Subnostr

But Trey, I thought you were a progressive and love big government!

False, sort of. I’m 100% for the government enshrining into law at a federal level protections and freedoms for all Americans over things like healthcare, lgtbqia protections, gay marriage, abortion access, etc.

I am for really effectively managed social safety net programs (which I’ve seen first hand are not effectively managed).

But I am not for increased government bureaucracy and government managing projects that are headed suited, in a liberal, capitalist democracy, for private intentions or private/public partnerships at the very least.

Communist China runs public transit really well because they have complete authority and control. The U.S. is not structured in the same way (and god I would never want that) so it should not aspire to these ends via the same means as China. nostr:note1r773uzx5rjgx39cdh0uu0a0x78wqtug09l23chr23zrdsug5l0zqgvxmt6

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Discussion

Kuzushi 2y ago

IMHO the "how big a role should our government play?" Conversation is kind of secondary to "Do our institutions represent the will of the people?" If the answer to the latter question is no, then even when the government does nothing they do it maliciously. This is why the laissez faire discourse never touches the root of the problem in American politics, and effectively becomes arguing in favor of the status quo.

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

Do you believe in consensual human interaction or do you think taxation is acceptable to fund welfare?

Kuzushi 2y ago

That's a leading question lol

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

Why’s that?

Kuzushi 2y ago

Who's gonna say they don't believe in consensual human interaction? And is fundin welfare necessarily the opposite of that? Taxation feels like rape when the people doing the collecting don't care about you and your community and would rather spend on bombing and pillaging foreign countries to enrich themselves, but if it were just citizens pooling their resources in a direct democracy would it really be that bad?

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

Yes. A majority vote doesn’t make it moral to take money from the minority.

An intellectually honest person would say that they don’t believe in consensual human interaction, if they believe in taxation as a means to fund welfare.

Welfare would be most efficiently administered if it was a private business, which everyone who wanted to participate in voluntarily chose to.

Kuzushi 2y ago

Well no taxation would be entirely consensual in a functioning democracy, that's like the whole point of voting. And it's private interest groups that use their wealth and influence to render the US' democracy a farce, where the peoples money is just being poured into imperialism and nepotism. This is exactly the point I was getting at with my initial reply to Trey idk if you read that.

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

I play poker with my friends often. Sometimes, one friend wins the vast majority of the money. As a joke, I’ll say “let’s vote on whether [Ben] should keep his winnings, or whether we should redivide it and keep playing.

Almost everyone votes to redivide it. Would that mean that [Ben] is consenting to his money being taken?

Majority rule doesn’t make theft a just system, and it doesn’t protect individuals or small minorities from exploitation.

Also side note: America is a constitutional republic, not a democracy.

Kuzushi 2y ago

Poker is a game, a beautiful one at that with well aligned incentives. In the real world our system is broken, and the people next to the money printers are exploiting that. I think that the current welfare system is a bandaid on a bullet wound designed to perpetuate poverty, but the people who are on it need it and just gutting it would be profoundly irresponsible. Ideally I would like to live in a world without taxes, but that would require generations of rebuilding our governments and economies into institutions that genuinely serve our best interest. At the end of the day I think you're asking the wrong questions and these questions have been deceptively fed to you by your enemies. Is taxation theft? Obviously it is now, because our government is run by thieves. Why can't we oust them? Where did our tangible democratic rights go and how did they become so useless? Well, follow the money. Look at who's benefitting from it all.

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

Ok, I actually do agree with this take.

I try to look far ahead and I base my ideology on a future Bitcoin world, but I have no problem with printing fiat money and handing it out to poor people.

The problem I have is that the tax system is structured in a way where the middle class and average worker pays the highest percentage by far. It’s pretty painful for me to be hit with almost 20k in tax bills considering I’m 22 and a pizza cook.

I think the only politically palatable way to fix this is to lower all taxes, hopefully as close to zero as possible, and then embrace money printing until people switch to a Bitcoin standard.

Jonathan 2y ago

Perhaps one of the best explanations I've seen on different approaches to the "rule of law" is in chapter 6 of Hayek's book "road to serfdom". Much to long for me to summarize here but I appreciate his approach to the problem.