>Nope, sorry, but I was "endowed by (my) Creator with
>certain unalienable Rights, (and) that among these are Life,
>Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.". Presumably so were
>you.
>
>That's great on paper, but an effective government is
>necessary for you to actually enjoy those rights. Otherwise,
>your actual rights are limited to what you can personally
>assert by force.

Here we are at a fundamental disagreement. I don't consider that "great on paper" because I, and the millions of other basically good people in our country can and would stand up for ourselves to protect both our own rights and the rights of others. The citizenry can (and does) protect itself from abuses. To say I would only have those rights I can personally assert by force ignores other people. Not all of them are evil.

>And finally, the amounts of my taxes that goes to those
>things I actually use is dwarfed by that which I will either
>never see benefit from (social
>security/medicare/medicaid/etc.) or which I don't support
> foreign aid/wars on foreign soil/etc.... How about I pay for
>the services I use. That seems fair. That seems to be how
>businesses get by.
>
>So, let's say we're discussing aid for injured veterans. If
>everyone only pays for the services they use, injured veterans
>are the only people who should pay for these services. That's
>the capitalism end of the spectrum.

Injured veterans and veteran care in general is part of national defense.

>The socialism end of the spectrum is everyone pays for
>everything equally. We're not there either-- transportation
>projects tend to be funded by taxes on gasoline, tolls on
>public roadways, and the like. Some government agencies fund
>themselves (some sectors of R&D, the Post Office, etc.)
>through capitalist methods.

The Post Office claims it funds itself, but that isn't true.

http://www.usps.com/history/anrpt05/
http://www.usps.com/history/anrpt03/

Look for US Gov. appropriations - received. They may fund the majority of their operating costs themselves, but they are not as wholly self funded as most believe.

>We lean capitalist in most sectors, with the major exception
>being those government programs which provide aid for poverty.
> The problem is, of course, that the poor simply can't pay for
>these programs. Now, some people are poor because they make
>horrible decisions. Many people are poor because they were
>born poor, and thus got a sub-par education, and later had to
>make career decisions based only of short-term goals (I need
>food this week) instead of long-term goals (I can take this
>crappy internship because a few years down the line it will
>mean a better job). Poverty is terribly, terribly
>cumulative.
>
>So, either:
>1) The non-poor provide a net flow of money toward poverty
>relief, or
>2) We find out what happens if you have a large group of
>people without enough money for true necessities.
>Specifically, a lot of people die, others riot, and you see
>either Depression-era collapse of economies or a reversion to
>de facto slavery/serfdom.

Or a rise of private organizations designed to help combat poverty ala. Gates Foundation. I'd sure be more likely to donate money to helping the poor of 30% of my paycheck wasn't already being taken.

>Police protection is a farce. I can protect myself much
>better than the police can or would. It seems to me that the
>very wealthy already hire private protection (Hi Vlad!) and
>that the poor wouldn't exactly consider the police their best
>friends.
>
>This is completely ridiculous macho posturing. Read up on
>what happens to areas (say, Watts) when police protection
>systemically breaks down due to underfunding, corruption, and
>other factors. The result is not that everyone ends up
>better-protected. Rather, it reverts to anarchy, where rights
>are only asserted by force.

I'll look up Watts, but sounds to me like they didn't have a lack of police protection, but rather bad police protection. The difference being if you are still being "protected" people aren't as likely to take it upon themselves, but if you know no one is riding to the rescue, you (and others like you) will be more likely to take it upon yourselves. Switzerland is a decent example of this. They have police, but they don't do much in the way of protection, and more in the way of investigation and mitigation. People they protect themselves and their neighbors... This also leads to less crime. If I'm a criminal now, I just have to get out before the police get there. In Switzerland, I better hope no one catches me, because chances are they'll try to stop me.

I'll try and analogy. If I'm batting (baseball) with a helmet, then I'm not *that* worried about getting hit in the head... Sure I'd rather not, but it isn't that big a deal. If I have a broken helmet then I'll probably assume I'm mostly alright as well. If I have no helmet... Well you can bet I'll be getting my ass out of the way.

>Heck, take a simpler case. How could you drive with no
>authority in charge of traffic enforcement?

Ever seen how well traffic enforcement works in China? No enforcement, but people still manage. Granted, it's a mess, but I couldn't think of a better concrete example just now.

>That sounds like a good idea... when was the last time we
>did that? (Cut services)
>
>
>Clinton inherited a government with outlays equal to 22.1% of
>GDP and shrunk it to 18.4% of GDP in his eight years. Bush
>expanded it back to 20.2% in his first three years despite
>falling government revenues, and I can't find more recent data
>on how it's gone since, but going by the annual deficit's
>rapid growth I'm thinking the news isn't good.

Clinton was a good president IMHO, but he didn't (to my admittedly spotty recollection) cut programs so much as reduce spending overall. That's good, but I'm looking for bigger changes.

>The current administration has sharply expanded spending
> primarily on defense) on things the majority of Americans
>don't support. (They've also brutalized scientific spending,
>with money bled out of effective programs to fund things like
>"faith-based works", abstinence education, etc... so the
>'real' spending on things most people do support like R&D
>drops even as the budget numbers rise.) That's irresponsible
>government, not what the system was designed to do, and
>unfortunately I think we're going to wait for another round of
>elections to sort that out. Sadly, laws don't do much if the
>people in charge don't follow them, or don't follow them
>wisely.

Then we should start with the supreme law of the land, The Constitution. When all the programs and expenditures from the federal government that they do not have the authority or right to do by the Constitution are culled, then we can talk about people following the law again.

>valguarnera@carrionfields.com