Is it because I keep getting smarter (i.e., better educated)?
Big government, our one shot against crazy storms
In our age of devastating droughts, wildfires and hurricanes, the federal government is more important than ever
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/26/big_government_our_one_shot_against_crazy_storms/singleton/
I have never been one who thought the best government was no government, but for a very long time (actually, perhaps up until reading the above mentioned article) I felt strongly the idea that the government which governs best, governs least. Ironically, as I considered ideas for my own government (recall my plans (fantasies I guess might be more fairer given my age and achievements to date) of building space stations), they were always quite monolithic and encompassing. I guess what I find so objectionable (and haven’t developed any ways I feel are fool proof (fool resistant, nothing is really fool proof 😉 to avoid in my designs) is the corruption that appears to be inevitable in any government structure. Since our government today is clearly an oligarchy and elections are just a sham to placate the sheeple (yes, I really do think that, it is not just hyperbole) it is very easy to feel that (our) government is a huge waste of resources and needs to be minimized or even eliminated. The problem with that idea, though, is the real problem isn’t government, it is the parasitic oligarchy that runs it to their own benefit. If we could (somehow) get our government to actually represent the people again (i.e., do the greatest good for the greatest number while simultaneously minimizing the misery of the rest (a huge challenge at any time, but vastly more so when being operated by the afore mentioned parasitic oligarchy (I like that phrase, expect to see it more often ;-))) then I suspect the vast majority of people would stop their complaining (well, the critical thinkers anyway, by which I guess I mean the tiny fraction of people who actually think would change their minds).
As the article so clearly discusses, only our government (well funded by taxes!) has the capability to act to ameliorate the effects of large-scale disasters and without that counterweight, a sufficiently large disaster (and Katrina comes close) will trigger a negative feedback loop in our economy as huge swaths of our country’s citizens join the ranks of the poverty stricken, thus are incapable of contributing.
I guess I object to the traditional descriptions of socialism I read about in Europe where the tax rate is so progressive that people lose any incentive to work once they have reached a certain point. Conversely, by making the social safety net so all encompassing, they are simultaneously robbing people of incentive to do a damn thing to begin with. I believe there has to be a happy medium where we can have the upward mobility that gives me the realistic opportunity to build upon my inspiration and perspiration to join the ranks of the 0.1% while also providing enough of a social safety net to allow a citizen to easily recover from setbacks that might make him homeless and destitute (to which I had the ‘honor’ of experiencing for nearly a year after I got my MBA (and without great friends that took care of me, I might still be in the gutter (or be dead by now))). I discuss some ideas on where that sweet spot might be in an earlier post, so I won’t go into them again here.
I guess, after reading this article, I would have to say that by the standards of today’s GOP (which, btw, I left at least a decade ago), I am now a prime-time liberal socialist. Just like banking regulation held off cyclical crashes for decades (so long, in fact, that everyone forgot why the regulation was put in place to begin with) at the expense of ameliorating the peaks, I now realize that taxes must increase on the rich to some higher level (note that this is taxing my (fantasy?) future self) to smooth out the opportunities of the nation’s population as a whole. I am still quite reluctant to consider the idea of 90% tax rates (or indeed, pretty much anything over 50%, I think 35-40% (if fairly applied to _everyone_ in that tax bracket (or higher)) is probably a good area to investigate), but given how regressive payroll, unemployment and social security taxes are (meaning that poor people pay a vastly higher proportion of their income in such taxes) I think that our tax system needs to get tilted toward the upper end (I am already on record as being extremely upset that people wealthier than I pay a lesser percentage than I, so clearly this capital gains BS needs to go).
Our country has gone a long way down the road of being penny wise and pound foolish. Our infrastructure is starting to fall down around our ears and despite the high unemployment our government is incapable of doing what needs to be done to keep us from joining the third world. Of course, I am sure a very large part of that is due to the parasitic oligarchy (see, I told you you would see that again) blasting the sheeple with nonsense (sheeple being so quick to lap up said nonsense, doanchano) to make them think that they have to make even greater sacrifices to subsidize even greater transfers of tax dollars to the already obscenely wealthy.
How to change any of that? I think that as long as the parasitic oligarchy (there I go again) is in control, we are all just whistling Dixie (what the hell does that mean, anyway), but heck, it won’t stop me from bitchin and whinin, it is what I know so well how to do.
