Wait a minute, I also posted the number of employees. Under Obama it breached the 2 MILLION mark. I also linked it, it's a quote FROM Obama. I mean, how the hell could Obama's own words be partisan? Let me guess - NOW Obama's ALSO off limits! He's GOP! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! 2.15 million employees. We do not NEED 2 million federal employees. At the very least I'd much rather that money stay IN the community. I also posted the GDP from a site that's non-partisan. They even go out of their way to show how a graph can be taken out of context to make it look like things are one way or another and provide multiple graphs showing the same data from slightly different metrics - accompanied with pretty easy to follow description that has nothing at all to say about any political party. I think the name Alexander Hamilton was used once. -- So, how small should government be? As small as it possible. Lets start the trend backwards and see where we end up. -- Of course, in YOUR system you NEED large government. Because your system is inherently immoral and there's no free-market (that's us) to act as a check. That's what happens with ANY centralized power base. This is what has happened with our income tax funded Central Bank. Not that it helps (as you can see 0.1% own pretty much all of the USA now... and that's a trend that has nothing to do with party affiliation even you must agree to that). With competing currencies and an informed public - we wouldn't need all that extra government oversight. Do you understand that? That this is a structural problem that can ONLY be resolved with a change in monetary system? Also, note that last part: INFORMED PUBLIC. Ever wonder why shows like FauxNews are popular? It's because it really doesn't matter what the News informs people. Americans are mollycoddled and no longer responsible for their own monetary policy decisions anyway. So they continue to act like children long into their 50s. Big Brother will look after the THINKING so they're allowed the indulgence of watching bullshit like FoxNews and drooling on themselves as the Bankers rape the hell out of middle America. They mutter Democrats this or Republicans that.... abortion this or gun rights that.... as if any of it would matter. In a system with competing currencies INFORMATION would actually be important and matter and news shows that don't provide it accurately, like FoxNews or MSNBC or CNN - simply wouldn't be watched or would change their behavior. This is what you don't get.... why you don't get it I'm not quite sure because I feel I'm been very clearly making the case for a year now. Central Banks destroy republicanism.
That's why I said I support the absolute minimum number. Why on earth would you want even one more than that? That one person could be in the private sector doing something productive.
Are we in agreement that, outside of a Fascist State, federal employees are unproductive? They spend wealth, they don't create wealth. Q: Suppose you needed a Sex license to have sex. You created a Federal Agency to run tests, issue licenses, retest to make sure you're up to 'Federal Standards". This would be a total unproductive waste of money and resources. Agreed? IF the State FORCED you to pay a Sex Tax. This would be immoral. Agreed?
I am not the one making the claim, you are. At any rate, we have been down this road before. This is not about my definitions, this is about your definitions. Just how much government is too much government?
No. And producerism in general is crap demagoguery. It's nothing more than a plank in the fascist platform. Unless you like fascism, you shouldn't be going in for that kind of nasty ideation. WTF is that nonsense supposed to have to do with anything? I asked you how you go about determining the appropriate size of the Federal workforce. Why is it that you can't ever give a straight answer to even the most direct, material question? It's like you want to spend all your time demagoguing, and none actually figuring out what you're even talking about, or how it relates to anything. The result is a hash.
I already stated: As small a central government as is possible The theoretical size would be zero. Maybe in a few hundreds years we'll have no centralized government. Perhaps in the year 3000 people will be so interconnected that the notion of centralizing power and imbuing it with the legal right to initiate force against citizens will be seen as barbaric and backwards. UNTIL SUCH A TIME then I suggested we work towards shrinking first (I said) we can go back towards Clinton and then back towards LBJ then pre-LBJ and onwards until we have a Federal Government as small as is possible. So, there is no 'magic' number. As society changes we slowly change the size of government - smaller and smaller and smaller. If you need a magic number you could think of 5% GDP as a target. RE: Producerism Producerism, sometimes referred to as "producer radicalism," is a right-wing populist ideology which holds that the productive members of society are being exploited by parasitic elements at both the top and bottom of the social and economic structure. 'Right-Wing" populist ....bladdy blah blah.... Sounds like someone climbed up into their own anus when they wrote that definition. How about a splash of reality? Yes, it is true that some productive members of society are being exploited. That would be most of us as most of us work in a productive manner. Although our ranks are shrinking, the productive people in our society are still the majority (if barely). This does NOT preclude that many productive members of society ARE THEMSELVES exploiting other productive people. THEY ARE! As a matter of fact, they're worse than government! Yeah, I missed that in the WIKI definition when it made such a blatant logical fallacy taht it tripped up into its bowl and lodging somewhere near an inflamed appendix. It's utterly common that today many of the productive portion of society do themselves feel entitled to exploit other people's productivity. So, actually most of society is productive people using the government to f*ck over other productive people, or would be productive people if they could ever dig through the regulations and tax to start a business. THAT'S the biggest of the two evils. Which can only be dealt with by giving people the freedom to choose for themselves what they do and do not want to 'consume' or services and products they want to provide - and the government getting out of people's lives. The government itself is NON productive. Acting more as a facilitating agent in the above scenario. BIG Banks, BIG Pharma, BIG Insurance and worse of all The Military Industrial Complex... All of these industries produce (except banks, they do nothing productive). AND all use the government to steal from US and give to THEM. Lastly, to be productive itself would mean the State was Fascist. "The corporative State considers private initiative, in the field of production, as the most efficient and useful instrument of the Nation", then continued in article 9: "State intervention in economic production may take place only where private initiative is lacking or is insufficient, or when are at stakes the political interest of the State. This intervention may take the form of control, encouragement or direct management." [That quote was from Grand Council of Fascism in 1927, yet ... you can hear Joe's voice! Joe's always saying that the 'Government Central Banks' must step in to 'calm the markets' and 'fill the void when the private industry isn't there',.,.,., blah blah blah.... yes Joe, we live in a Fascist State. Why not come out and say you support Fascist economic policies? You do, so admit to it!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I OTOH support Libertarianism. I admit to it :shrug:] This is what we have today in the form of all sorts of things: like education (1 Trillion dollars in debt worth of it). Which puts them right into the camp of marginally productive people using the power of the State to prevent competition which would easily put them out of business. So, again, the State is a part of the problem. All of this aside, you guys don't need to worry - we live in your system. You should be happy with it. YOU guys have your system: BIG government. Lets see if the parasite kills the host. I'm simply pointing out it's inherently immoral and economically dishonest. I'm not sure if it's a reflection of society, or an inevitable outcome of our monetary system. I'm leaning the later. As for Ron Paul, he's doing the ideas thing. Attempting to change the culture. He's promoting his ideas. It's an uphill battler this will be fought like this: Obama will be elected. Then Obama will follow liberal BIG State ideals. The economy will get much much worse. First the Fed will print, then stop printing, then print some more. Nothing will work. The Banks will get even bigger. People will loose more Civil Liberties as riots ensue and spread and new laws are enacted to quell civil disobedience and protestors are charged with "domestic Terrorism". Then in 2016, the public disgusted with the State of affairs - we might elect someone who might just return us to our roots - the US Constitution with limited small government and currency competition. My guess is, even the Cattle class will want to give it a try then. Once the herd starts moving in that direction anyway. OR World War III Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Obviously we all live our daily lives interacting with the people we love and colleagues as anarchists. Anarchism means no rulers, not no rules. If we were to create an ideal society, that is where we'd want to be. Is that going to happen? Not any time too soon. Maybe in 1000 years. But not now. So, for now, we should try and organize our society in such a way that the Central Government is as small as possible. Again, WE do everything IN society. The government imbued or vested with one power the rest of the organizations of Citizens are not - that's the legal right to initiate force against a Citizen or group of Citizens. OBVIOUSLY THAT'S a freaken lot of power and comes with a lot of responsibility and thus any thinking person would keep that power base very SMALL. Have you ever heard of an outgoing passenger tax? It's a tax you pay to LEAVE the country. Isn't that crazy? Almost as crazy as taxing tips. Or starting Wars on Terror. Or selling bonds to foreign government on your children future labor. I'll take my chances with a small central government.
Joe, are we doing a circle jerk here? I said: As small as is possible with the theoretical ideal being the slope of the line equaling zero as the function goes to infinity. That's about as clear as could be Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! If you feel the NEED of a target, use 5% GDP as a target.
So, you have no serious position on this matter. It's all just so much hot air; you can't even produce a straight answer to the most basic questions about your position. I didn't bother reading the several paragraphs of ideological blovation you appended, BTW. The next time you decline a challenge from me to answer a simple, direct question, do us both a favor and limit it to just a simple refusal. So are you an anarchist, or a libertarian, or just somebody who likes to bitch incoherently about "centralized government?" You still haven't given us any way to figure out how small is "as small as possible," nor how we'll know when we reach that point. Then how do we know that two million isn't already "as small as possible?" Why? What is the justification for that number? If you don't have any framework for giving a positive answer to those questions, then I don't know why you think you are in possession of any kind of salient political knowledge that anyone else should pay attention to.
It's very clear, yes. And what's clear is that it's an obvious non-response. "As small as possible" doesn't mean anything, unless you add some way of determining what is "possible." You haven't given any reasoning to support that premise that the current government isn't already "as small as possible." Or that it shouldn't be bigger, for that matter. Are you just pulling that number out of thin air? What is the justification for that level of expenditure? If you can't answer these basic questions, why should anyone listen to your perspective? As is, it's vacuous. It's just a string of slogans that sound good to you, without any actual content and repeated louder and more energetically when interrogated.
You live your life as an anarchist. Anarchism is the norm. Most people most of the time associate with other people in a free civil social manner (anarchistic). Did you consult the State when you met your partner (assuming you've been on a date)? No, you did not. You approached the person freely. Did you FORCE that person to date you? Did you send police over and make them date you? No. It was voluntary. In an 'ideal' society all people would live as Anarchists for all of their relationships. As that IS how we live day to day in our day to day lives. I specifically stated this could be seen as the IDEAL. Something to strive towards. As such - THAT is the framework. Did you miss it? I've posted it several times now. We'd still have RULES. We would not have RULERS. That's what Anarchism means. I also stated we are not going to reach this ideal any time too soon (IMO). The ideal is the preferred norm in human relationships. So, we should try to work towards it by aiming for a government as small as is possible. I gave you 5% GDP as a target. Here's some evidence that ~5% would be perfectly suited to a free democratic society: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Notice how government continues towards growth. Ever wonder WHY that is the trend? I mean, theoretically it's SOLVING problems and should therefor be consuming a smaller fraction of the GDP. But, that's not how parasitic organism function. They grow and grow and grow and eventually KILL the host. They create the problems. Solving a problem is the LAST thing from a public servants mind. So, where is YOUR logical cohesive argument for the appropriate size of government? Terms like Stateist or Progressive or Liberal, Conservative, or Libertarian mean little when applied to real people. As I'm sure you'd agree Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
WTF is all this blather? So your argument is that US society circa 1900 was is the ideal we should be trying to recreate, at least as far as the government is concerned? You realize that we already spend like 5% of GDP just on defense, right? Exactly how much do you plan to cut defense? And that chart you showed there is total government spending (including state and local). The rise evident in the 1920's is mostly state and local education spending. That was the era when we started sending people to high school - even in 1940, only about half of Americans had a high school diploma. To get back down to 5% of GDP, you'd have to go back to the days where only the upper middle class and above would have high school educations. Do you really think the result of that will be a prosperous, competitive economy? Which would you prefer, a government that spends 30% of a $15 Trillion economy, or a government that spends 5% of a $200 Billion economy? Have you looked at how indicators like per-capita income, life expectancy, infant mortality, median male height, etc. have changed since 1900? It's not an era that most people would willingly go back to. That doesn't follow. Check your assumptions. Some problems aren't amenable to one-time, permanent "solutions," but instead require ongoing intervention. Well, I'm not the one pounding a soap-box about how we need revolutionary change. That said, here it is: the government should be exactly big enough to effectively carry out all of the duties that we, the voters, decide we need it to fulfill. No, I do not. Problems with the meaningful application of such terms have everything to do with partisans who abuse them as terms of derision.
You did NOT just pull a strawman out did you? A small government is how we created the modern world. MASSIVELY. You did it again. Only this time Either Or Dichotomy. Firstly, since wasting 100s of billions on the Department of Education, the education of Americans is actually WORSE than it was in the 1950s. Reading comprehension, math scores, all of it going into the toilet. Many Americans, even today, do not get much out of their crap State run education. When you have illiterate students graduating who can't even do basic algebra... that says something of 12+ YEARS of State 'Education'. Imagine if that money were *gasp* not spent on a bureaucratic nightmare but spent on teachers and educating students. SO, how about... *gasp* people pay for private education? You know, like that iPhone5 in your pocket that cost $250. THAT is the power of competition and the free-market. Which is what MADE the modern era. You're doing it again. If we'd have kept a small government from 1900s we'd probably be having this conversation in Space or on Mars by now. This is what you just don't get. You're acting like a Theobot defending the Pope or the Ayatollah and not realizing that Theism is the problem. You can change Popes and Ayatollah's all day long. It's not going to change anything. We need to reclaim what was good and then do better. Is that THAT hard to understand?
