Subject:
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Re: Why the founding fathers limited government scope (was Re: Rolling Blackouts
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sun, 13 May 2001 04:07:19 GMT
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Viewed:
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902 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> Also, your scenario where the poor are herded into huge patches of ground so
> that they can have bad roads far from the rich
> was presented in a similarly self-evident tone. And I don't think it's so.
Ah, now I see. My reasoning proceeds from the idea that, as roads
deteriorate, wealthy communities are able to afford the upkeep without
curtailing their spending on food, rent, and clothing. Poorer communities,
faced with deteriorating roads, will have to choose between fixing those roads
and feeding themselves. Naturally the more immediate needs will take
precedence, so the roads will fall further into disrepair, therefore costing
still more money to fix, and therefore becoming increasingly unlikely to see
genuine maintenance. I presented the example as self evident because it
follows in a very straightforward way from the idea that roads cost money to
fix, and certain communities have money to spend on road repair without
sacrificing necessities, while other communities do not.
> > Your first byte here underscores that the
> > wealthy will be guaranteed a position to make themselves more wealthy, and
> > your second byte illustrates how the poor will be guaranteed to remain poor.
>
> And this is unlike our current system how? Or any other system?
You're basically asserting that the flaws of your proposed system are okay
because the same flaws in the current system are bad. Further, because your
proposed system by definition eliminates the social structures designed to
distribute the costs of societal necessities (roads, et al), your system seems
deliberately to guarantee that the poor will in short order become serfs, and
the wealthy will become lords.
> > Perhaps the money "they didn't spend on roads" was needed to fund such
> > luxury items as food, clothing, and rent.
>
> Absolutely. I'm sure that would happen sometimes. Where are you going with
> this?
See above. In being forced to choose between immediate needs and future
needs, people are almost invariably going to try to meet the immediate. You
referred to money "they didn't spend on roads" in a tone that suggested the
money would have been spent frivolously, whereas I am attempting to illustrate
that limited money must meet immediate needs. The wealthy, who by definition
have more disposable income, can afford to meet immediate and not-so-immediate
needs simultaneously.
> > How many tanks can Microsoft afford to build? How many stealth fighters
> > can Disney afford to maintain? Unless there is a formal coalition between
> > private military organizations (and I can't wait to see the KKK-funded
> > military machine!), there is no way that a private army can realistically be
> > maintained at a level competitive with the state military of a powerful
> > foreign government. Further, would you trust the Microsoft War Machine? We
> > can't go one week on LUGNET without someone (often quite reasonably) griping
> > about some aspect of Gates Hegemony.
>
> Our nation could afford as many units of military manpower and hardware either
> way. The same number of dollars would exist right?
I don't know that that's the case; the aggregate cost of maintaining an army
with private funding seems certain to exceed the costs of a publicly-funded
military, if only because of the scope that military manufacturing contracts
can achieve versus the smaller (at any one time) budgets of private
organizations, or even a coalition of them. Could Microsoft, Disney, GE, and
Coca-Cola really afford to put forth this year's US military budget while
maintaining their respective businesses?
> Presumably companies would coalesce to form large mutual
> back-scratching organizations, would train together, and
> would be prepared to work together in case of real threat.
That is a horrifying scenario, and nothing will convince me that the first
relative king of the hill won't put himself in place as dictator under the
auspices of corporate security and the good of his employees/ subjects/
constituents. Further, I don't believe that, once they're given carte blanche
to ready their own armies, every company won't try to scratch its own back by
exerting its power to gain a larger market share.
That may sound paranoid, but if there are guys holed up with their 2nd
amendments truly in fear of the government's improper use of force, I don't
think it's much of a stretch to suspect private military powers of similar
goals of power.
> Private military units work in other parts of the
> world and in other parts of US history. Why not now?
But not on anything like the scope necessary to defend the world's dominant
economic power, if a well-armed nation should choose to attack it.
> > In any case, I'd love to see the data on this study
> > of a no-doubt representative sample, both of professional soldiers and of
> > militia members.
>
> My guess is that this is kind of vitriolic sarcasm. What's the point in that?
> or have I misinterpreted? I never purported this as any kind of "study." It
> was clearly an anecdotal description of my experiences. But frankly, I have
> discussed military life with dozens of people (I spent 1.5 years of college in
> ROTC) and coming from a vanilla middle-class background many of my peers
> became servicemen. Even I went through the entire enlistment process and only
> backed out at the last possible second because they were trying to screw me in
> my guaranteed job assignment. I'm not speaking from complete ignorance.
Sorry--too much acidity. I just don't believe anecdotal exposure to a few
(even a few dozen) motivated individuals can give a reliable assessment of the
comparative readiness and efficiency of a milita compared with the publicly
funded military. Perhaps if both groups could be presented with a powerful
external aggressor (or even pitted against one another in open combat) we'd get
a better sence of their relative effectiveness. I don't mean that flippantly,
either; all speculation about militia readiness is speculation.
Dave!
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