4 ms·

Considering that most roads and bridges are falling apart and that healthcare is woefully underfunded in some areas and the police are overfunded and have enou

by omouse 11y ago

Considering that most roads and bridges are falling apart and that healthcare is woefully underfunded in some areas and the police are overfunded and have enough $$$ for military-grade gear, there's a good reason to put infrastructure in quotes...

rqebmm 11y ago
The police aren't spending money on military-grade gear, they're being gifted surplus from the military. It's a minor distinction, but it's the difference between "we spend too much on the defense industry" and "we are allocating local budgets to militarizing the police".
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > The police aren't spending money on military-grade gear, they're being gifted surplus from the military. They're spending money training on it, storing it, operating it, and organizing operations around it so that they can justify receiving and keeping it, as well as in personnel costs associated with the staff time devoted to doing the research, applications, etc., to be awarded it. They may not be purchasing it, but its not appearing and hanging around without expenditure of department resources.
superuser2 11y ago
Infrastructure is falling apart because people like the grandparent commenter succesfully reduce its funding. The conservative strategy works shockingly well: defund government, appoint administrators who are actvely opposed to the existence of the programs they run, then sit back and claim that government can't do anything right.
- grandalf 11y ago
  > people like the grandparent commenter Not sure whose comment you are referring to. My comment was intended to illustrate some properties institutions built by primates with guns. Obviously, governments (and criminal organizations) provide some valuable services to society (employment, structure, resource allocation, etc.) The current status quo society and government provides lots of opportunity to some, and virtually no opportunity to others. "Criminality" provides a different distribution of opportunity. Drawing a firm distinction between legitimate and criminal pursuits is a profoundly conservative worldview.
  - wfo 11y ago
    Criminality is defined by the law (i.e. government) so of course criminal pursuits are distinct from government ones: criminal pursuits are those pursuits the government doesn't approve of. This isn't a conservative or liberal worldview, it is fact and what the words mean. Whether or not this distinction is legitimate and meaningful is another debate. And it seems you're conflating your economic system with our government; the society we have is because our government is toothless and unable to take real action, we are subject to the brutal whims of capitalism. Every time someone suggests we wield the power of our government to better our society it's decried as "socialist" and fails. So with effective government effectively banned by conservatives, we are left with ineffective government. Which gives conservatives more ammunition to ban any remaining government. And you seem to wholly omit the consent of the governed; perhaps you reject it as a principle, and perhaps you simply don't wish to acknowledge its existence. In the first case, you should be aware your position is an extremist ideological one and shared by almost no-one outside of academic philosophy. In the second, this is a serious omission since it is the obvious counterpoint to your entire argument above.
    - pharrington 11y ago
      I still don't understand what it means to have consent without having similar power to the agency you're consenting to. I consent to someone who asks me at gunpoint to strip and get on my knees, just as much as I consent to something that will lock me in a cage if I don't give them a portion of my income, just as much as I consent to be ruled by multi-millionaire X instead of multi-millionaire Y. What needs to be understood is that consent is not always possible. That's fine! But we can't reasonably discuss people's relation with society until we stop lying about the scope of individual choice. Your criminality point is not meaningful; the initial point was about the societal effects of actions. Governments and government officials also go against their own laws all the time.
      - michaelt 11y ago
        I think the people who believe we consent to being governed think the consent happens at the level of 'society'. I mean, obviously the police and courts wouldn't be much use if criminals could just choose not to consent to being arrested or tried! A person who believed that stuff might say people implicitly consent to the status quo when they don't fight against it. You might dislike the two-party system, but could you get 5% of the population to dash off a quick e-mail to their representative? Could you get 10% of the population to choose who to vote for with that as the deciding issue? Could you get 20% of the population to donate $2,000 to a PAC campaigning on the issue? Could you get 40% of the population to buy a rifle and fight in a revolutionary war? If you can't do any of these things, doesn't that mean people are happy with things as they are? Personally I've always been a bit sceptical about that argument, due to the obvious status quo bias.
hsod 11y ago
Can you be more specific? Are there roads and bridges near you that you can't drive upon? In what way is healthcare woefully underfunded?
- aswanson 11y ago
  Re: bridges and roads, it's hard to run experiments, and its usually too late once you do: http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2014/08/01/friday-marks-7-years-since-i-35w-bridge-collapse/ http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2014/08/01/friday-marks-7-year... Also: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/15/bridges-need-repair/2816881/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/15/bridges... Healthcare is too subject to devolve in political argument for me, someone else has to put up some data on that one.
facepalm 11y ago
Really? Try living in the jungle for a year, perhaps then you'll start to appreciate civilization, even if it is not perfect.

by omouse 11y ago

rqebmm 11y ago

The police aren't spending money on military-grade gear, they're being gifted surplus from the military. It's a minor distinction, but it's the difference between "we spend too much on the defense industry" and "we are allocating local budgets to militarizing the police".

dragonwriter 11y ago
> The police aren't spending money on military-grade gear, they're being gifted surplus from the military. They're spending money training on it, storing it, operating it, and organizing operations around it so that they can justify receiving and keeping it, as well as in personnel costs associated with the staff time devoted to doing the research, applications, etc., to be awarded it. They may not be purchasing it, but its not appearing and hanging around without expenditure of department resources.

superuser2 11y ago

Infrastructure is falling apart because people like the grandparent commenter succesfully reduce its funding. The conservative strategy works shockingly well: defund government, appoint administrators who are actvely opposed to the existence of the programs they run, then sit back and claim that government can't do anything right.

grandalf 11y ago
> people like the grandparent commenter Not sure whose comment you are referring to. My comment was intended to illustrate some properties institutions built by primates with guns. Obviously, governments (and criminal organizations) provide some valuable services to society (employment, structure, resource allocation, etc.) The current status quo society and government provides lots of opportunity to some, and virtually no opportunity to others. "Criminality" provides a different distribution of opportunity. Drawing a firm distinction between legitimate and criminal pursuits is a profoundly conservative worldview.
- wfo 11y ago
  Criminality is defined by the law (i.e. government) so of course criminal pursuits are distinct from government ones: criminal pursuits are those pursuits the government doesn't approve of. This isn't a conservative or liberal worldview, it is fact and what the words mean. Whether or not this distinction is legitimate and meaningful is another debate. And it seems you're conflating your economic system with our government; the society we have is because our government is toothless and unable to take real action, we are subject to the brutal whims of capitalism. Every time someone suggests we wield the power of our government to better our society it's decried as "socialist" and fails. So with effective government effectively banned by conservatives, we are left with ineffective government. Which gives conservatives more ammunition to ban any remaining government. And you seem to wholly omit the consent of the governed; perhaps you reject it as a principle, and perhaps you simply don't wish to acknowledge its existence. In the first case, you should be aware your position is an extremist ideological one and shared by almost no-one outside of academic philosophy. In the second, this is a serious omission since it is the obvious counterpoint to your entire argument above.
  - pharrington 11y ago
    I still don't understand what it means to have consent without having similar power to the agency you're consenting to. I consent to someone who asks me at gunpoint to strip and get on my knees, just as much as I consent to something that will lock me in a cage if I don't give them a portion of my income, just as much as I consent to be ruled by multi-millionaire X instead of multi-millionaire Y. What needs to be understood is that consent is not always possible. That's fine! But we can't reasonably discuss people's relation with society until we stop lying about the scope of individual choice. Your criminality point is not meaningful; the initial point was about the societal effects of actions. Governments and government officials also go against their own laws all the time.
    - michaelt 11y ago
      I think the people who believe we consent to being governed think the consent happens at the level of 'society'. I mean, obviously the police and courts wouldn't be much use if criminals could just choose not to consent to being arrested or tried! A person who believed that stuff might say people implicitly consent to the status quo when they don't fight against it. You might dislike the two-party system, but could you get 5% of the population to dash off a quick e-mail to their representative? Could you get 10% of the population to choose who to vote for with that as the deciding issue? Could you get 20% of the population to donate $2,000 to a PAC campaigning on the issue? Could you get 40% of the population to buy a rifle and fight in a revolutionary war? If you can't do any of these things, doesn't that mean people are happy with things as they are? Personally I've always been a bit sceptical about that argument, due to the obvious status quo bias.

hsod 11y ago

Can you be more specific? Are there roads and bridges near you that you can't drive upon? In what way is healthcare woefully underfunded?

aswanson 11y ago
Re: bridges and roads, it's hard to run experiments, and its usually too late once you do: http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2014/08/01/friday-marks-7-years-since-i-35w-bridge-collapse/ http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2014/08/01/friday-marks-7-year... Also: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/15/bridges-need-repair/2816881/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/15/bridges... Healthcare is too subject to devolve in political argument for me, someone else has to put up some data on that one.

facepalm 11y ago

Really? Try living in the jungle for a year, perhaps then you'll start to appreciate civilization, even if it is not perfect.