4 ms·

> Could you please explain how your one specific example invalidates my opinion? > the NHS is not what we're discussing and has little to do with the topic at

> Could you please explain how your one specific example invalidates my opinion? > the NHS is not what we're discussing and has little to do with the topic at hand. You can't just suggest one federal agency thats performing well as indicative of all money that goes to the government being well-spent So I can't point out a historic success story to bolster my point, but you can point out historic failures to bolster yours? It seems like you're stacking the deck in your favour there. > Your position was that money given to the government is invariably good, my position is that your statement is a bit of a reach at best and ridiculous at worst That was not my position. In the US or the UK, the government is the ideal means to reduce suffering as they already have programs doing just this that are short on funding. On Mars, or in Africa, or in the 1840s this perhaps would not be true. It is however true now.

josh2600 13y ago
>So I can't point out a historic success story to bolster my point, but you can point out historic failures to bolster yours? It seems like you're stacking the deck in your favour there. Once again, not what I said sir. I said you can't pick out one specific agency to validate your catch-all theory. You didn't say "Giving money to the government is sometimes good", you said "The greatest good for the greatest number is achieved through the state. Witholding taxes for the purposes of greed is immoral and unpatriotic." That's wrong if I can find a single counter example. The same isn't true of my position. Your supposition that the government is ideal is only true in places where corruption and bureaucracy don't reign supreme. This is not the world we live in. I am not arguing that Government cannot do good, I am arguing that government does not invariably do good, as your quote would suggest. Do you understand that you are attacking a position I did not carve out? I didn't say all government is bad, I said some government can be bad. YOU said government is invariably good which I can prove is false with a single example. The converse argument is not true. Does that make sense? Edit: To be specific, it is the dogmatic way in which you state your position that makes it difficult to accept. If you would back off just slightly and say that Government MAY be the best allocation of money, I could agree, but there's no way that the government is invariably the best distribution method for the public good. One need only look to Zimbabwe or even China to understand the error of this logic.
- hahainternet 13y ago
  > That's wrong if I can find a single counter example. The same isn't true of my position. It's true my statement was brief, but I have made that position more clear. It's not that government is always good, but in the present UK and US situations, the state funds a number of support programs which are horrendously underfunded. I don't think any reasonable person could justify cutting social benefits or healthcare coverage, and so my position outlines itself. Good programs like these should be funded until poverty is eliminated. There's plenty of money around to do it and Apple having $55b instead of $50b in investments would change nothing for them, and everything for hundreds of thousands of poor people.
  - bmelton 13y ago
    "I don't think any reasonable person could justify cutting social benefits or healthcare coverage, and so my position outlines itself." Plenty of people have very convincing arguments for doing both. More to the point though, many who argue at cutting those types of services at the federal level aren't necessarily insisting that they should be cut altogether (though obviously there are those that do). My personal belief is that the federal government is the American federal government is the least efficient possible organization you can give your money to, for any reason. I would feel much more comfortable paying that money directly to charity (of which I donate considerably to, also which don't include loans to my friends, which by the way aren't tax deductible either way), or failing that, would rather pay it into a state funded initiative, where the dollars will be kept closer to home and be more efficiently spent according to the needs of the state. Obviously this works better in small states like Maryland than larger ones like California or Texas, but it still allows them more control to exercise than something handed down from the federal government.

josh2600 13y ago

>So I can't point out a historic success story to bolster my point, but you can point out historic failures to bolster yours? It seems like you're stacking the deck in your favour there. Once again, not what I said sir. I said you can't pick out one specific agency to validate your catch-all theory. You didn't say "Giving money to the government is sometimes good", you said "The greatest good for the greatest number is achieved through the state. Witholding taxes for the purposes of greed is immoral and unpatriotic." That's wrong if I can find a single counter example. The same isn't true of my position. Your supposition that the government is ideal is only true in places where corruption and bureaucracy don't reign supreme. This is not the world we live in. I am not arguing that Government cannot do good, I am arguing that government does not invariably do good, as your quote would suggest. Do you understand that you are attacking a position I did not carve out? I didn't say all government is bad, I said some government can be bad. YOU said government is invariably good which I can prove is false with a single example. The converse argument is not true. Does that make sense? Edit: To be specific, it is the dogmatic way in which you state your position that makes it difficult to accept. If you would back off just slightly and say that Government MAY be the best allocation of money, I could agree, but there's no way that the government is invariably the best distribution method for the public good. One need only look to Zimbabwe or even China to understand the error of this logic.

hahainternet 13y ago
> That's wrong if I can find a single counter example. The same isn't true of my position. It's true my statement was brief, but I have made that position more clear. It's not that government is always good, but in the present UK and US situations, the state funds a number of support programs which are horrendously underfunded. I don't think any reasonable person could justify cutting social benefits or healthcare coverage, and so my position outlines itself. Good programs like these should be funded until poverty is eliminated. There's plenty of money around to do it and Apple having $55b instead of $50b in investments would change nothing for them, and everything for hundreds of thousands of poor people.
- bmelton 13y ago
  "I don't think any reasonable person could justify cutting social benefits or healthcare coverage, and so my position outlines itself." Plenty of people have very convincing arguments for doing both. More to the point though, many who argue at cutting those types of services at the federal level aren't necessarily insisting that they should be cut altogether (though obviously there are those that do). My personal belief is that the federal government is the American federal government is the least efficient possible organization you can give your money to, for any reason. I would feel much more comfortable paying that money directly to charity (of which I donate considerably to, also which don't include loans to my friends, which by the way aren't tax deductible either way), or failing that, would rather pay it into a state funded initiative, where the dollars will be kept closer to home and be more efficiently spent according to the needs of the state. Obviously this works better in small states like Maryland than larger ones like California or Texas, but it still allows them more control to exercise than something handed down from the federal government.