More federal observer arguments.

My alter-ego InviQtus fighting the good fight at Federal Observer. The author of the article I'm criticizing was unusually nice to me, so he gets his due at the end. It's weird- they tolerate my insolence for a time, then get pissed and delete all my stuff, then later I'm able to post there again. Anyway, it's fun for me, but I'm sure ultimately fruitless. I don't think they hold their views for intellectual reason. But still I try...

“The “poor-me-I-deserve-what-they-have- because-it-just-isn’t-fair-and-I’m-certainly-NOT-going-to-lift-a-finger-when-we-can-tax-them-more” crowd is really grating on my nerves. There is a solution to every problem if you are willing to find it and work toward it.”

I couldn’t agree more with this sentiment. But of course that’s because it is no where near a fair representation of the views that I hold. Some government services are essential (national defense, police and fire services, maintenance of the justice system, public education, at a minimum) and have to be paid for with tax payer money. I would just like everyone to be made to pay their fair share of taxes. In a nation like ours where the top 1% control 40% of the wealth and large companies pay less in taxes than a bus driver, you can’t argue that the system is operating fairly. That’s what is grating on my nerves.

One of my main problems with you guys is that you complain about socialism when we are actually rapidly becoming a plutocracy. Why does government do so many things that you guys don’t like? When you consider how much large corporations and moneyed interests contribute to election campaigns and when you consider what then comes to be the priorities of government, and when you see who benefits most, it ought to be clear that government does what it does because of the undue influence of big money in the political system.

I think you guys ought to realize that government is not the only threat to liberty and prosperity. It is suppose to be the bulwark against those other threats, but only if it functions as it is suppose to and acts in the interest only of the will of the people. Failing to realize that crucial fact, as I think many in the Tea party camp do, and focusing efforts just on attacking government succeeds only in making the problems you are trying to solve worse.

Now, the issue of the proper extent of the welfare state has also been raised in this discussion. I don’t want to skirt that issue but first I would like for someone to address the argument I just made and let me know where you think I am wrong. By the way, Rick, thank you for the kind response. You are the wind beneath my wings.

On the value of nuance in political and economic discourse

The 20th century economist Fredrick Hyack in his book The Constitution of Liberty, arguing in the vein of liberal theorists of the past like John Locke and John Stuart Mill, states that liberty ought to be preeminent among all our values because it is a necessary precondition for the pursuit of any of our other values. This defense of liberty he takes as his starting point for advocating for limited government and free-market capitalism. After the fall of Communism this view has held sway in the minds of economists and political theorists since. Indeed much of the current contempt for government is motivated by just such reasoning.

While I do believe that understanding Hyack’s arguments are vital, I think that they are only vital as a defense of individual rights and particularly the rights of minority groups, and not as a basis for an economic or political system, as such. For, considering the individual in isolation, as liberal theorists do, is not realistic. Individuals must be considered in the context of societies as well as in the context of the natural world. While liberty is necessary for the pursuit of other values, flourishing and happiness will not be possible in the context of a dis functional society with high amounts of crime and poverty and disease. Likewise flourishing and happiness will not be possible in the absence of clean air and water and a stable environment. However, if we forget the arguments of Hyack, e. al. and the pursuit of the greatest amount of happiness and flourishing becomes our primary goal then we risk trampling individual rights in the process.

If we accept this much then we can see that there is a continuum here and that those speaking in absolutes are not helpful to conversations about how best to design our political and economic systems and institutions. They are inclined to plant their flag at one end of the continuum and castigate those at the other end- but it can be even worse that that, because they also have no tolerance for those with more nuanced views who accept that both ends grasp part of the truth. And when the conversation is about politics and economics at a certain level nuance cannot be avoided.

No entries since November. I'm an awful person. Truly subhuman.

I have not written much online at all in recent months. I haven't felt much urge to since the internet is literally a vast repository of unread crap. I do plan to change this, however (the part about me not writing much). First I have several book reviews that I want to do. Also I feel like maybe there is some value, for me at least, to creating unread crap. There is much that angers me and much that concerns me and it might be a worthwhile past time to let it out some how. If it makes me feel better, that alone may be enough.