Are Republicans finally facing reality?

[IBCoupe]

Then let society gravitate toward socialist policies in the private sector, see if that happens. The market would conform to that model if it were the tenable solution. Its not. Stop using the force of government to push solutions that arent tenable. If it takes force to make it work, its not going to work long term.

You've basically just said the same thing I just responded to. Once again: WE TRIED THAT ALREADY.

The private sector failed to address this issue, at least not in any really efficient way - "Hey, disease means more money for hospitals! It'll be taken care of." "Hey, burst pipes means more work for plumbers! It'll be taken care of."

Here's what I wrote on the Z32 boards:

Where the free market works, it works very well. Where it fails, it fails spectacularly. It's all about incentives, broskies.

The private sector has no incentives to induce preventative measures, especially when it comes to helping the elderly. The people you're going to help aren't the most convenient people to help, because there are often health and safety concerns that open you up to liability for doing so. Plus, the endeavor is risky: hard to get paid when your client dies, which old people tend to do in droves. Plus, there are incentives for not doing anything - plumbers could use the work, and hospitals could use the profits.

We decided, as a society, that the transaction of living past 60 in exchange for living in poverty was undesirable. So we instituted Social Security. We did so, because it was the private sector and free markets that initially established that transaction. Now, if you don't like Social Security, you go ahead and find something that will work. Telling us to go back to the thing that didn't work before isn't going to win over any hearts or minds.

[stebo0728]

Was the incentive there before? I wasnt alive so I dont know. Did people then even care about their future? With the great depression behind, another war looming, perhaps they didnt even think they had a future to worry about, I dont know. Assuming the incentive was not there before, does that mean it does not exist now? This leads to an interesting train of though I've been on lately. Perhaps in some areas, a temporary government program is required to springboard the private sector market. We saw this with space. The private sector wasnt all that concerned with space before the government took on the mantle of pioneering space. Now we see the private sector doing it faster, and cheaper in some areas. Perhaps it took a SS program to fail in order to create the incentive for the private sector to wake up. I dont know, again its just a train of thought I've been on lately.

[IBCoupe]

The only reason the Private Sector is cheaper in space flight is because they haven't had to do the initial R&D, because the Government already financed it.

And the Social Security system hasn't failed, and won't fail. There are some minor changes that need to be made to make sure it doesn't fail within the next 20 years, but that's all they are: minor changes.

The incentives still aren't there. Old people will still die. Old people are still fragile. There are enough industries that would benefits from old people suffering (by providing remedial services at a fee) to get in the way of preventative measures to ensure that the suffering does not take place.

[telcoman]

Because we were tired of "old = broke."

Then start saving for your own retirement, show a bit of personal responsibility. I understand the old folks now wanting to get their "investment" back, as they should. But what makes the government think they are in any better or smarter position to "invest" our retirement money than we are ourselves? Thats the essence of individualism. But you also have to be able to watch those who dont take responsibility for themselves face the consequences, not jump to their rescue with other people's money. Let private charity, those who give their money WILLINGLY come to their aid, not the money forced from the hands of others.

OASDI is much more than just a retirement program.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Sec ... ed_States)

Lets just suppose you go to work one day just like almost 3000 people did on 9/11 and never came home.

How do you think the spouses and children of those who were killed survived?

Can you say OASDI

If a file cabinet fell on top of you at work and you became permanently disabled and could never work again what program would save your a**?

OASDI

And if you are fortunate enough to make it to full retirement age after working for 40+ years again

OASDI will be there for you.

Telcoman

[HashiriyaS14]

Then let society gravitate toward socialist policies in the private sector, see if that happens. The market would conform to that model if it were the tenable solution. Its not. Stop using the force of government to push solutions that arent tenable. If it takes force to make it work, its not going to work long term.

The private sector is made up of divergent interests acting to their own benefit, with precious few exceptions. Left to it's own devices, it is incapable of any significant amount of altruism. It is always cheaper for the individual to insulate themselves from societal trauma than it is for them to fix it. Unregulated capitalism will always reward the winners and allow for the destruction of the losers with, effectively, no safety net of any kind.

That said, powerful governments want little more than to be more powerful, with precious few exceptions. While what I said in the first paragraph is TRUE, most tyrannical governments throughout history have used these truisms to rise to power on the shoulders of society's losers so that they might take from society's winners. Handouts are popular, popularity leads to power, and so those in search of power are almost always going to be pro-redistribution.

The bottom line is that there has to be a middle ground. You *cannot* let the winners win and the losers lose without any sort of safety net or you'll end up with the Cuban communist revolution, public shootings, and heads on pikes in the town square.

There is a LOT of misery in this world that is suffered by people who have not brought it upon themselves, something that conservatives frequently overlook. Most humans like fairness, and there is only a certain amount of "not-at-fault" misery, death, and poverty that any given human population can tolerate. This is why we will always have safety nets. At the same time, there is only so much redistribution that people can tolerate, because the same sense of fairness tells us that effort should be rewarded and sloth should not.

All societies are ultimately governed by mob rule in some form or other. If you're going to be a member of society, ANY society, it means that you are going to have to be OK with some aspects of your life being shaped by the aggregate average opinion of that society rather than by your own as an individual.

This means that liberals cannot ignore individual liberties the way that they'd maybe like to, and it means that conservatives cannot ignore their social obligations the way they'd like to, both because they share a society with many millions of people who disagree with them.

[IBCoupe]

Curse you and your sense-making! Why can't you just leave me to my Marxist fantasies?

[stebo0728]

As "Randish" as I've been lately, I do understand where you're coming from Hash, and I agree that there is some middle ground that can be found. But I have questions, not necessarily questions to be answered here, but such questions as:

Should the government be placed in the position of mediating the safety net? Government has the unique ability of acquiring revenue at the point of a gun. Using this power to remove wealth from someone is a big deal. When removing sufficient wealth to fund appropriate functions of the government, this is understandable, but we MUST be diligent to always question whether something is an appropriate function to be funded by force-ably seized wealth.

How do you truly determine things such as need and ability? This is especially key in measures like unemployement funding. How do you ensure that the system does not get milked by inaccurate assessments of need or ability?

You are right that there is much misery. How do we encourage people to rise above their misery rather than succumb to a life of mediocrity and welfare, to die at middle age, with nothing to show for their time here? Thats been my point all along, how much of the equation to you attribute to someone responsibility for themselves. A safety net is for someone walking a tight rope, in case they fall. What about all the people who dont even try to walk the line? Who never take a risk and end up on minimum wage their whole lives. Are they our responsibility?

[IBCoupe]

Stebo, when you can pick them out of a line-up, those questions will be more weighty. It's like the challenge I put to certain other libertarians. You think we have too many laws? Here's the U.S. Code; pick a law that ought not be and we'll debate it.

Until you can identify the people who aren't even trying, you're just jousting windmills, Quixote. It's really easy to say that moochers are bad, but if you admit that non-moochers incrappy situations deserve help, then you've taken on the burden of distinguishing between the two.

[HashiriyaS14]

As "Randish" as I've been lately, I do understand where you're coming from Hash, and I agree that there is some middle ground that can be found. But I have questions, not necessarily questions to be answered here, but such questions as:

Should the government be placed in the position of mediating the safety net? Government has the unique ability of acquiring revenue at the point of a gun. Using this power to remove wealth from someone is a big deal. When removing sufficient wealth to fund appropriate functions of the government, this is understandable, but we MUST be diligent to always question whether something is an appropriate function to be funded by force-ably seized wealth.

How do you truly determine things such as need and ability? This is especially key in measures like unemployement funding. How do you ensure that the system does not get milked by inaccurate assessments of need or ability?

You are right that there is much misery. How do we encourage people to rise above their misery rather than succumb to a life of mediocrity and welfare, to die at middle age, with nothing to show for their time here? Thats been my point all along, how much of the equation to you attribute to someone responsibility for themselves. A safety net is for someone walking a tight rope, in case they fall. What about all the people who dont even try to walk the line? Who never take a risk and end up on minimum wage their whole lives. Are they our responsibility?

All this comes back to "where do we draw the line".

How do we tell who's trying and who's not? How do we tell who's abusing the system and who's not?

You can't deny everyone based on the possibility that some MIGHT be doing wrong, but you can't very well cover everyone on the basis that some need it either.

The private sector has no motivation to address the problem, and so they will never be able to deal with it. All private entities (effectively) act in a self-interested fashion. It is in no single individual's best interest to help the "losers" except for the losers themselves. The mob (society) as a whole, however, has apparently decided that there needs to be a safety net and that it should be administered by government, they just can't agree on precisely how.

Make no mistake about that last point however. If you poll the whole of the United States, the existence and continued government administration of social security are firmly supported by the majority. This is your society, and if you're in the minority, you kind of have to suck it up and just hope you can eventually swap people to the contrary, you can't opt out unless you leave the society entirely.

[telcoman]

This election on May 24th may indicate which way the wind is blowing


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/nyreg ... ndex.jsonp

Telcoman

[stebo0728]

And another issue, I breeched it in my "Benevolent Dictatorship" thread, is, lets assume that we have just flat decided that these social programs are absolutely necessary, and that they are to be funded with tax payers revenue. Could these social programs be worked into a system where private sector contractors handle the administration of the service, with the government's only role being funding, and possibly some sort of oversight? This plays into the system I've conceived, where all services are rendered by private sector contractors, with 2 year bids, and congressional oversight. I wont spell it all back out, but you can go read it in detail back in my other thread. Certainly I argue against the necessity of such programs, but I also argue the efficiency with which these programs are administered as long as we have them. Could the private sector do better, i believe so, some may disagree.

[IBCoupe]

I'm not sure what the benefit to doing it that way would be, Stebo. For example: Medicare currently operates with less than 2% overhead. Were we to voucherize, as Paul Ryan advocates, we'd be throwing, at best the 2% overhead from the government onto the 20% private sector overhead. The system, in that kind of blend (not sure if that's what you had in mind) becomes markedly less efficient.