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I think if your argument is that they're making hasty decisions, you've provided good evidence for that. But the remainder of the sentence you quoted was: > bu

I think if your argument is that they're making hasty decisions, you've provided good evidence for that. But the remainder of the sentence you quoted was: > but an intentional plan to visit each government department and giving it a stab wound to let it bleed out and die over the course of the next year or two. If your argument is that they're trying to make agencies die, and you're using the above as evidence for this, then you'd have to convince me that they want the government to lose control of nuclear bombs or bird flu.

throw0101c 2y ago
> If your argument is that they're trying to make agencies die, and you're using the above as evidence for this, then you'd have to convince me that they want the government to lose control of nuclear bombs or bird flu. I'm saying they want to get rid of government: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43218884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43218884
- orblivion 2y ago
  I don't necessarily disagree, but unless they're literally ready to jump to anarcho-capitalism in the next four years I don't think they're trying to let the nuclear bombs go unattended. I think the specific examples you gave aren't your best examples to this point. If anything it's a counter-argument.
  - freen 2y ago
    There are US citizens, former employees of USAID, who have been abandoned after trying to stop a cholera outbreak in the middle of a civil war in South Sudan. With their families. Their security detail: fired. Their logistics team: fired. No water, no power, no fuel. Look: sufficiently advanced incompetence and/or carelessness is equivalent to malice. I don’t care if you WANT to attend to the nuclear weapons, if you are so unserious, or understaffed, or incompetent, or distracted, or whatever to fail to actually do the thing. Intent is irrelevant. Outcomes are everything.
    - orblivion 2y ago
      That's fair, but the initial point I was replying to was about intent.
      - freen 2y ago
        Again, intent is irrelevant. Sure, criminal negligence vs murder, but do you really care if it’s your kid?
        orblivion 2y ago
        And again, I'm responding to another post (two, actually) about intent. If you have an issue with it, take it up with them. I acknowledge your point as fair, but a separate point.
        philistine 2y ago
        Do not worry about world-ending neglect towards the staff responsible for the maintenance and security of our nuclear arsenal, their intent was only for a smaller government!
        orblivion 2y ago
        I don't know what's going on with HN right now, there usually is a lot more reading comprehension and level headed conversation, even on controversial topics.
        philistine 2y ago
        It's not me minimizing a series of catastrophic events because in my great wisdom I have perfectly ascertained the intentions of an unpredictable administration, it's reading comprehension.
        freen 2y ago
        The foundations of the American government and its ability to care for its citizens. People are loosing their livelihoods, people are dying, etc. You have been desperately attempting to defend the “intent” of the perpetrators. That might rub folks the wrong way, huh?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
freen 2y ago
Sufficient active disregard for consequences is equivalent to actively seeking said consequences. If someone consistently drives extremely recklessly, refuses to service their brakes, allows their tires to become completely tread worn, removes their mirrors, etc. etc. What could one reasonably infer about their desire to get into a car crash? Would loud and repeated claims of a desire to drive safely convince you? Moreover, would you consider such claims to be in good faith, especially if said reckless behavior continues? Besides, the GOP has said time and time again: let’s make the government so small we can drown it in the bathtub. What private sector entity would find it profitable, or even be able to, control the bird flu or manage the nuclear arsenal. Much less, do you want there to be a profit motive in those places?
digdugdirk 2y ago
"Yes, your honour, I did shoot him point blank in the chest. But you can't use that fact as evidence that I wanted to kill him, that's just evidence of how he died." Murder, manslaughter, intent, accident, purpose, neglect. We have many words that try to put a degree of malice on the act of taking a life, but the life is still gone. At some point, you need to draw a line in the sand and say "They're going where I can't follow.". Right now, it seems like you're drawing the line right after they come out and tell the world that they specifically intend to burn America to the ground and auction off the remains for their personal profit. Where you draw your line is your own personal choice, but it's worth thinking about ahead of time.
- orblivion 2y ago
  What is your model of this group of people behind DOGE? If it's a group of radical right wingers with libertarian leaning who want to smash the bureaucratic state, that's probably accurate and most people (even supporters) can get behind that characterization. Do you think this group of people, ushered in by Donald John Trump, want to dismantle the military? If not, then why would they purposely try to lose control of the nukes? There probably exist some radical libertarians (or even left-wing anarchists) who would actually advocate for let's say decommissioning the nukes, but I think it's pretty clear that that's not who's in office. What I see is a ham-fisted approach to slashing the Department of Energy. That's the actual goal. Plenty of anti-Trump outlets report it that way. The idea that they actually want the nuclear weapons to lapse is a pretty bold implication, assuming I'm not misunderstanding the argument.
Centigonal 2y ago
I don't think there is one unified plan to destroy the federal government; however, many influential people in the current administration are motivated to destroy particular parts of the federal government and will not get in each other's way. I believe the result of this is that the current administration will attempt to destroy the union (inclusive OR) of all the agencies that influential individuals within the administration want to destroy. Here's a quote from the conservative political operative and self-described Christian Nationalist Russ Vought, who is both the current and former head of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.” [1] This is a visceral and radical statement which has gotten some airtime on the news recently. However, it's interesting to note that Project 2025, which Vought helped lead and authored key sections of, does not advocate for the dismantling of USAID, rather recommending that its mission be narrowly aligned to national security goals[2]. In 2025, however, Elon Musk wanted USAID shuttered, and Vought was happy to oblige in his position as "the nerve center of the federal budget." However, Project 2025 advocates for eliminating or defunding the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Education, EPA, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and other government agencies. It's likely that these will also come under fire. Finally (and this is my opinion), I believe it is impossible to understand this current administration's policy agenda without at least a surface level understanding of the writing of Curtis Yarvin, a software developer and reactionary political blogger. One this topic, Yarvin says the following: “What is government? A government is just a corporation which owns a country. Nothing more, nothing less. It so happens that our sovereign corporation is very poorly managed and there’s a very simple way to replace that, which is what we do to all corporations that have failed. We simply delete them.” [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/video-donald-trump-russ-vought-center-renewing-america-maga https://www.propublica.org/article/video-donald-trump-russ-v... [2] https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FUL... (pg 253-255) [3] https://apnews.com/article/trump-doge-russell-vought-project-2025-f403174299933b7e3a3b6ebd779c146c https://apnews.com/article/trump-doge-russell-vought-project...

throw0101c 2y ago

> If your argument is that they're trying to make agencies die, and you're using the above as evidence for this, then you'd have to convince me that they want the government to lose control of nuclear bombs or bird flu. I'm saying they want to get rid of government: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43218884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43218884

orblivion 2y ago
I don't necessarily disagree, but unless they're literally ready to jump to anarcho-capitalism in the next four years I don't think they're trying to let the nuclear bombs go unattended. I think the specific examples you gave aren't your best examples to this point. If anything it's a counter-argument.
- freen 2y ago
  There are US citizens, former employees of USAID, who have been abandoned after trying to stop a cholera outbreak in the middle of a civil war in South Sudan. With their families. Their security detail: fired. Their logistics team: fired. No water, no power, no fuel. Look: sufficiently advanced incompetence and/or carelessness is equivalent to malice. I don’t care if you WANT to attend to the nuclear weapons, if you are so unserious, or understaffed, or incompetent, or distracted, or whatever to fail to actually do the thing. Intent is irrelevant. Outcomes are everything.
  - orblivion 2y ago
    That's fair, but the initial point I was replying to was about intent.
    - freen 2y ago
      Again, intent is irrelevant. Sure, criminal negligence vs murder, but do you really care if it’s your kid?
      - orblivion 2y ago
        And again, I'm responding to another post (two, actually) about intent. If you have an issue with it, take it up with them. I acknowledge your point as fair, but a separate point.
        philistine 2y ago
        Do not worry about world-ending neglect towards the staff responsible for the maintenance and security of our nuclear arsenal, their intent was only for a smaller government!
        orblivion 2y ago
        I don't know what's going on with HN right now, there usually is a lot more reading comprehension and level headed conversation, even on controversial topics.
        philistine 2y ago
        It's not me minimizing a series of catastrophic events because in my great wisdom I have perfectly ascertained the intentions of an unpredictable administration, it's reading comprehension.
        freen 2y ago
        The foundations of the American government and its ability to care for its citizens. People are loosing their livelihoods, people are dying, etc. You have been desperately attempting to defend the “intent” of the perpetrators. That might rub folks the wrong way, huh?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

freen 2y ago

Sufficient active disregard for consequences is equivalent to actively seeking said consequences. If someone consistently drives extremely recklessly, refuses to service their brakes, allows their tires to become completely tread worn, removes their mirrors, etc. etc. What could one reasonably infer about their desire to get into a car crash? Would loud and repeated claims of a desire to drive safely convince you? Moreover, would you consider such claims to be in good faith, especially if said reckless behavior continues? Besides, the GOP has said time and time again: let’s make the government so small we can drown it in the bathtub. What private sector entity would find it profitable, or even be able to, control the bird flu or manage the nuclear arsenal. Much less, do you want there to be a profit motive in those places?

digdugdirk 2y ago

"Yes, your honour, I did shoot him point blank in the chest. But you can't use that fact as evidence that I wanted to kill him, that's just evidence of how he died." Murder, manslaughter, intent, accident, purpose, neglect. We have many words that try to put a degree of malice on the act of taking a life, but the life is still gone. At some point, you need to draw a line in the sand and say "They're going where I can't follow.". Right now, it seems like you're drawing the line right after they come out and tell the world that they specifically intend to burn America to the ground and auction off the remains for their personal profit. Where you draw your line is your own personal choice, but it's worth thinking about ahead of time.

orblivion 2y ago
What is your model of this group of people behind DOGE? If it's a group of radical right wingers with libertarian leaning who want to smash the bureaucratic state, that's probably accurate and most people (even supporters) can get behind that characterization. Do you think this group of people, ushered in by Donald John Trump, want to dismantle the military? If not, then why would they purposely try to lose control of the nukes? There probably exist some radical libertarians (or even left-wing anarchists) who would actually advocate for let's say decommissioning the nukes, but I think it's pretty clear that that's not who's in office. What I see is a ham-fisted approach to slashing the Department of Energy. That's the actual goal. Plenty of anti-Trump outlets report it that way. The idea that they actually want the nuclear weapons to lapse is a pretty bold implication, assuming I'm not misunderstanding the argument.

Centigonal 2y ago

I don't think there is one unified plan to destroy the federal government; however, many influential people in the current administration are motivated to destroy particular parts of the federal government and will not get in each other's way. I believe the result of this is that the current administration will attempt to destroy the union (inclusive OR) of all the agencies that influential individuals within the administration want to destroy. Here's a quote from the conservative political operative and self-described Christian Nationalist Russ Vought, who is both the current and former head of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.” [1] This is a visceral and radical statement which has gotten some airtime on the news recently. However, it's interesting to note that Project 2025, which Vought helped lead and authored key sections of, does not advocate for the dismantling of USAID, rather recommending that its mission be narrowly aligned to national security goals[2]. In 2025, however, Elon Musk wanted USAID shuttered, and Vought was happy to oblige in his position as "the nerve center of the federal budget." However, Project 2025 advocates for eliminating or defunding the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Education, EPA, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and other government agencies. It's likely that these will also come under fire. Finally (and this is my opinion), I believe it is impossible to understand this current administration's policy agenda without at least a surface level understanding of the writing of Curtis Yarvin, a software developer and reactionary political blogger. One this topic, Yarvin says the following: “What is government? A government is just a corporation which owns a country. Nothing more, nothing less. It so happens that our sovereign corporation is very poorly managed and there’s a very simple way to replace that, which is what we do to all corporations that have failed. We simply delete them.” [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/video-donald-trump-russ-vought-center-renewing-america-maga https://www.propublica.org/article/video-donald-trump-russ-v... [2] https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FUL... (pg 253-255) [3] https://apnews.com/article/trump-doge-russell-vought-project-2025-f403174299933b7e3a3b6ebd779c146c https://apnews.com/article/trump-doge-russell-vought-project...