🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug5.221146.24012@mercury.unt.edu>, ian@ponder.csci.unt.edu (Ian Parberry) writes:
|>> 
|>> There's at least one skeptic on the net.  I salute you.
|>> Let me continue to act as Devil's Advocate.
|>> Here are my axioms.
|>> 
|>> 1.  We're paying very low taxes.
|>> 2.  The money is not spent the way it should be.
|>> 3.  There is waste and fraud.
|>> 
|>> I think 1 is self-evident from a comparison with other countries (not that

Nothing self-evident about it.  In fact, what is self-evident is that having
roughly half of of our respective incomes stolen by various levels of govern-
ment is utterly outrageous.

|>> there aren't exceptions, of course).  I don't think there's much to be done
|>> about 2, since we all have different opinions about how the money should be
|>> distributed.

There are lots of things to be done about it.  The current system to a very
large extent attempts to undertake -- and forcibly demand we pay for -- a
mathematical union of all the idiotic ways the politicians can think of to
spend other people's (our) money.  How about considering a system that tries
to limit government activity to a mathematical intersection of these notions?

How about a system that splits the national budget into two groups, the those-
things-without-which-the-country-won't-survive group, and the maybe-nice-and-
maybe-we'll-do-it-someday-when-we-can-afford-it group?  The first might have
stuff like the defense department in it, and would be supported by taxation;
the second would have everything not in the first group and be supported by
voluntary donations.  Maybe everything should be by volunatry donation: after
all, if this is truly a democracy, the assumption is that the majority of the
population really wants the politicians to spend all this money, and would
voluntarily send the government 'n' thousand dollars a year.

|>>               The real problem is 3.  It's not that we hate to pay taxes,
|>> it's that we hate to see our money frittered away.

Wrong!  _I_ hate to pay taxes, and not just because the polidiots waste most
of the money.  Mostly it's because _I_ want to make the decisions on what to
support.  I want to make the decisions on what charities my money supports,
on whether to reward artists for their efforts, on which research efforts to
help fund.  I'm _very_ tired of having all these decisions wrested from me by
HUD, HEW, NEA, and the rest of the acronymic governent.  If I want to support
a charity, I'll write a check to the Red Cross, or whoever; if I want to
help a starving artist, I'll by some of his/her work; if I want to support
some research, I'll mail a donation to the Free Software Foundataion.  But
I want the decision to be made be _me_; not some oily, over-paid, geek in
Washington.

[...]

|>> 
|>> I'll say it again.  This is a great country.

|>> The taxes are low.
                               Wrong.

|>> The service is reasonable.
                               The "service" is excessive, inefficiently
			       applied, over-bearing, intrusive, frequently
                               unnecessary, and not infrequently detrimental
			       to the welfare of the public it is intended
                               to serve.

|>> People who complain about taxes without
|>> going out and doing something about it are childish -- they don't realize
|>> how good they've got it.  Those who actually do something about it are
|>> even worse -- they're costing us money.
|>> ____
|>> Ian Parberry ian@ponder.csci.unt.edu (817) 565-2845 Dept. of Computer Sciences,
|>> Univ. of North Texas, P.O. Box 13886, Denton, TX 76203-3886
|>> "Bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of an expanding bureaucracy"

-- 
IBM pays absolutely no attention to my	|   "Hell hath no fury like a
opinions, ergo the foregoing cannot	|   bureaucrat scorned."
possibly represent its position.	|     -- Milton Friedman
                                            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Christian H. L. Moller                      My .sigs are randomly selected from
                                            my .sigs directory, but this one is in
					    lovely apposition with Mr Parberry's.