The nature of this discussion is changing for me. That is, the nature of what interests me in it is changing.
I find myself becoming less interested in my original question, and more interested in the phenomenal barriers to communication that human beings will erect when having a discussion of political philosophy.
I’m going to explore this further — maybe even in my Sunday column. But in the meantime, let me share this post on The Shot, which was responding to this post of mine. And then, let me share the comment I wrote on that blog:
First, to whom am I speaking. Is this Tim, or Casen? These multiple-hand blogs are confusing to us lone-gunmen types…
I’m about to do a post, when I get caught up with real work, about "The Cognitive Barrier." It’s a profound problem, and it seems to get even more in the way when we deal with broader philosophical issues such as this.
Here’s what happens — I write something. It’s bound to provoke people, but I want them to engage what I’m saying, and help me understand them better. I’m not interested in one of those tit-for-tat name-calling contests you usually see on blogs. I’m careful in how I state my position so as to make sure I’m being completely clear as to what I mean, because I’m talking to people who seem to have a very different set of assumptions from mine, so you can’t assume understanding of portions of your points. I can’t use shorthand, and I certainly can’t use slogans. I’m not going to dress up what I say to make it more palatable; I’m not selling. My one interest is in being clearly understood so that the honest response I get helps me in understanding.
And what do I get? Well, one thing I get is a lot of favorite bumper stickers and battle cries from the adherents of the philosophy I’m questioning — you know, the sort of taunts that members of a gang toss out so that the other members of the gang will be impressed, and say, "That’s tellin’ ‘im, man."
But that’s not as bad as this — having people come back at me NOT with what I said, or with what I believe, or anything I have ever even thought, but with what they would LIKE for me to have said, because they have an answer for THAT that they think works very well.
And the cause of understanding, of synthesis, of people who disagree learning to communicate so that maybe they can work together to solve something, is set back. I take a step forward, and I find us two steps back, making me have to work even harder to explain what I said before we can even get to better understanding what the OTHER guy might want to say in response.
The above is an example of that. For instance, "What you want is for a third party (government) to forcefully remove the fruits of another’s labor and give to those, who just as easily could have been making the money." Really? I didn’t know I wanted that. I didn’t say that or think that. So why are we talking about that?
And excuse me, but who the hell are you to tell me what I want, when I just told you what I want, and it wasn’t that?
"you love the idea of government controlling your retirement" — Say what? What do you base that on? What did I say like that?
Here’s what I said, and what I keep saying: What I want is to abide by a system of representative democracy. I want us to deliberate, through our elected representatives, of how to address all issues that involve us all as a community — provide for the common defense, etc. If we decide through that process that we will pool some of our income so that those who slave away all their lives at low wages won’t starve when they’re 75, then that’s what we’ll do. If we decide that everybody’s on his own, then everybody’s on his own. If we decide just to give money to people who’ve never worked a day in their lives, then that’s what we’ll do. Ditto as to whether contributions will be voluntary, involuntary, in a "lockbox" or in private accounts. All of these things are open questions to be dealt with through the political process. May the best ideas win.
Of course, if you lose the political argument, you do live under the agreement that was reached. You don’t get to opt out. Oh, you can move to Sweden, or Somalia (depending on whether you prefer civilization or a true State of Nature). You don’t have to be a part of the community. But if you live in the community, you will abide by these rules and policy decisions, whether you advocated them or not. To say you should not have to do so is stupid and childish, period. If you don’t like the outcome of the debate, and you want to live in the community, there’s always another election coming within two years. State your case.
But the question raised by my post wasn’t about any of that, so all of the words I just wrote were simply extra work to try to get us back to the starting place:
Never mind what kind of governmental system we should have. It’s established that it really bothers you for anyone — other than someone you have personally approved — to enjoy any fruits of your labor. No, let me define that more clearly — Doug Ross said that. He said any system that does NOT expect him to contribute toward anyone else’s retirement.
Let’s say he’s right, or let’s say he’s wrong. Never mind that. What I want to know is, WHY does he feel that way? WHERE does that powerful "don’t touch it; it’s MINE" impulse come from?
Everybody has it to some extent. If you’re hungry, and here are the nuts and berries you gathered, you don’t want somebody taking them all away — at least, not before you’ve had your fill. But what Doug says, and what libertarians espouse, goes so far beyond that fundamental survival instinct. He seems to say — and I stand here fully ready to be corrected on this if I’m misstating it; I’m TRYING to understand it — that he doesn’t want ANY of what he’s gathered to go to ANYBODY unless he specifically decides himself whether that person should have any.
He can have it that way if he wins the political argument. All I’m asking is WHY does he want that? It’s a powerful impulse that goes far beyond anything I have ever felt. So help me understand it.
Related Posts
I wonder how many of these Libertarian types realize the Internet, on which they spend so much time pressing their simplistic philosophy on others, would not exist in its present form without massive government investment.
Brad,
Maybe it’s not just the rest of us with the communication problem. I already said that I would have no problem with a government welfare program like Social Security for widows, orphans, etc. I have never complained about the sales taxes or income taxes I pay. I mostly complain about property taxes and social security taxes because neither system makes any sense in terms of fairness.
I think I’ve made my positions very clear. My beliefs are based on the observation of a government that is very inefficient, bloated with expenditures on programs that I don’t believe are the responsibility of the government, and loaded with people in positions of power who are motivated by personal self-interest. I’ve given example after example to support that belief and your response boils down to “hey, that’s the system the voters want, lie back and enjoy it”.
And a word of advice… I’d avoid this topic in your Sunday column unless you want people snoozing in their Wheaties. Who cares why people like me think what I think? My view of the world is as far out of mainstream as your view of the Iraq War.
I’m a libertarian pacifist Christian middle aged white male who has a zero tolerance for stupidity and hypocrisy.
For someone like you who has been condescendingly dismissive of the libertarian view of the world for so long, maybe a better column would be to try and figure out why my views bother YOU so much.
kc,
It’s a little bit of a stretch isn’t it to presume that the internet could not have been created without the government? Sure, it came out of a goverment project but the explosive growth of the internet is a result of free market capitalists willing to invest and innovate in expanding on the technology.
And, anyway, that’s the kind of stuff a government SHOULD be doing – defense, roads, infrastructure, etc.
The Internet, HTML, browsers, TCP/IP, and the Ethernet were all invented by a handful of individuals. The first implementation was by engineering faculty who used these inventions to link Duke, UNC and NC State computers.
The federal government expanded it for military research and collaboration, and I was one of the users in text mode for that and medical research from 1986 until 1995. Then the entrepreneurs brought graphics and browsers to the masses.
The government portion is only a tiny contribution built on the shoulders of all the chips, computers, languages, networks and applications created by private individuals, for fun and profit. It doesn’t require much faith to believe that the market could not have provided the piece funded by DARPA.
Today, the government is gone, and the phone companies and private parties run all the explosive growth of web services that have appeared since the text-mode days when the government ran a small network.
Brad
You perceive a lack of communication because you’re not getting the answer you want.
You keep starting with the premise, “What I want is to abide by a system of representative democracy.”
What you are hearing is that many of us fundamentally disagree with that premise. As Jefferson said and you concurred, the rule of democracy is the rule of the mob. Then you said, well that’s not what Jefferson, or Churchill for that matter, really meant. That’s precisely what they meant.
You are arguing that to build a community we must concede that decisions are best made by elected representatives. That is fundamentally not true, and slavery may be the prima facie example. Just because representatives in the democracy said that slavery was legal for four score and some odd years did not make slavery any less evil. You said Jackson made the country more democratic, which is true. Then he exiled the Cherokees on the Trail of Tears. So much for the virtues of representative democracy.
What Doug said is, “I am not responsible for paying the retirement for somebody else.” That is true. That the representative democracy of the mob can extract money from him under penalties of imprisonment does not make him any more responsible for others’ retirement than representative democracy made slavery or the Trail of Tears moral.
You are arguing that if the representative democracy says Doug is responsible, then he is responsible. That is not true. You disagree with me on that, so your rebuttal is to accuse me of being idealogical and therefore blinded to the truth, the very kind of name calling you say you detest in others.
Here’s where I come from. The best community is one with the maximum freedom for individuals in it to love and care for one another without the heavy hand of government being necessary. When we have to take an up or down vote, in an important way the community has failed to resolve its differences through a more productive consensus. It’s better than us launching suicide bombers at each other, but it’s still pretty crappy way of making decisions in the best interest of the community. That’s what Jefferson and Churchill were saying.
And my freedom ends at the tip of your nose. I agree with you that sometimes the government can ask me nicely to stay out of your face, and sometimes it must insist on it at the point of a gun. But, as Thomas Paine said, the government is at best a necessary evil, and at worst an intolerable one. So to the extent possible the government ought to stay out of the way.
One thing we do agree on is that our disagreement on some things doesn’t make either of us wrong. You have the trunk of the elephant, and I have the tail. Our ability to disagree without being disagreeable and so manage to come to better solutions, for the most part, because we approach the world from diverse perspectives is the magic that makes America great. It’s that civility that we must passionately guard, because its existence is not a given.
Brad,
Will you “abide” by the will of Congress (and therefore by the will of the American people) when the decision to withdraw the troops from Iraq occurs sometime in the next three to six months? Will you write a “The people have spoken, let’s move on”
column?
How is your view of Congress on that topic different than my view of the government as a whole? Why are your hot button issues any more valid?
Our elected officials voted to put the Confederate flag in front of the State House. Salute it!
Our elected officials voted to not require more strict laws for kids on ATVs. Embrace it!
Our elected officials established a statewide lottery. Love it!
Our elected officials created the laws that allow predatory lenders to thrive. Celebrate the power of democracy!
That’s what you want me to do, right? When I find aspects of the government I disagree with, I should just be proud to be an American.
Brad, you are charging others with arguing for a particular point of view based on a set of ideological covenants, not on facts. Yet you do EXACTLY what you accuse others of doing. Here’s what you said about Iraq occupation opponents:
“How we should proceed with regard to Iraq should not be determined by our opinion of President Bush. The best course in Iraq is not dependent upon personal regard for the president. Success in Iraq isn’t about Bush. Iraq isn’t about Bush. Iraq’s not about Bush. It’s not about Bush!”
-Brad
You assume that many in the anti-occupation movement do so simply because they hate the president. I find that insulting. Perhaps a tiny minority do that. With 70% of the people in the country opposed to the occupation I’m sure a few would do so because of an irrational hatred of the president. But by an overwhelming margin the occupation is what has driven down the approval rating of the president, not the other way around. Remember, the president’s approval rating hovered around 90% at one point. That suggests that at most 10% of the population “hate” the president.
What’s more, it’s exactly the type of comment that you claim to abhor. I view it as a partisan statement. How else could it be taken.
Just a comment sitting in an airport trying to get home, but I’m coming increasingly to the conviction that we’re an increasingly infantile society, Brad. Infants can’t really communicate or engage the ideas and thoughts of others, because they can’t see anything beyond their own very limited perception. I think it basically lies on the concept of immediate personal gratification (i.e., infantile) as the underlying principle of everything. You’d think that the Europeans would be similar, and in some ways they are, but perhaps a greater emphasis upon corporate responsibility in their system holds them more accountable to each other. I’ll have to think about it some more.
Brad, I admire your idealism, your conviction that the kind of discussion you crave is possible in this format. In my experience, the only way to have a substantiative online discussion on any subject is to carefully select the participants.
There are several ways to accomplish this: make comments invitation-only, use a comment rating system (e.g. Digg, Slashdot), ruthlessly vet comments, create rules for posting and enforce them with an iron fist (e.g. Television Without Pity).
Or, you can try to target your blog toward a different audience. Reach out to other bloggers who have the sort of readers you want and get linked by them. Create posts that are not enticing to trolls and demagogues – of course, this could alienate some of your other readers, too.
I really do hope you find a solution. I read your blog every day, but I admit I almost never read the comments exactly because of the problems you describe.
Here’s today’s perfect example of why certain people go into politics… key quote is at the bottom. I’m more impressed by people who become rich outside of politics and then decide to run (Steve Forbes, John Edwards, Mitt Romney, hopefully Bloomberg), than those who somehow manage to get richer during their tenure or shortly thereafter.
AP SANTA FE, N.M. – Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson, who once joked he was the poorest member of President Clinton’s Cabinet, has seen his personal finances soar since leaving the federal government in 2001 as energy secretary.
Richardson has enjoyed as much as a 10-fold increase in assets after working in the private sector for two years as a consultant, lecturer and corporate board member — including for energy industry companies — and then as governor of New Mexico since 2003, according to a review of federal records by The Associated Press.
Richardson’s assets are worth at least $3.5 million and up to $10.2 million, according to a financial disclosure filed in May with the Federal Election Commission.
He exited the Clinton administration in January 2001 with more modest holdings.
His assets then totaled between $350,002 and $750,000: a condominium in Santa Fe worth at least $250,001 and checking and money market accounts with a minimum value of $100,001, according to a financial disclosure filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. Richardson wasn’t required to include in that report the value of a house in Washington, D.C., which was his residence at that time. The house was sold in late 2003.
As governor, Richardson receives a yearly salary of $110,000.
In May, Richardson reported holdings in residential and undeveloped real estate in New Mexico valued at $1.7 million to $6.5 million; and from $1.7 million to $3.7 million in mutual funds, bank accounts, IRAs and stock in an oil company that he’s since sold.
“Even a couple of years outside of government can enrich you far more than many years of working in government,” says Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics. “Especially if you’re an outgoing Cabinet secretary you can pretty quickly amass some income and wealth because you’re sought after as a corporate board member, a public speaker, just generally as a consultant to the interests that you used to oversee.”
You know, I think bud has more trouble hearing what I actually say than anyone here, and he’s not even one of the ones I’m arguing with. Before I move on, I’ll just say this again: bud, the point of the column wasn’t that most people opposing the war oppose it because they "hate" the president. Yeah, that’s true of a lot of people (and not a "tiny minority"), but let’s come back to that — my point was that it’s very hard to have a rational conversation about this issue when the folks framing the "debate" in Congress and on the 24-hour TV news keep speaking of it NOT in terms of what we should do in Iraq, but in terms of whether members of Congress are or are not "supporting the president." My point is, who cares how they feel about the president — do they support what we’re doing in Iraq? Last time I checked, the president wasn’t even in Iraq. Gen. Petraeus and a whole lot of other soldiers, sailors and marines ARE. Do we support the Petraeus plan that they are implementing? That is the relevant question, and it’s far more likely to produce a real-world pragmatic answer than the extremely politically loaded question, "Do you support the president?"
I think part of the disconnect is that you think the conversation is about polls, or what the majority of Americans is thinking or feeling at a given moment. I’m more concerned with what is going to HAPPEN, and that means studying what’s going on with the people who are going to DECIDE what happens.
Certainly, there is an overlap, in that members of Congress happen to be overly concerned with what polls are saying at a given moment. That’s no way for elected representatives to be making decisions in a republic — to edge back toward what this thread was about. Think about it. If you go by polls, you invade Iraq in 2003. Did you think that was wise? Isn’t it better for elected delegates to take a far deeper look at the situation and decide on that basis, rather than holding their fingers to the political winds?
And going thumbs-up or thumbs-down on the basis of whether it means "supporting the president" or not is just as dumb as governing by the polls of the moment.
Anyway, look back at what I wrote. You’ll see that what I just said is what the column was about. This passage was a sort of "nut graf," to the extent that there was one with regard to Iraq:
But the really MAIN point of the column is set out a little lower, in this graf:
And of course, when we’re talking about representative democracy, we’re not talking about polls. Polls are about direct democracy, not a republic.
Well, that took awhile. Now I need to wrap up things at the office and head home. I’ll have to get to Doug and the rest later.
Lee wrote:
Most, if not all those “entrepenurs” were directly or indirectly beneficiaries of government funding.
… my point was that it’s very hard to have a rational conversation about this issue when the folks framing the “debate” in Congress and on the 24-hour TV news keep speaking of it NOT in terms of what we should do in Iraq, but in terms of whether members of Congress are or are not “supporting the president.”
-Brad
There may be many ideas for Iraq but the plan that currently prevails is the president’s plan. It keeps things simple for news folks to simply, and correctly, link the two together. There are numerous other plans but the incumbent plan is the president’s. If someone suggests they support the president they are essentially in agreement with the way we are currently conducting the occupation. If someone opposes the current policy they may or may not have a different plan but they are nevertheless concerned enough that the current plan is failing to oppose the president and his plan. Support or opposition to the president is a very rational way to view this issue. Why is that hard to understand?
Every single day, we can find an example of our government wasting money in an inefficient way that only the government can.
Here’s today’s:
WASHINGTON – The Agriculture Department sent $1.1 billion in farm payments to more than 170,000 dead people over a seven-year period, congressional investigators say.
—
A billion here, a billion there… pretty soon we’re talking some serious money.
See, Doug and I can agree — let’s ditch the farm subsidy system.
But finding incidences of inefficiency and outright stupidity in government doesn’t make the libertarian position right. What it means is that government is a relatively transparent thing that we can do something about.
The private sector is not. The inefficiencies are harder to dig out, and much harder to do anything about.
On another post (or was it higher on this one?) Doug gave a long list of scandalous governmental behavior. A number of them were revealed in this newspaper, and much decried here. The point is to expose them, and do something about them.
Of course, I’ll match ANY of them against my adventures with private medical insurance — an industry that is built on this business model: Make the red tape, and the contradictions, and the wasteful layers, so incredibly frustrating that eventually the client will go away and forget the claim.
Sometime when I have more time than it takes to write a column, I will summarize my adventures with one item alone — my efforts to avoid thousands of dollars worth of surgery and other therapies for allergy and sinus trouble by taking Zyrtec. It was a strategy that worked until the insurance company decided that I didn’t need it anymore.
It’s quite a tale.
Brad,
I’ll await your Zyrtec story. I know it’s expensive since my wife takes it but our insurance does cover it and it only costs $15 a month.
My suggestion in a previous post on the healthcare topic was that two things the government COULD do that wouldn’t cost any tax money would be to:
1) Go back to the days when prescription drugs could not be marketed on TV and in magazines. Those costs go directly to the consumer.
2) Shorten the drug patent length from
what is now 20 years (I believe) to something more reasonable like 5 years.
Access to generics would significantly drive down healthcare costs.
Otherwise, I believe the only other solution is for me to adopt you and put you on my healthcare plan 🙂
Could I have my own room? And a TV?
Seriously, I think those are two good proposals — worthy of discussion, anyway. But more would have to be done. Drug companies are already finding dodges around losing patents. I got a prescription last week that was generic, and my co-pay was more than 80 bucks for 30 pills.
If you want to get rid of farm subsidies, start with the newest ones… for ethanol production.
The subsidies for ethanol have created a huge market for corn, used up the corn surpluses, driven up the price of corn, and now are removing other grains from production, which is driving up all feed and food prices.