure what happens when the money runs out, but we do know the state’s hand never retreats. We’ll be stuck with this socialism even if we’ll be paying for it with “Freedom Dollars” or some other sick new fiat currency.
Dave,
Well said. Nothing is more cruel than putting a gun to my head and taking the earnings of my labor. That’s money I was saving for my chillren!
LEO Question 8: Is there any age that shouldn’t be tazed? For example a newborn infant that makes a sudden move? A 120 year old comatose lady who fails to get her ass on the floor?
MDGuy,
All good points, but what Radley will hear is that we’re “actually” saving money b/c we’re reducing the overall cost of health care between the private and public sector. If health care costs go up afterwards, they will say it’s b/c the gov was not allowed to control this cost or that one – give us that power and we can constrain costs……etc. It will never end.
One thought: What if abortions are socialized and the waiting list (like for hip replacements) is longer than 9 months? Will that convince them that socialized medicine is bad? What’s a good socialist to do? ;)
Everyone is reasonable in their own eyes.
//they are just a.) skeptical about how much the program will actually achieve it’s stated goals//
How about (c) certain that (1) the program will have the opposite of the claimed effect, and will make worse the problem it is supposed to ‘solve’, and (2) when this occurs, the program’s proponents will use this as an excuse to expand the program, making the problem even worse?
The function of a market is to allocate scarce resources to those who will receive the most value from them, assuming that the people who value something the most will be willing to pay the most for it. While markets don’t always achieve an optimum distribution of resources, they do quite well. Most attempts to “do better” in fact do much worse.
Fundamentally, if person X would rather have some resource than $P, while person Y would rather have $P than the resource, giving the resource to person Y instead of person X would be inefficient. If one instead take $P from person X and gave it to person Y, and then gave the resource to person X, both person X and person Y would be happier than if person Y were given the resource.
If the government subsidizes by $30 the purchase of something which a person values at $50, that person will have higher priority in consuming the resource than would someone who valued it at $75 but was ineligible for the subsidy. If a substantial quantity of the resource is consumed by people who value it at less than $75, this will reduce the quantity available to those who would value it at $75 or more.
Health care is expensive in large part because much of it is allocated to people who don’t value it commensurate with its cost. Making subsidies available to more people will serve to make the misallocation of resources even worse.
“Money isn’t the way you should be measuring this.”
Money is *the* litmus test:
“Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that
trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in
order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing
– when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but
in favors, – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than
by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them
against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a
self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed.
”
— Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (Signet paperback 451-AE7192, p.385, the Francisco d’Anconia Money Speech, in Part II: Either-Or, Chapter II: The Aristocracy Of Pull)
I’m a blogger who happens to be a libertarian. Unfortunately, I seem to have picked an unfortunate pseudonym. It refers to the left-handed manner of playing a specific guitar.
I hereby demand that everyone stop using lefty blogger to refer to liberals. It should more properly refer to people who blog and whose primary hand would be the left one.
This is causing all sorts of unwanted confusion over at my blog.
Thank you and good night,
-leftystrat
Police officer attacks kids who are victims of his own son’s bad driving:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ea0_1248129569
The money shot:
Two thoughts:
1. As I’ve been saying, we have to start demanding that the corrupt officers who try to cover for these guys are prosecuted along with them. It *is* misconduct to ask that evidence be destroyed. It’s illegal to destroy evidence.
2. Wow, we’ve finally found an action that violates those mysterious departmental procedures.
M. Chaney, I wonder if the violation of departmental procedures was in being video taped instead of beating on an “innocent” person.
MC,
Not only has that cop NOT been criminally prosecuted, but he’s on the street again!!!!! No longer suspended. Falsifying reports, threatening a woman, holding a gun to her head without cause….what more do you have to do to get reprimanded?!?!?!
Depends on the scope and magnitude of the problem. Say an asteroid was heading for earth and would certainly destroy us all completely, that would be good enough for me to happily hand over everything I earn and own to build a spaceship to tug it out of the way, if it meant there was a chance of life on earth continuing.
On the other hand, paying tax to fund corporate bail outs of companies I haven’t invested in or to pay farmers to grow crops that aren’t needed or that farmers in Africa can grow cheaper is a real drag.
My own take, is that there is no magic “ism”, socialism, libertarianism, conservatism, whatever that we could implement that solves any problem put in it’s way. The world doesn’t work like that. Better instead to think about the problem, what the solution to that problem might be, what might be the costs and unintended consequences of following a particular course of action in seeking to address that problem, and don’t be afraid to admit that you’ve got it wrong.
I like how #27 gives us a thoughtful and modest proposal acknowledging that one ideology isn’t a panacea… and gets modded down.
And uh, FWIW, I’m a lefty blogger and I’d be perfectly happy eliminating agricultural subsidies and protections. I’d also be perfectly happy with a defense budget half the size (hell, 1/4 the size) of the current one. And I’m pretty ambivalent about the financial sector bailout though it does at least seem like we’ll be getting a lot of that money back. I’d also be happy w/ the elimination of various and oft-abused subsidy programs like urban renewal and tax abatements for “low income” housing, along w/ the various agencies tasked with regulating alcohol manufacture, sales, and use. Likewise, I’d be happy with a loosening of zoning restrictions in a lot of areas. And I’d be happy with a constitutional amendment banning eminent domain. Oh, and I’d love to see the drug war scaled back significantly w/ the legalization of at least marijuana.
Of course, I also support some form of baseline universal health care, strong environmental regulations and probably cap and trade/carbon taxes as well.
Time to change cable companies:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-bright-house-helps-cops-072209,0,4420968.story
Well, if they didn’t have a monopoly here. :(
Hey, who better to watch over your neighborhood and report suspicious behavior if not the people who don’t live there. As a mere resident with no training, you couldn’t possibly match the critical observation skills of a “cable guy”. This is just a natural extension of Walmart photo lab employees being deputized to root out pedophilia disguised as innocent pictures of children in the bath tub.
I suspect this is nothing more than the cable company pretending to do a free community service which is, after all, much more highly regarded than greedily trying to earn a profit by providing a service.
“I have no problem with taxing the rich a little more. 68% seems excessive until you realize exactly how much richer these people are than the bottom 50% of earners.”
I will never understand how people live with themselves believing the above. “From each according to ability…” crap. Will there ever be any admission that some people actually work much, much harder than others? And, they produce much, much more than others.
The above complaint about the “rich” should be corrected as “I have no problem with taxing the most productive people a lot more. 68% seems excessive until you realize exactly how much more productive these people are than the bottom 50% of earners.”
America is quickly “winning” its war against wealth. None will soon exist.
“How many tons of live human flesh are you willing to shovel into the cannibal-pot before you feel like a nap on the couch?”
Are you fucking serious, Radley?
Billy Beck, over at qando.net, didn’t you ask how much it would cost you to be left alone for the rest of your life? Were you serious?
#33, it’s standard practice to use quotation marks for things people actually say.
Will there ever be any admission that some people actually work much, much harder than others? And, they produce much, much more than others.
Sure, I’ll admit it.
I just don’t think that compensation is an accurate proxy.
This exchange is why I always wonder how libertarians can think they’ll ever be able to truly work with or change the minds of liberals (or how some of you can keep claim it didn’t matter whether Obama or McCain won):
Liberal poster: “Useless armchair anarchist fucks.”
Libertarian reply: “Idiotic thieving statist bastard.”
At least with conservatives, you SOMETIMES get smaller governement … no chance at all with liberals. And I love how a bunch of responders were quick as always to complain about the military budget (which if I’m not correct was at most like 7% of the yearly budget during the height of the war) while over 50% of the budget is spent/wasted on social warefare programs.
I don’t know who the poster ‘faithkills’ is on that comments section, but he makes some of the best (and simplest) libertarian arguments I’ve heard … to bad the message is either a) preaching to the choir or b) being comepletely ignored by the target audience.
How did the saying go?
If Mommy and Daddy are paying the bills, Junior is probably a Leftist (explains college campuses). As soon as Junior has to get a job and start paying bills and taxes it is amazing how fast he swings to the right.
“Billy Beck, over at qando.net, didn’t you ask how much it would cost you to be left alone for the rest of your life? Were you serious?”
Absolutely not. If we could find that post, I think we might see that.
which if I’m not correct was at most like 7% of the yearly budget during the height of the war)
According to wikipedia it’s more like 21% of the budget. I’m not sure whether that accounts for various off-the-books programs.
Can we pose the question in revese for conservative/libertarian bloggers? How much socialism is too much?
I suspect the answers will be many and varied, and will all boil down to “Anything I don’t use.”.
(Channeling my former insane liberal self)
Why you racist, sexist, homophobe, greed capitalist pig! You hate the poor! You are all the proof anyone needs for abortion, you no good………
(Stepping back from the brink, regaining mental control)
And that’s exactly why I’m a FORMER insane liberal.
I couldn’t find the example at QandO, but google popped this one out:
You know, no one in either thread has used the words “results”, “economist”, or “sorites paradox”.
Matt D I guess I was probably thinking GDP rather than yearly budget (looks like 4-5% of GDP) … I assume you looked here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States (not that I ‘trust’ Wiki per se). I would point out that ‘Homeland Security’ and a bunch of other nonsense is rolled into ‘defense spending’ too … so their version is pretty all-encompassing.
Under those same guidelines though, Social Welfare programs accounted for about 52% of the budget and I can’t seem to find how much of the GDP that is but if defense is 4-5% then I’d guess it’d be more like 11-12%
#44 Steve Jean:
I don’t agree with Billy Beck on everything (it would be a really odd world if I agreed with anyone on everything), but just imagine who he’s talking to there.
Here’s a hint: the man does not owe YOU specifically money, based only on your assertation.
When you figure that part out, you might be able to extrapolate the results to learn the general principle of the thing. $10 to the first man who finds that Billy Beck wants to be left alone by ordinary people, as opposed to- well, figure it out.
// I just don’t think that compensation is an accurate proxy. //
It is an imperfect proxy, but I know of no other proxy which (1) is more accurate, and (2) would remain more accurate, even if it were in someone’s interest to ‘game’ it.
Likewise, a person’s willingness to pay for something is an imperfect proxy for need, but I don’t know of anything better. Note that allocating resources based upon many other measures of need would create a perverse incentives for people to maximize their ‘need’, but allocating resources to the highest bidder creates an incentive for people to minimize it.
//Can we pose the question in revese for conservative/libertarian bloggers? How much socialism is too much?//
Consider the Fable of the Ants and the Grasshopper. The ants worked all during the summer to store food, while the grasshopper spent his time idly. When the winter came, the ants had food and the grasshopper did not.
What should the ants do? Should they let the grasshopper starve? Doesn’t seem very nice. On the other hand, what’s the worst possible consequence of letting the grasshopper starve? One dead grasshopper.
Suppose, however, that a few ants decide to be charitable and take care of the grasshopper. Suppose even that they use their own food to do this. Perhaps they don’t feed the grasshopper as well as the industrious ants got fed, but well enough that he has no reason to regret his idleness? What’s the consequence of that?
The immediate consequence is that the charitable ants have a little less food. No big deal. Next year, however, instead of having one grasshopper at the door wanting food, the “charitable” ants will be swarmed with freeloaders wanting food, and there will be no food to give them.
Socialism becomes “too much” when it shifts the balance of incentives away from productive work and thrift, and toward idleness and lose spending. Unfortunately, the most common government reaction when socialist programs prove “insufficient” is to increase the size of their programs, thus creating a death spiral.
If you want to drive to New York, but the road you are on leads to Hell, Hell is where you will end up. You can have every intention in the world to go to New York, but Hell is where you will end up.
Asking the Left where they *mean* to go is a waste of time. Observe where their road is leading, and there you will find your answer.
And when we get there, they will be 100% responsible for where we end up — the Hell of 100% government control — they will still be responsible for all of it.
Screaming “but I didn’t mean THIS!” will absolve them of absolutely nothing.
#47 | trevalyan Here’s a hint: the man does not owe YOU specifically money, based only on your assertation.
When you figure that part out, you might be able to extrapolate the results to learn the general principle of the thing. $10 to the first man who finds that Billy Beck wants to be left alone by ordinary people, as opposed to- well, figure it out.
You’re confused. I know all about Mr. Beck and Mr. Balko. I don’t have a problem with either of them challenging leftists to answer a rhetorical question. I just don’t understand why Mr. Beck has such a problem with Radley’s challenge here. Did he just forget he did the same thing? Or does he think he’s a special case?
The difference, Steve, is that I have never had any intention of attempting to conduct this discussion with the left. I think it was Jonathan Swift who pointed out that there is no point in attempting to reason someone out of a position that they have not reasoned themselves into.
Read my question to him again. I was never “serious” about that. Evidently, he is, and — so far– he gotten his ration of bullshit for his effort.
If only the world were so simple. But, what if…
The grasshopper, through no fault of his own, was born into a poor family and didn’t have the benefits of education. He was also of the minority grasshopper race and was raised by a single parent. He didn’t have the benefits that the ants had by greedily formed food cartels and controlled all the natural food resources through manipulation of markets and by weaseling through loopholes in the regulations designed to make ants and grasshoppers equals.
So, when all is said and done, the ants made their fortune at the expense of the grasshoppers and really have less moral claim to the winter supply of food than the ants.
Fortunately, the ants have guns, so they were able to hold off the attempts of the ants to make good on their moral claim and, although they lived through the winter while most of the grasshoppers died, they were eventually punished after the surviving grasshoppers staged a communist revolution and made everyone equally miserable.
Billy, I believe Mr. Balko’s purpose is not so much to negotiate or bargain the principle, but to get some hard-and-fast commitments from individuals who otherwise (deliberately or unwittingly) reference the ethical boundaries of their political persuasion in vague terms to illustrate a particular concrete stemming from their own premises. In this case we’re talking about leftist bloggers and especially Obama supporters. Once Obama has exceeded a hard-and-fast line in the sand drawn by a hypothetical leftist, Balko (and others) would be perfectly right in saying to them, ‘by your own statements you ought to be with us and against the present administration.’ The end is noble, but your Swift quote is perfectly on point. As the comments on the reason thread (I broke a promise, looking at any page on reason.com, but one of my rules about that kind of self-promise is that Mr. Balko, even if wrong, is always worthwhile no matter the venue) show, the exercise is probably a complete waste of time.
//The grasshopper, through no fault of his own, was born into a poor family and didn’t have the benefits of education. //
Historically, most people have striven not to have a perfect life for themselves, but rather to pass onto their children a life which was somewhat better than their own. Parents had a very strong interest in looking out for their children: if they didn’t, unlikely anyone else would.
Some people may bristle at the notion that children are chattels of their parents, but when children are so regarded the parents have a very strong vested interest in their well-being. Shifting responsibilities over to the state discourages people from taking those responsibilities themselves. As with the earlier ant/grasshopper story, the worst-case harm from leaving too much control with the parents is bounded; the potential harm from transferring too much control to the state is limitless.
I do credit you with acknowledging that those in power often use government regulation to keep others down. I wish you would also acknowledge that the most severe form of this is in bribing grasshoppers to remain idle.
Why do you suppose it is that the condition of blacks in this country was improving until the “war on poverty”, and has stagnated since?
//Fortunately, the ants have guns, so they were able to hold off the attempts of the ants to make good on their moral claim //
Except in Zimbabwe, where the grasshoppers successfully disarmed the ants, chased them out, and grabbed all the food. Of course, since the ants were the only ones that had been producing food, the grasshoppers starved once when the existing reserves were depleted.
#52 | Billy Beck The difference, Steve, is that I have never had any intention of attempting to conduct this discussion with the left.
What specifically do you mean by “this discussion”? Why do you spend so much time having political discussions in general with leftists?
Read my question to him again. I was never “serious” about that. Evidently, he is, and — so far– he gotten his ration of bullshit for his effort.
I’m trying to find the distinction between you and Balko, and the only thing I have to go on is your personal histories, because I’m not seeing it in the language you both used.
re: ants and grasshopper..
I’d just like to point out, that ants are perhaps the ultimate example in nature of collectivism – they work as one, they don’t even have a “self” to sacrifice, and a colony of ants can be viewed as one organism. The only reason the ants have anything for winter, is because they make the communists look like rugged individualism personified..
I’m not sure I was trying to make a coherent point with all that, other than to say that any attempt top apply the Ant/Grasshopper story to the real world will be met with a lot of, “but, but, but..” particularly from the left, but also from the right.
In response to the compassion that liberals often promote, I usually reply that starvation is a great motivator to get someone to get a job and hold on to it. As usual, I agree with your argument. Welfare begets more welfare. Welfare transitioned from being a safety net into being an encouragement to not work a long time ago.