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The incentive is to not be "controlled" by the big bad government monster. Obviously the businesses have no concern. I understand your point of view, but to believe that the government's actions are solely for control and not for the interest of the people is not being truthful. T

So, back on topic, sort of. On the rare occasion that I watch anything on FX (really, it's just for Archer at this point), I see these really annoying commercials from the creatures at Fox news demanding I switch satellite providers so I can get their channel back. I kind of laughed at the first one, but now it's getting a bit creepy. Like, Fox news creepy. I keep expecting some dumb *** redneck to drive a muddy '70s era truck through my yard and take out my dish.

Edited, Jan 13th 2015 6:33pm by Turin

Sigh. I said it may or may not harm me. You even bolded it when responding the first time. Do people just not freaking read?



Yes. Just as a subsidy to a company harms me. The increased profits the company experiences as a result may or may not harm me (probably will not though).




Sigh... Because in one case, I'm talking about the action by the government. In the other, I'm talking about the result to the individual or business. I'm harmed every single time the government hands my tax dollars to someone. I'm not harmed by that someone receiving the money. Get it?

It's not "gay people getting money" that harms me. It's "government handing gay people money" that does. I get that this may seem like a subtle point to make, but it's important when talking about *why* a given thing is opposed. I don't oppose subsidizing gay marriages because I hate gay people, in the same way I don't oppose subsidizing industries because I hate the industries. I may oppose those things because it's my money being given to them.

Why does this matter? Because if the counter argument is "You must hate gay people because you oppose the government giving them money", it kinda matters to point out that it's not about the person receiving it, but that the act of giving it causes harm to me (because it's my money, right?). The base condition is to not provide subsidies at all. Creating them should be the exception, not the rule. Thus, I may agree with a subsidy if and only if the absence of the subsidy harms me (or society as a whole) in some way that outweighs the harm of the subsidy itself. The benefit to the individual or organization that may receive the subsidy isn't part of the consideration.

This is why when people ask a question like "how does gay people getting married hurt you", I always respond by pointing out that this is the wrong question. It should be "how does gay people not getting married hurt you?". Because the base condition is not to subsidies things unless failing to do so causes more harm (to me or society) than the subsidy itself. Thus, if gay people not getting married is causing me harm, I'll agree with subsidizing gay marriage. This is, in fact, precisely why I'm ok with subsidizing the marriages of opposite se.x couples. Them not getting married harms me. Gay couples not getting married does not. Hence my position on the issue.

Same deal with business subsidies. Again, it's not about liking or not liking the business which receives it. It's *always* about whether the effect of the subsidy causes some benefit or prevents some harm (to me or society as a whole) which justifies the cost/harm of the subsidy itself. Following a logic that requires that we assess whether we like someone or not is a really really really dumb way to do this. And when you accuse people of not liking some person or group if they oppose a given subsidy/benefit/whatever that is exactly what you are doing. The worst reason to support a subsidy for a group is because you're afraid of being called a bigot towards that group if you don't. I'll leave it up to you to noodle out why.


Does that make sense? I honestly feel like I've explained this, at length, dozens of times in the past on this forum. But it seems like every time a topic comes up that touches on this methodology, people act as though they've never heard it before. Is it that I'm not being clear enough? I just don't know how much more clear to be. It's not about the benefit to the recipient. It's about the benefit (or reduction of harm) to the rest of us. I don't support free ponies for 10 year old girls, not because I hate 10 year old girls, but because not giving free ponies to them does not harm me/society sufficiently to justify the cost/harm of providing them. I don't personally care one way or the other whether a given 10 year old girl has a pony or not and I think that obsessing over that aspect of the issue is the wrong way to determine a course of action.

Edited, Jan 13th 2015 3:42pm by gbaji

He uses a very, for the lack of a better word on my part, retarded, definition of the word "harm".

Not at all. You guys aren't getting it. They all harm me. The question isn't whether or not the government spending my tax money harms me, but whether the thing they are spending it on either benefits me/society or reduces some other harm to me/society to a degree which justifies the cost/harm of the government action. I thought I was really freaking clear about this. Why can't you grasp this?

Every time the government spends a single dollar, it harms me. Every. Single. Time. And every dollar harms me to the same degree. Get it?


That harm is only justified if the thing that the money is spent on either reduces some other harm or creates some benefit to me that is greater than the harm created by spending the money (technically, by taking the money from me that they spent, but that's assumed here). How many times do I have to explain this? It's really not that hard of a concept to get, but it's like I'm talking to brick walls here. The harm is constant regardless of what you spend the money on. The harm reduction and/or benefit may therefore vary based on what the money is spent on, and that in turn can affect the decision to spend that money, but we have to start with "spending money hurts us", or we can't make rational decisions.

Turning it into an emotional argument based on whether I like or dislike the person/group/thing that the money is spent on is a terrible argument to use. Tell me what the harm is to me if I *don't* spend that money. Then we can assess whether the cost is worth it. There's no other sane way to make this sort of decision. You don't buy food because you don't want to discriminate against food, do you? You buy food because if you don't, you will go hungry. Thus, spending money on food is justified because the harm from spending the money is less than the harm from going hungry (usually). This is not exactly rocket science I'm talking about here.

The difference between private and public money, of course, is that you own your own money yourself and can make whatever decisions you want about it. Public money is owned collectively by us all, so we need to all agree on what we're spending money on. And this is why with public money it's even more important to be firm with the "no spending unless really necessary" rule. But it's just strange that most of you can't even seem to grasp the basic fact that spending harms you by default. It's not "free" guys.

Are you differentiating between "subsidies" and taxes going toward things (e.g., abortions) or are they viewed conceptually the same?

This is where your argument becomes suspect. What is the general rule to determine the harm? If you provide an objective and measurable determination (regardless if others agree), then there's no problem with the structure of your argument. However, if it appears that your rule is subjectively determined based on what you like, then your argument is structurally flawed.

Hold on now before you start jumping to conclusions. I'm giving him a chance to provide an objective determination that isn't based on his emotions.

I understand that just fine. Hence the "sad and pathetic" remark, because........../drumroll......that's sad and pathetic, America-hater.

I'm harmed every time I read a gbaji post.

I only point it out because the folks arguing for some spending don't bother to argue that it's a net benefit, and the second you start talking about net cost/benefit, they start calling you names. Surely you can see how this isn't encouraging, right? If I thought for a second that the liberals on this board actually looked at "net" anything, I'd be happy as a clam. But they don't. They see "program A benefits group B", and conclude that failing to fund program A means they hate group B, and they don't want to be seen as hating group B, so they get on the program A bandwagon.

I don't see people judging these things on net cost Joph. That's the problem.



Not when someone keeps insisting that we should climb Mount Everest because there's a candy bar up there that will give us energy, it's not. I continually run into arguments from the Left that range from ignoring the cost of something, to sometimes even insisting that there is no cost at all. So forgive me for not believing that you guys are actually taking a net result into account.

Um... Each action should be judged based on the action itself. But the cost factor is constant. Well, sorta, there's another aspect to this, but it's hard enough to get people to grasp "spending cost 101", so I'm trying not to go too fast.

The base condition is "don't spend any money on anything". Period. All spending, and all government action should be by exception, not rule. What I mean is that we should not start with the idea that "government should do X, Y, and Z" because that's innately subjective. We start with "government does nothing". Then, we argue and debate and decide to allow government to do X, and then Y, and then maybe Z.

You're getting too far ahead of the concept I'm trying to get across.



Do you mean the harm from the cost of the spending itself? Um... It's more or less the dollars spent (again though, there's another factor, but we can relate it to dollars spent easily enough).

If you mean the harm caused by the absence of a subsidy, that's a whole different subject.



Measurable is a bit unfair. What units do you use to measure the benefit to a society for creating a system which ensures a K-12 education for all citizens? Or an interstate highway system? Or a military? How do we measure the costs for not having those things? We could endeavor to assign dollar costs to these things, but I'll leave that up to the bean counters.

The "objective" part is a lot easier (if maybe not as specific as you may like). The rule should be that the benefit to be gained, or harm avoided should be measured (again, to the degree it can be) by its effect on the whole of society, not just groups within. For example, we should not measure the value of a public education system by the value gained by those who receive the education, but rather by the value gained to all society because they have it. So instead of looking at the increased labor value of an educated person compared to an uneducated one, we should look at the value to the rest of us because those people are educated. We'll have lower crime because more people are earning a living instead of stealing it. We'll have a more skilled work force, so our nation will be better able to compete in technology and science fields rather than just performing lots of manual labor. There's a host of benefits to the whole that arise from having a more educated population, right?


The reason you do this is to avoid the "vote for my own benefits" problem that democratic societies can fall into. If the decision is based on benefit to the recipient of the government spending, we'll soon find ourselves in a circle jerk of benefit providing. Each group agreeing to vote for benefits for other groups under the understanding that they'll reciprocate. I also happen to think it's unsustainable in the long run. If instead, we judge whether to benefit group A, not based on whether group A wants or needs that benefit, but on whether group A receiving it creates some change to society as a whole that benefits us all, then we avoid the problem. We can make rational decisions about spending and avoid making it about playing favorites, and who we like or dislike.

And when you look at this rule, you find that it fits a lot of the things we traditionally choose to spend money on. Some of them better than others, of course. But as we get into programs that the Left has pushed over the past 50 years or so, we find more and more of them fall into the "benefit group A because we want to please group A". And I find that problematic. Doubly so when faced with supporting arguments like "if you oppose funding for benefits to group A, then you must hate group A". That's ugly. And it's exactly the kind of favorite playing that a free society should attempt to avoid.

We should all be equal under the law. But when you get into the realm of government spending, and adopt the "if you don't fund X, then you must hate group X" approach, you're also effectively targeting that spending based on who you like (and I suppose how much you like them). And that creates inequality. We enter into a system where what you get is determined by the group you are in, and what sets of government benefits that qualifies you for.

I think that's a really horrific way to do things. And it all starts by mistakenly adopting the idea that funding should be based on whether we like or dislike the group that benefits from the funding. If, instead, we base it on whether the rest of us benefit from that group being funded, we can make much much better choices. And yeah, objective choices. At least to the degree that we can apply objectivity here.

Edited, Jan 14th 2015 6:54pm by gbaji

Oh. Let me add, that this is arguably the primary difference in government spending thought between liberals and conservatives. It's why we don't tend to connect on the issue at all. Liberals tend to make spending decisions based on how the spending will benefit a given group. The problem is that they also tend to project that decision methodology onto conservatives. Thus, if the liberal is supporting funding for group A because they like group A (or feel sorry for them for some reason) and want to help group A, they conclude that a conservative who opposes that funding must do it because they dislike group A, or have a lack of sympathy for them, and want to hurt group A. Which leads to the "sad and pathetic" comments.


And that's why I spend so much time trying to explain this. We conservatives aren't looking at whether funding something benefits group A. We're looking at the value to society as a whole if we help group A in this manner and comparing it to the cost of the help. It's an entirely different way of looking at this. I happen to believe (as I mentioned above) that's it's the correct way, but even if you disagree, you should at least accept and acknowledge that this is how conservatives like myself view these things and come to decisions about them. We don't oppose funding for things because we hate the groups that the funding would help. You have to stop assuming that conservatives are just the flip side of liberals. We're not.