I orderd $80 worth of food at Chick Fil A yestrday after gol

archer wrote:

Grady wrote:

archer wrote: Spare me your "the states can do better than the feds".....no they won't, and no they can't.

And that friends is the goal and dream of the big all powerful, centralized government progressive.

You got that right.......breaking the US up into single states without a central government has never been a goal of mine......I believe that we can do better as a nation when we work together, not work against each other. I believe that the federal government can do better than the states working independent of each other to defend this nation, to protect us from foreign intruders, to deal with national issues that make us strong like education and yes, health care. Tell me, which of the individual states could have pulled off a mars landing like last night all by itself?

I believe that the federal government should be lean, but strong. I believe that the states should have jurisdiction over those things that effect their state, but they must abide by the laws of the US, and should not circumvent those laws. Call me a socialist if you want.....doesn't matter to me what you call me, I know who I am, and what I believe.

That's funny archer, because elimination of a federal government has never been a goal of anyone's that I'm aware of. The federal government is an important leg, but it is no more important of a leg than the individual State governments or the local governments within those States are. It has different responsibilities than the other legs of government do. The stool can't be well supported and stable with one gigantic leg and two that are matchstick thin. The task of governing must be divided among the many legs rather than concentrated into a single one in order for the stool to be well supported and stable. Our local and State governments are much more responsive to the citizens of the States than a federal government could ever hope to be - that is exactly why we have them. A one size fits none federal program can't begin to be effective within such a large and diverse population and area. If the citizens of New York were allowed to retain the revenue they send to DC to care for their own elderly and poor, they would be able to do so much more effectively than they can by adherence to a one size fits none federal effort - and it is very likely that they might even be willing to provide more revenue to a State effort than they are a federal one.

The whole point of having 50 individual, independent, States is so that there is a selection from which to choose from. Folks who desire to have a single payer health care system can migrate to a State which has one without necessitating that every State have that same system. If you want good public schools, go to a State which has them. If a State wishes to have publicly financed educations without actual public buildings or public employees, they will attract those who find that system attractive. We do not need to be, nor can we be given our diverse area and population, a centrally governed nation with a single homogenous scheme under which we operate. We are better off being 50 individual laboratories for the best, most effective, means of self government than we are instituting a single system. The more homogenous the federal government compels the union to be, the less diverse it will be - and diversity is the key to surviving evolutionary change. With only a single system, a point of failure in that single system has catastrophic consequences. If one State fails, then there are 49 others that belong to the union that can provide temporary assistance until the failure is fixed.

Diversity is the key to avoiding catastrophic failure of the system archer - that is why consolidation into one federal program - be it for the elderly, the poor, health care or any other important societal system - is, and always has been when one pays attention to history, a very, very, very bad idea.

PrintSmith wrote: Diversity is the key to avoiding catastrophic failure of the system archer - that is why consolidation into one federal program - be it for the elderly, the poor, health care or any other important societal system - is, and always has been when one pays attention to history, a very, very, very bad idea.

And there you have it..... consolidating the programs for the elderly, the poor, health care or any other important societal system can only be provided on an equitable basis across this nation by a central government. You're wrong PrintSmith.....just wrong.

As for all the other gobble-de-gook, I never claimed you wanted to eliminate the federal government, only limit it's power to the point that it becomes not much more than a government that manages the military.....and that too is wrong. Our country has grown, and changed, and IS one nation....not a loose collection of states. There are certain things that the states have power over, and others that the federal government has power over and I think the balance, as we have it, is good, the execution of those powers could certainly be improved upon, and the federal government does need to be leaner and more responsive.

archer wrote: the federal government does need to be leaner and more responsive.

This point I agree with 100%. You do realize though that making the government leaner also means getting rid of programs and employees that are a bad taxpayer investment... and not just the military.

CritiKalBill wrote:

archer wrote: the federal government does need to be leaner and more responsive.

This point I agree with 100%. You do realize though that making the government leaner also means getting rid of programs and employees that are a bad taxpayer Iinvestment... and not just the military.

Bill, have I ever suggested we should target just the military?

Science Chic wrote: Not necessarily, I don't think, of whole programs anyway. I think there's a lot of inefficient bureaucratic waste (too many overlapping departments, unnecessary personnel, building and office space that's wasted, etc), and corrupted spending done because there's a lack of proper oversight. We trim that first, then see whether whole programs need to be reduced or eliminated.

Subcontractors alone need to be looked at hard. Are they the best for the job? Are they price competitive or did they get the bid thanks to friends in high places? Do we really need that infrastructure, or those weapons, or this number of people to do the job?

I agree that it's not realistic to cut the big programs completely because so many people depend on them. I'm talking about all the smaller stuff that don't seem like much, but when combined with all the other we don't need, they really add up. There also needs to be enough people in congress that want to audit all the big ones. There is ZERO accountability for waste and duplication and it just seems like it gets worse every year. Businesses don't survive if they are not concerned about their bottom line, but government can go on forever adding debt and ignoring the waste and corruption.

archer wrote:

CritiKalBill wrote:

archer wrote: the federal government does need to be leaner and more responsive.

This point I agree with 100%. You do realize though that making the government leaner also means getting rid of programs and employees that are a bad taxpayer Iinvestment... and not just the military.

Bill, have I ever suggested we should target just the military?

I don't remember, but I also did't say you did. I added that because normally, the main thing liberals want to cut is the military... if that's not the main one you would cut, I think you are in the liberal minority.

"I am a Conservative Jew. That means I belong to the Conservative Movement of Judaism. You may not know this, but Conservative Judaism allows same-sex marriage; so do Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism — that's three out of the four Jewish movements, which comprise the vast majority of Jews in America. So when people try to enact laws making those marriages — religiously sanctioned marriages, performed in traditional Jewish wedding ceremonies in synagogues across the country — legally invalid, this infringes on our religious freedom. Why should our Jewish marriages be defined by other people's religions?"

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/displa ... 07/berger/

archer wrote:

PrintSmith wrote: Diversity is the key to avoiding catastrophic failure of the system archer - that is why consolidation into one federal program - be it for the elderly, the poor, health care or any other important societal system - is, and always has been when one pays attention to history, a very, very, very bad idea.

And there you have it..... consolidating the programs for the elderly, the poor, health care or any other important societal system can only be provided on an equitable basis across this nation by a central government. You're wrong PrintSmith.....just wrong.

As for all the other gobble-de-gook, I never claimed you wanted to eliminate the federal government, only limit it's power to the point that it becomes not much more than a government that manages the military.....and that too is wrong. Our country has grown, and changed, and IS one nation....not a loose collection of states. There are certain things that the states have power over, and others that the federal government has power over and I think the balance, as we have it, is good, the execution of those powers could certainly be improved upon, and the federal government does need to be leaner and more responsive.

The government wasn't created to assure equal results archer. That is simply something it can't ever do. If a family of 4 living near the poverty level is granted $400 in food assistance that month, while the amount of money may be the same, the purchasing power of that money isn't equitable across the union, which is why the one size fits none federal program is just as inequitable in reality as having this responsibility returned to the States would be in theory. Food costs more in some locations that it does in others, that is just a basic reality. Housing costs more in some locations than it does in others. The wages for a teacher, or the cost of building a new school is not equitable across the board either. This is what I mean when I say that the union is too large, to diverse, for a one size fits none federal program to be either efficient or equitable in its operations.

Your earlier comment, that breaking these United States up into 50 single States without a federal government not ever being a goal of yours, by implication means that it is the goal of others, presumably the ones who don't agree with having one size fits none federal programs to provide for the individual welfare of the citizens of the States. The charge of the collectivists is, and has been, that supporting elimination of these programs at the federal level means that one doesn't support the existence of these programs at any level. That seeking to reduce the power and reach of the federal government with regards to the individual welfare of the citizens of the States, along with the funding for those programs, means embracing an "you are on your own" alternative. Such is simply not the case, nor even close to being the case. It is simply a collectivist scare tactic, nothing more.

The governance of the union was designed to be one in which the States acted as independent entities in the majority of instances and as a single entity in a very few instances. That is why for the majority of its existence, the federal government received the smallest share of tax revenues instead of the largest one. That is why when it was necessary for the federal government to authorize accruing debt, to fight a war for instance, it was also possible for that debt to be retired shortly thereafter with a temporary, and modest, increase in the tax levy. The fundamental shift in the purpose of, and the power wielded by, the federal government has greatly altered that reality and made it such that debt is increasingly accrued and never retired.

The purpose for which the federal government was created to begin with were very limited in their scope. That is why the revenue required by the federal government was also very limited for the majority of our history. The continued expansion of the federal purpose, far beyond anything ever imagined or dreamed of by the founders and framers, is precisely why the national debt has ballooned beyond control. The taxes simply can't be raised high enough to support this grossly expanded federal purpose without doing significant damage to the general welfare of the union itself. That is exactly what we are seeing in the here and now. One level of government can't consume 25% of the entire union's economic efforts without damaging the union's economy and there is simply no way to sustain all of this individual welfare social programming on that percentage of the union's economic efforts. That's the Catch-22 of collectivist political ideology. It doesn't matter whether the collectivist philosophy is socialism, communism, fascism or any other collectivist "ism" - at some point in time the government is going to run out of other people's money to spend providing for the individual welfare of each and every person who happens to inhabit the country.

A system of government organized on the principles of individual liberty and freedom cannot then turn around and say that the primary purpose of those which it governs is to ensure the equity of outcome for everyone else. My primary purpose is not to support others, it is to support my family and myself. Every single dollar taken from me for the purpose of supporting others reduces my ability to support my family and myself, and making it more likely that I will need to be supported by others with funds taken from them that should be used to support themselves and their families. Losing 15% of my wages out of each and every paycheck to provide for the welfare of others in their later years means that I can't save that 15% for my later years, making it more likely that I will need 15% of what others earn to help care for me. It's a circular process intended to foster dependency, not assist in ensuring independence.