8 Responses to “Same Old, Same Old”

1. Stefan Says:
   March 29th, 2010 at 7:42 pm

   Theoretically Palin is “right” on some level. When you actually read the Constitution, it greatly limits the scope and power of government and gives it to the people. Hey, I’m 100% for that. However, these “Republicans” nowadays aren’t for that. Do you think the founders of our country would be ok with over 1 trillion dollars of debt? Nope, but that happened under a “Republican’s” watch. I don’t see Palin doing anything different.

   One of the most misunderstood aspects of our government is how little power a president has. Please read what the Constitution says about this. It basically boils down to being in charge of the military and signing off on the bills he/she feels should be signed. That’s pretty much it. These executive orders that have run rampant over the last, well, century plus are completely “unconstitutional.” Congress really has the power in our government and I think it’s safe to say Congress has let us down tremendously in my lifetime.

   So again, Sarah is kind of right about this. However, I don’t think she actually knows that she is. It’s kind of like the little kid who just keeps saying, “Lincoln was a great president!” Yeah, Junior, you’re right about that, but do you know what you’re saying?

2. David in Cal Says:
   March 29th, 2010 at 11:52 pm

   New Orleans drowned because the levees were designed to withstand only a Level 3 hurricane. And, they were not actually maintained to that level, because as I recall the hurricane had weakened to 3 when it hit New Orleans and the levees failed.

   The levees were built, monitored and maintained by various arms of the federal and state government. Their failure was a government fuckup. How can an example of a government fuckup can be evidence of the virtues of big government?

   Maybe Steve believes in the following “Morton’s Fork” type argument:

   If the government does a good job, that shows the virtue of big governement.
   If the government fucks up, that shows that government wasn’t big enough and needs to be even bigger.

   With that kind of reasoning, Steve will never lose an argument.

3. Louis Says:
   March 30th, 2010 at 12:40 am

   Great job tracing out the implications of Palin’s logic, Steve. If the best government is the one that governs least, then the best possible government would provide no governance.

4. Mike K Says:
   March 30th, 2010 at 10:35 am

   http://www.gpoaccess.gov/katrinareport/fullreport.pdf
   “Critical elements of the National Response Plan were executed late,
   ineffectively, or not at all…Earlier presidential involvement might have resulted in a more effective response.” (p.2) That section also repeatedly calls out “then-FEMA Director Michael Brown” for what I’d describe as general incompetence.

   If it’s led by incompetents, it doesn’t matter whether the gov’t is big or small.

5. David in Cal Says:
   March 31st, 2010 at 7:05 am

   Louis, the “governs least”slogan means that goverrment should restrict itself to activities that must be done by government. Levee mainenance and hurricane relief are natural government activities. The should be done be government, even though government handled them badly. The government handles most things badly inefficiently, polically, etc. E.g., despite the high cost of postage stamps, Saturday mail delivery is ending.

   The “governs least” comment means we shouldn’t ask the government to handle optional duties, like health care.

6. Louis Says:
   March 31st, 2010 at 10:30 am

   David, the line separating the “natural” activities of government from optional ones is, by and large, arbitrary. Almost everything the government does is arguably optional, or necessary.

   Why are levee maintenance and hurricane relief “natural” gov’t activities? If the gov’t handles them badly, and free markets are inherently superior, shouldn’t these activities be privatized? Ditto the postal service. Ditto road maintenance, education, social security, etc. Heck, there’s probably even a way we could privatize the military. And lord knows, defense spending is a bloated line item in our budget.

   Most of these suggestions are anathema even to Republicans, but that’s not because they’re inherently unfeasible–rather, it’s because they don’t seem “normal” to us. But those things we consider “natural” or “normal” - like the postal service - could be other than they are. We can argue about whether or not a governmental postal system is better than a privatized one, but it can’t be argued that a governmental postal system is natural.

   The point is that notions of the “natural,” invoked in argumentation, are almost always just a cloak for one’s own set of beliefs, a cloak that, conveniently, precludes further argumentation about the validity of those beliefs. “I believe gay marriage is unnatural”: there’s no way one can respond to this except to agree or disagree, and legitimate disagreement has already been precluded because gay marriage is presupposed as being unnatural. In philosophy, it’s known as begging the question: implicitly assuming what you’re arguing for.

   So sure, Palin doesn’t want to do away with all gov’t–just the parts she considers unnatural. But the fact remains that a) her notions of the “natural,” necessarily tendentious, can’t be rationally argued with, b) the *logical endpoint* (different from what her actual policies would be) of her rhetoric, which I caricature above (privatized military) is in fact a system of governance in which the gov’t provides no, or minimal, governance, and c) when the debate over health care is framed not in terms of “naturalness,” which tends to favor the status quo (because it’s familiar), but in terms of ethics, there’s a pretty convincing case to be made that adequate, affordable health care is a right of the citizenry. But apparently the Constitutional right to “LIFE, liberty, etc, etc.” only applies to an undifferentiated mass of uterine cells (the sacred moment of conception) and not to actual, suffering people.

7. Louis Says:
   March 31st, 2010 at 10:34 am

   Oh, and fwiw, I think that the actual health care legislation passed stinks: a center-right piece of legislation (laughably derided by conservatives as extreme leftism) that doesn’t go nearly far enough in what it needs to do to make health care an affordable, accessible right of the citizenry.

8. Shaun P. Says:
   March 31st, 2010 at 11:10 am

   Let me chime in here on the “private vs government” efficiency.

   I’ve spent large chunks of time working for and with the federal government, and my father has been a federal government employee his entire adult life, so I have a little knowledge here. I’ve also spent the last year working for a very large corporation. Anyone who says that private companies are more efficient than the government has, with all due respect, never worked for a large corporation. The bureaucracy I deal with in my corporate job dwarfs anything I’ve ever seen in the federal government. The motive to make as large a profit as possible doesn’t necessarily lead to efficiency.

   Folks who want to get the “efficiencies” of the private sector by turning everything over to the private sector are saying they want the private sector to be able to make a profit, because that’s what the private sector does. It ruthlessly lowers monetary costs, whatever the consequences - see health insurance for example - so that it can turn the biggest possible profit. Its a convenient fiction that such acts somehow result in efficiency. Where’s the proof? In fact, every time I look at a private company - let’s use Xe, nee Blackwater as an example - doing a “public” function, I see massive inefficiencies. Why? Because their job isn’t to perform a service in the best, most efficient way; its to make a profit.

   Using the private sector doesn’t clearly lead to lower costs either. The private sector doesn’t make the costs that are always present disappear - it usually just shifts them away from the private sector. Look at health care, for example. Someone with no insurance doesn’t cost the insurance companies anything, but when that person goes into an emergency room because they need health care, they absolute cost the rest of us something!

   All we know for sure is that giving these things to the private sector is letting someone profit. At the expense of everyone else, and in health care, sometimes at the ultimate expense.

   Those of us who would rather have things run by the government/public sector are less concerned (NOT unconcerned) with cost; rather, we don’t want to see people making a profit off of things that everyone should have equal access to: education; protection (from the fire dept., police dept., military, etc.); safety (EPA, FDA, roads, bridges, etc.); and health care (among other things).

   I believe its often possible for the government to provide those services at a lower, more efficient cost, than the private sector, because the government can’t shift those costs away AND because the government isn’t doing that stuff to profit. Is that always going to work? Of course not. But the trick is to balance the two. Let the private sector do what it does best - make a profit - at things that aren’t important, that not everyone needs to survive and thrive. Let the public sector do that stuff.

   Its like Dayn Perry’s old line: “My answer is the same it would be if someone asked me: “Beer or tacos?” Both, you fool. Why construct an either-or scenario where none need exist?” Applies exactly the same here. Yet I see no one in any position of power on the “right” advocating such a philosophy - and I certainly don’t see it from the Tea Partiers either.

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