Worthless and Weak

First of all, I was going to start with a short though process about government spending, but it soon became one huge amount of words, so I'll put it at the end, so you don't have to bore yourself with it.

Now, on to my life. First of all, I have found a very funny site, and I think you should all visit it. So click here!!!

Secondly, there is an issue that I really wanted to resolve today, but I never got the chance. Grr!!! This really annoys me, but I really can't do anything about it. That doesn't mean that I have any excuse for not doing it, but anyway. Grr!!! (two grrs in the same paragraph, I must really be mad).

Thirdly, there are other things that I've been putting off, and I need to do them soon. But I have nobody to blame but myself for these, however, the upside to this is that nobody really cares but me. So, it all evens out in the end.

I have lately began to have my faith in humanity slowly restored. I always thought that people are basically good, albeit idiots. However, I'm beggining to see that people might not have been as stupid as I thought they were. So bravo humanity!

Finally tonight, I'm ever so slowly delving into politics. Now, I have previously made pledges to myself never to go into politics on my site. So, before I start into politics, I want to explain what I've got against politics, and why I have decided to start today. For starters, I used to be a little boy with all the answers. I knew exactly what was wrong with the world, and exactly how to fix it. I was just about ready to get my own talk radio show. However, I came to the realization that I'm not the smartest person in the world. That there should be honest disagreements, and that I don't necessarily know all the answers. Now, this doesn't mean that my opinions have changed at all, or that I have become less intense in holding those opinions, but it does mean that I have become open to the fact that my opinions are just opinions, and I should challenge them. I have also seen that I have yet to convince anybody anything, anybody who would listen to anything I have to say is either a: already agrees with me, or b: is my oposite, and is just waiting to get into an argument, and his opinion cannot be changed. So, therefore, I believe I should spend more of my time listening and thinking, and less of my time yelling. So, for the next part of what is probably my longest post to date, I don't mean to yell, or to even convince you of anything. I was simply something that got me thinking, and I'd love it if you would think about it, and perhaps send a thoughtful e-mail to garyl_2000@yahoo.com. I must warn you, I will not respond to any "flames." Send them if you must, but they won't have the same effect that an intelligent e-mail will.

Delving into political issues, I will attempt to prove, through the use of logic, that the generic liberal platform, and the idea of a wellfare state, are bad ideas. Now, please keep in mind that this is purely an exercise in ideas, I don't want to say that anything here is conclusive proof of anything, only that I think this is an interesting thing I thought of, and I would like to share it with everybody. So, without further ado, here is my argument.

First of all, I'm going to define what I call the "liberal platform." It is the idea that a government should tax its citizens in order to provide non-public goods, such as health-care. I will define the conservative platform to be that government spending should only go towards public goods, such as roads and defense, which a person cannot be prevented from using. Now, lets look at it this way. When dealing with roads, a person cannot be prevented from using a road. Its pretty much open, I can drive a car on a road, and nobody is going to stop me. (there are of course exceptions, such as toll roads, but for the purpose of this argument I'm going to ignore those). Health-care, on the other hand, a different matter altogether. If I'm sick, doctors/hospitals can refuse to treat me if I can't pay. Exactly like a grocer can refuse to give me food if I can't pay, or a landlord can evict me if I fail to pay my rent. Now, with all of these things, the government isn't needed. Now, in a world without government, one could say that there would still be hospitals, apartments, and grocery stores, because all those things can be paid for by the individual. Roads, however, wouldn't exist to the same extent. It isn't to any individual's advantage to build a road, only when society as a whole comes together and builds a road are there advantages. Now, again a group of individuals coming together might not work, because of free loaders, who would take advantage of everybody else's contributions toward the road fund. Therefore, I say that it is reasonable for the govnerment to pay for things like roads, defense, street lighting, etc,, while it is unreasonable for the government to pay for things that the individual can pay for, like education, health-care, or new cars.

Some people could argue that some things should be considered public goods, because by helping less fortuneate people, we are reducing crime or helping the economy, and therefore these things should be considered public goods, as everybody benefits from them regardless of whether or not they contribute towards them.

Up until this point I haven't made any real contribution to anything. This is all well-known economics. Now, let me wander off in my own direction, although it will take me away from the realm of economics.

The argument for public education and healthcare is a simple one. People should be entitled to those things, they need them to live in a society, and we should, out of the goodness of our hearts, give them those things. I agree with that, however, I question the role of government in those things. There is absolutely nothing stopping me from contributing to a chariety, or doing work myself that will help individuals less fortuneate than I. Now, you might say that there wouldn't be enough donations. However, I contend that there would be exactly the right amount of money going towards the charities. Each person would give what he or she thinks is the right amount, for the right charity. Thus, there is no danger of the govnerment overtaxing the people, and the amount that we give to charity is the exact amount that society in aggregate believes should be given to charity.

Now, the counter-argument is that people aren't good enough citizens. That we are inherently greedy/evil, and therefore need to be told how to behave towards others. This may in fact be true, we, as human beings, are pretty terrible people. However, aren't the people who would be recieving the tax money just as evil as the rest of us? So, one might argue that the government can only have a mandate to give to charity if humanity is evil. However, the government shouldn't give things to evil people, and therefore they can never have a mandate to give "to charity." Now, one might argue that the second part of that is invalid, that even if people are evil, they are still human beings, and have rights and such because of their humanity. Now, this is getting very abstract, and is therefore very hard to deal with completely logically, but I will try anyway. Now, you can say that humans deserve rights in one of two ways. First, because we as a society give them those rights. Secondly, that there is some universal thing that is bigger than humanity, a universal moral code, if you will. Now, speaking to the first instance, as society we would be giving these people charity in the exact amount that we believe they are human, in the method that I described before. On to a universal moral code. Let's ask ourselves, why would the government do a better job of adhereing to the univeral moral code than humanity?

Well, as you can see I'm taking a quick break to start a new paragraph, seeing that I haven't started one in a while. Logically, assuming that there is a universal moral code(which, because I'm using it a lot, will now begin to abbreviate using UMC), lets look at the role it plays in government. Now, government is run by people, either through democracy, and elected officials, or through some sort of a non-democracy, but as always the government is in some way run by people. Now, if we assume that people are evil, we can see that government's would be just as evil. In a democracy, there would be no reason for people to vote for good. If they are selfish, they would just vote their pocketbooks. In non-democratic governments, chance plays more of a role. So, we should ask ourselves, is there any instance that a government would attract rulers who are better at conforming to the UMC than other govnerments? Certainly, we can say that there are a few of these. Theocracy, for examply, would probably attract the best of society to become its leaders. However, other forms, such as military rule, might attract less attractive members of society to the ranks of government. Now, I'm going to ask a different question, what is the chance that such a government will exist. Now, we can assume that if people are evil, then they will be either working against or neutral towards creating a government attractive to the UMC. Therefore, the chances that any random government will be better than society cannot be higher than the chances that a government is worse or equal, unless of course the universe is structured in such a way that the UMC plays a role in deciding what the government is, either through direct intervention, or through the structure of the universe.

Now, I'm going to stop arguing shortly, because I have a feeling that this could go on all night. So, I shall end this argument saying that if the UMC directly effects the government, then it can be scientifically studied, and until we have scientific evidence saying one thing or another, we shouldn't subsidize healthcare, or education.

Now, to summerize my position, society can determine the amount of resources that need to go towards charity without government intervention, and government cannot reasonably and repeatedly do a better job than individuals in conforming to any universal moral code, and therefore there cannot be any reason to support government funding for a non-public good.