tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8237917339730792916.post2974549722052975379..comments2023-11-18T11:20:35.439-05:00Comments on Johnny Pez: Too big II: Electric BoogalooJohnny Pezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430884010621619176noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8237917339730792916.post-89483326084644972942009-07-28T06:18:57.174-04:002009-07-28T06:18:57.174-04:00Johnny wrote:
I'm afraid there's no help ...Johnny wrote:<br /><br /><i>I'm afraid there's no help for you.</i><br /><br />This may be true but it doesn't prevent well-meaning Americans trying to help us slavish Australians.<br /><br />Here is Rutgers' Professor Adam Graycar trying to explain New Jersey corruption to us Ignorant Australians:<br /><br />"Getting things done is perennially complex and convoluted. Nobody seems to know the rules, they are interpreted and enforced haphazardly, and often it is easier to buy your way.<br /><br />"People often say the US and Australia are culturally similar but the countries are vastly different in government style. The US is much more over-governed than Australia, there are many more points of taxation, and there is virtually no respect for public service.<br /><br />"Together with high materialistic aspirations, it makes a great breeding ground for those who see public office as a way to self-enrichment."<br /><br />As they say on teh intertubes, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/corruption-we-have-but-we-sure-aint-noo-joisey-20090726-dxey.html?page=3" rel="nofollow">read the whole thing</a>.<br /><br /> - SydSyd Webbnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8237917339730792916.post-62152141020602342452009-07-27T17:18:26.923-04:002009-07-27T17:18:26.923-04:00Well, Syd, you may think that you've got facts...Well, Syd, you may think that you've got facts and reason on your side, but since you're a foreigner, you can't hope to understand Real Freedom the way an American would. <br /><br />How long has Australia had Socialized Medicine? Twenty-five years, right? Well then, you're already so deeply sunk in Stalinism, I mean statism, that you don't even realize that you've become a nation of slaves. <br /><br />I'm afraid there's no help for you.Johnny Pezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07430884010621619176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8237917339730792916.post-45825108126430750692009-07-26T08:39:52.907-04:002009-07-26T08:39:52.907-04:00The idea of 'too much government' is a bit...The idea of 'too much government' is a bit like the idea of 'too much Christianity' or 'too much Fourth of July". It helps if terms are defined.<br /><br />Happily we can disassemble American government into its component parts.<br /><br />We can slice it into Federal, state and local government. Or we can slice into executive, legislative and judicial.<br /><br />Or we can look at specific programs: military, social welfare, education, policing, transport, custodial, health, environmental and the like.<br /><br />Having defined the issue we can look for areas we can agree are too big or too small - by comparing with best-practice from the civilised world.<br /><br />Thus we can see that a navy that is more powerful - not just than America's two greatest rivals - than all the world's navies put together, is an example of big government bloat. Whereas a health system that fails to deliver basic care to all citizens is, if not a symptom of too small government, is at least due to misdirected spending.<br /><br />In Australia there are two Representatives for each Senator. In the USA the ratio is more than 4:1 which is, arguably, an indicator of 'big' government. And is a supreme court of nine really necessary, when seven will avoid ties and still have bench strength?<br /><br />And so we could go, taking the offices and expenditure of government, line-item at at time, to see if each makes sense, is too much or too inadequate.<br /><br />However this analytical approach is not used by Radley Balko with his 'metrics'. He takes eight eclectic measures of 'big government'.<br /><br />Some are downright eccentric. It takes the same size bureaucracy to collect a progressive income tax (with deductions) as a flat income tax (with deductions).<br /><br />Inflation seems odd, too. "Printing money" is one way to cause inflation but there are other ways, ways that can be exacerbated without a strong government to intervene.<br /><br />'Unfunded liability of entitlement programs' seems like a peculiarly American concern. In Australia we fund social welfare out of current revenue. Having extra taxes to make provision for the social security entitlement of the next generation would strike us as being a bit, well, big government.<br /><br />And what's the deal with comparing the US average tax rate with Somalia? It just seems dishonest. In the civilised world we compare our tax rates with our fellows in the OECD. Some useful charts half-way down <a href="http://comparativetaxation.treasury.gov.au/content/report/html/06_Chapter_4-08.asp" rel="nofollow">this page</a>.<br /><br /> - SydSyd Webbnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8237917339730792916.post-88041907271079131702009-07-24T16:33:05.256-04:002009-07-24T16:33:05.256-04:00An anonymous commenter comments:
You suggest that...An anonymous commenter comments:<br /><br /><i>You suggest that Balko is part of The Right because he shares "the Right's obsession with Big Government."</i><br /><br />No, I suggest that Balko shares his obsession with Big Government with the Right. His obsession blinds him (and everyone he shares it with) to the fact that it isn't a government's percentage of GDP that makes it dangerous, it's the scope of its activities. As Consumatopia notes, a government doesn't have to be all-controlling to be tyrannical.Johnny Pezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07430884010621619176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8237917339730792916.post-89392577870283674632009-07-24T13:42:38.619-04:002009-07-24T13:42:38.619-04:00Phlinn, the gulf between "size of government&...Phlinn, the gulf between "size of government" and "in charge of X% of people's lives" is unbridgeable. Regulating sex, drugs, speech, or the press might not have a particularly large effect on the percentage of government, but would effect a huge chunk of our lives.Consumatopianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8237917339730792916.post-12043461176958263352009-07-24T13:37:18.103-04:002009-07-24T13:37:18.103-04:00The conversation would be more fruitful if Balko &...The conversation would be more fruitful if Balko & friends would admit that their beef isn't with liberals, but with utilitarians and anyone else who doesn't prejudge government according to a narrow numeric constraint. I'm going to judge the merits of each proposed intervention and support/oppose them accordingly.Consumatopianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8237917339730792916.post-68027062851548441002009-07-24T12:40:46.280-04:002009-07-24T12:40:46.280-04:00"if you think that an arbitrarily large gover..."if you think that an arbitrarily large government is too large, that means that small government is better than big government, which means that less government is better than more government, which means that government is bad." <br /><br />This logic is flawed. Consider a government which is in charge of 100% of it's people's lives. If there is even one thing which you consider bad for government to control, then you can say that this size government is too large. This does not mean that it's impossible for any particular small government to be worse than any particular large government. For the sake of simplification, assume life has 5 things government can control, and that conrolling 1-3 is good, 4-5 is bad. A government which actually controls 1-3 would be better than one which only interferes with 4-5. Similarly, if said government controls 4 segments, you can assume at that point that it's controlling at least one thing that it shouldn't be.Phlinnnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8237917339730792916.post-53588899691786727902009-07-24T09:14:55.050-04:002009-07-24T09:14:55.050-04:00(unless you're a Republican, in which case bor...<i>(unless you're a Republican, in which case borrowing money from Red China is the logical way to fund it).</i><br /><br />Interesting--red-baiting is now a respectable trope for leftist bloggers.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8237917339730792916.post-77774757939455663882009-07-24T09:12:00.912-04:002009-07-24T09:12:00.912-04:00You suggest that Balko is part of The Right becaus...You suggest that Balko is part of The Right because he shares "the Right's obsession with Big Government." Was Henry David Thoreau arguing from the right when he wrote in <i>Civil Disobedience,</i> "that goverment is best which governs least"? Your suggestion that only the Right takes seriously the principle of limited government ignores a whole tradition of Leftist opposition to authoritarianism.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com