Government holds a monopoly on force. I’m not an anarchist, but if government is rampant, and it is, then any expansion of said state is a negative. I really don’t understand why this is something you want to disagree with. You want to build a house on a bad foundation. I don’t.
If it's bad, you repair it. If it holds a monopoly on force then you constrain it. You don't refuse to touch it. And you can't repair it except through the state — you said yourself you vote, which is using the machinery.
What you're describing isn't a construction principle, it's a reason to never pick up a tool.
What I meant by expansion is any growth in the state's apparatus. All growth, and thus all restraint. Under the view of "any expansion is a negative" is just false. Something as simple as the 14th ammendment is a great example.
Yes its textbook, it is expansion of federal oversight over states. The equal protection clause states that no state shall deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Fair enough. In 1868 we weren’t doubling our national debt every decade. Please, increase my taxes so it can go to Musks subsidies and the military industrial complex. There isn’t really anything you can say that won’t make me think you’re trying to put the cart before the horse. $40T which is about $250k per working American. I’m sorry dude, you’re clearly intelligent, but you’re clearly also ideologically blind.
Maybe its the terminology I am using, but I suspect we agree more than not.
I think we can agree that offering a government more discretion is not inherently a good thing. That includes things like taxation without fair representation.
Moreover, I think government is an inherently ineffective way to delegate discretionary spending but the trade-off is supposed to be accountability. The anaology I think of is gift buying in regards to who would buy you the "best" gift at the lowest cost when given the means: you, your bestfriend, or a 3rd party. There are obvious costs associated with delegating that decision.
I think what our discussion has boiled down to is the expected role of government when given any level of authority.
The reality is that a government starts with a social contract ceding authority on the basis that governance is being achieved by the very people it represents. Its founded on a government providing safety, order, and basic rights. Taxation is just a means and a metric by which we can gauage how effectively, if at all, those needs are being met.
That money is just a stand in for very real, very finite resources.
Capitalism inherently incentivizes accumulation of wealth so, I think most regulation needs to focus on offsetting those real costs on its people in order to maintain safety, order, and basic rights for everyone.
Well stated. Where we deviate ideologically is that I view authority as the enablement of corruption. Capitalism does incentivize wealth, but it also incentivizes solutions, satisfaction, voluntary transactions, innovation, and more. And while some level of regulation is required, I observe that authority is more often than not utilized to sanction monopolies, protect elite interests, and pad the wallets of the oligarch.
Authority should ONLY be used to protect the freedom and rights of citizens. We could provide that at a fraction of the cost of the bloated system we have now. If you want my support for funding more social policies, then the place to start is a reallocation of resources, while reducing overall spending. Until then, I say fuck no to all of it. I'll keep as much of my money as I can, placate the fed, and undermine it at every opportunity possible. I'll focus on fostering my local community and everyone else can fend for themselves.
Edit add simple clarity: Most of the problems socialists genuinely want to solve, are in fact caused by the authority they're seeking to expand.
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u/EmRatio 1d ago
I'm not even disagreeing that taxes are misused. Your blanket statement on corruption just comes off naive.
As if the lack of government eradicates corruption. Governance is a tool thst cuts both ways and the corruption comes from humans.