On Tue, Sep 25, 2001 at 09:08:57PM -0400, Paul M Foster wrote:
> False administrivia bounce (who)...
>
> ----- Forwarded message from slug-politics@nks.net -----
>
> From: Norbert Cartagena <niccademous@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [SLUG-POL] Alright, I'm here ...
> To: slug-politics@nks.net
> In-Reply-To: <3BB0897A.63F375D@ieee.org>
>
> > I'm personally sick and tired of the "Liberals"
> who
> > think we are
> > spending too much defense. People, we have
> > seriously got to get our
> > _priorities_straight_!
>
>
> $310,000,000,000. This is the ammount we spend a year
> on the military. A large portion of this is spent in
> stationing and deffending prosperous friends who are
> fully capable of deffending themselves from the
> non-existent enemies (ie. why do we need to station so
> many troops in Germany? France? England? Japan? Mind
> you, were these to be attacked we _should_ and _would_
> come to the deffense of these allies. However, we
> spend how many BILLIONS stationing un-needed trops
> there?). How about, say, DEFFENDING THE NATION instead
> of the world?
>
Agreed. Much of the European theatre is there because of the cold war.
Though I don't know how much of that $310B is for overseas troop
support.
> One way to become a
> > conservative is to
> > _actually_look_at_the_budget_ from the 1960s
> onward.
> > Screw the TV
> > media, _go_actually_look_at_the_ ~50 page summary
> > sheets!
>
> And you'll begin to notice that the major share of
> taxation has turned from what it used to be (taxing
> the wealthy and corporations - those that can afford
> taxation - a very small ammount) to taxing the middle
> class a dissproportionate ammount. Notice that even
> during WW2, taxation for the middle class was
> approximatelly 4%, where as the taxation for the upper
> class was at 15% - both smaller ammounts than today.
> Today, the situation has changed due to the ceation of
> tax incentives/loopholes. Mind you, the wealthy often
> think about this as "Tax advantages for economic
> growth" whereas those who don't KNOW the tax system
> think about it as "Welfare for the rich."
> Nevertheless, the government policies that create
> taxation in their original estimates don't COUNT on
> these tax Incentives/Loop Holes (whichever side of the
> fence you're on defines what word you use). If
> anything, studying this history will make you an
> econimic common-sensist - hardly a conservative.
>
I'm not sure what your point is here, but graduated taxation is
psychotic and penalizes production. But by dollar amounts, rich people
and corporations pay the lion's share of the tax in this country.
Lowering the income tax rates during the Reagan era resulted in greatly
increased government revenue. The more money in circulation (and not in
the government's hot little hands) the more money the government makes
in the end.
> > Defense spending, including advanced research, is
> > well under 10%
> > now. Missile defense (and I _dare_ you to
> challenge
> > me on this) is
> > costing us peanuts -- plus it accounts for a
> > crapload of DoD
> > research going on (that benefit other markets).
>
> And missle deffense would have helped us out here how?
> It wouldn't have. As we notced, war is not now an
> issue of bigger/better, it's an issue of
> smaller/faster/better diguised.
Really? The former response to a nuclear attack was "mutually assured
destruction." The reason for this strategy was that there was no other
effective defense to that threat. Unfortunately, the strategy did indeed
ensure mutually assured destruction. You think the environment's bad
now, just imagine what it would be like after this.
And don't go all one-dimensional about war. You're fooling yourself if
you imagine that the whole face of all wars from now on will be commando
raids and SEAL teams. China and Russia still have plenty of nukes, and
the ones in China are aimed at us, you can bet. (I'd bet some of the
Russian ones are too. And don't think we don't still have some aimed at
them, treaties or no treaties.)
The threat of nuclear war still exists, even if it's off your radar
screen. (In fact, right about now would be a nifty time to hit the US
with a nuclear one-two punch.) In light of this fact, we have two
possible responses: 1) Mutually assured destruction, which would kill an
awful lot of the life on this planet, or 2) Missile defense, when it's
working properly. With missile defense, instead of ten nukes landing on
NYC, we'd have _maybe_ one on the East River-- a damn sight better than
a completely leveled and melted NYC.
The argument could be made that no one in their right mind would
actually launch a nuclear attack. And you're probably right. But then
again, do you really want to take such a chance? As long as nukes exist,
there is the threat of their use.
<snip>
> How about spending the money on that instead
> of wasting the money on what we KNOW to be a
> non-working, flawed, spotty-success-at-best missle
> deffense system, a monolithic and slow defense
> mechanism - at about the same COST!!
<snip>
Wow, how did _you_ find out missile defense wouldn't work? No one else
knows for sure. I'm tired of hearing this refrain. "Missile defense
won't work, so let's not try it." All we needed was more people like
this in 1957, and we never would have gone to the moon. It's like any
other R&D project: there's a chance it will work and a chance it won't.
That's why you spend the R&D money-- to find out.
<snip>
> Agreed. However, completely privatized health care
> creates the same problem we have with privatized
> security - the lowest bidder problem. Instead, this
> too should be a govenrent service (in liu of the
> institutionalized welfare system we currently have
> that claims to provide health-care). Mind you, this
> would NOT stop private industry from creating a
> private health care system, but it would stop the
> grossly innefficiet and abusive HMO system, which is
> costing the government more than would cost a
> completely nationalized health care system (compare
> the percentage numbers with those of countris with
> nationalized heath care, in relation to the size of
> the national budget), and which also creates the
> draconian problem of having business-types - who's
> mind is in the "bottom line" - make life and death
> medical decissions instead of doctors, whose first
> obligatory duty is to the patient.
>
Exsqueeze me? Nationalized health care in any form would create the
problems that exist in other countries that have it-- crappy care. They
don't come here for their medical stuff because it's cheaper or because
we have such a pretty country.
You gotta stop this idea that the government should be anywhere near
caring for the population in any way. It's not in the Constitution, it's
not efficient, it costs way more than it's worth, and it produces crap.
The government shouldn't be in the retirement fund business, in the
handout business, in the medical care business, or in any other business
like this. It costs us far more to have the government do _anything_
than it would cost us to do it privately. Part of this is because the
government is grossly inefficient at doing almost everything. Moreover,
the Framers specifically did _not_ want the federal government involved
in such things. To have the government do so is simply creeping
socialism. Europe, for all its beautiful vineyards and exquisite statues
is rotten to the core with socialism.
And you want to take health care decisions away from those rotten,
heartless business types, and put it into the hands of who? Government
bureaucrats? I think that speaks for itself.
Here's what the government should do: defend us, kill our enemies and
break their stuff, stay out of other people's wars unless we have a
specific economic or security reason for meddling (Kuwait/oil), arrange
treaties, promote standards, and pass very very very few laws. In fact,
I'd pay congressmen to stay home. No department of education, no social
security, an IRS of about 20 people, no department of health and human
services, no nothing. Oh, and no income tax, or one which is flat, not
graduated.
Used to be that all these "social problems" were handled by churches,
neighborhoods and families. But then the problem I mentioned earlier
began to occur. Starting in the mid-20th century, people began to boil
everything down to me me me. We've lost the ability to shame people and
to exercise simple justice. Right and wrong are sort of gray, and we
have to endlessly debate everything, while the media tell us the most
important thing is to look good and have lots of sex, and the most
important story is some congressman who boinks everything that moves.
And instead of our ability to act on our own to ensure the order and
integrity of our society, we've left it more and more up to the
government. The result isn't pretty.
Paul
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