Be sure to narrow this sentiment down to the Executive Government. It costs more to enforce the closures of the parks and memorials, than to simply keep them running... That the Administration is doing it anyway means, they aren't trying to trim the operations to the "essentials", but to cause pain to the greatest number of people.
Various memorials and parks are being forcibly closed — despite it costing more to enforce the closures, than to keep the facilities operating (which may be why the same facilities remained in operation throughout all previous government-shutdowns). One ranger is quoted by a news paper: "We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting."
Likewise, various government web-sites are displaying "we are closed" pages instead of the actual content. If, in fact, they had to be shut down due to lack of funds, the servers wouldn't be responding at all. That they do work (and promptly) means, their services are sabotaged by order of the Administration.
Obama may not be a very good Executive under normal circumstances, but he is certainly vicious... Or someone else in his close circle is...
when you stop voting to spend "somebody else's money" on police, roads, fire services, etc.
Police — and other law-enforcing efforts (such as courts and prisons), as well as, before you mention it, maintaining and operating the military, are all explicitly-stated responsibilities of the government under the Constitution.
Road-building and fire services — not so much... Welfare, cellular phones (for the poor), school lunches and food-stamps — even less.
Nobody was left unemployable by lack of a WC or at the times, air travel, telephone, PC, or car.
As a matter of fact, having a PC or a car — and knowing, how to use them — did make the owner more employable, but I see your point: let's keep all children worse educated, or else, heaven forbid, some of them may turn out more employable than others...
In the case of the telephone, the government did step in, but not to block it but to make sure everyone could get one.
Exactly. Rich parents... Because only the rich can afford to both pay for some other kid's public-school education and their own child's private schooling. The public school system does not have real competition because of this — and that is exactly why its cost climbed up four times in fifty years (inflation-adjusted — nominal increase is 25-fold), while the quality is, if anything, only worse.
has everything to do with the fact that they write the checks in public schools. [...] So government doesn't prevent a method from being adopted at all.
Being the check-writers is an enormous power. Various rather restrictive and freedom-infringing federal laws begin with ".... receiving federal funds...". Throughout the (short) history government having this power, it was (ab)used to enforce lower speed-limits ("States receiving federal funds to maintain public highways shall...."), to coerce registration with "Selective Service", and, of course, quite a few details about schools.
It all seems perfectly fair — after all, if the recipient does not like the strings attached, he can refuse the things, they are attached to, can he not? Except that he often can't — the funds in question have already been confiscated from him (or her, or it) and the only way to benefit from the program is by complying with the additional rules. Or, of course, to forgo the benefits and pay for an alternative in addition. Which is why only the rich can afford it...
In this particular case, if this particular official's opinion prevails — that structuring the schooling based on individual child's (expensive) assessment is "bad", prevails, the check-writing authority (Department of Education?) can issue the same sort of directive, banning public schools "receiving federal funds" from using the program. And yes, they can do that, even if the new assessments themselves are paid for by other means. For example, religious schools already have problems getting public funds even if the actual classes on religion are optional and funded separately.
The infrastructure for plumbing was paid for by the gov't.
The local city governments paid for their infrastructure. But this is off-topic anyway — even ancient Romans built the viaducts to bring-in water, yet the water-closets made a leap from a rich-only item to mass-use within a generation. Thanks to the power of Capitalism...
So where the roads that made cars more than interesting toys.
Again, local governments (and private companies) built the roads — long before automobiles were even invented. And they were invented in Europe, but it required true Capitalism to make them affordable for the masses.
And telephone lines.
There were plenty of private telephone lines long before (federal) government decided to give AT&T the ill-devised monopoly (which they had to wrestle back through the courts some decades later). And, unlike with plumbing or roads, telephone wires were entirely privately-owned. For a while there were competing phone-companies (such as "Bell" and "Home") — a grocery store or a hotel would have multiple sets for the patrons to use (for a fee).
I think the problem we have with the $30,000 bill is that it's so high that the only way it'll ever be more than a toy and a curiosity is if the gov't steps in to fund it
Ford-T cost $850 in 2013 which is over $20k in today's dollars. Had there been more people like you back then, the government might've stepped in to fund it, and the price would've remained the same — or climbed up slowly. Fortunately, the US was healthier back then and it did not happen — by the 1920s, the price had fallen to $260 because of increasing efficiencies of assembly line technique and volume.
If research is focused on a few rich kids, it's being directed away from somewhere else.
Yes... If there are only 10 pairs of pants available to 20 people, then 10 people will be without pants, no matter, how you divide them — by race, creed, or by charging high prices. However, if you choose the latter model, charging the high prices will help paying the tailors to sew ten more pairs in short order. And it will encourage one or two tailors to come up with a more efficient method of making them too.
If, instead, you distribute the 10 pairs available by government decree (fixing the prices, of course, to prevent "profiteering"), the shortage of supply will remain for ever.
Then they trot out the old: "Economy's not Zero Sum" and call it a day.
Darling, whatever you say. Until you can explain, reasonably and without name-calling, the existing fact, that public school education costs four times more than it did in 1962 (inflation-adjusted), with no measurable improvements in quality, your method of paying for public education shall remain as discredited as its results.
How very fortunate, then, that you can't vote to spend somebody else's money. You can only vote on how to spend public money.
Before it became "public" it was somebody's — someone was forced (at the implied gun-point) to pay taxes. In other words, public money is someone else's and your attempts to make a distinction are in error.
The selfish pricks agreed to being taxed and having that tax money be controlled by representatives
Yeah, perhaps. The point was to stop the name-calling — and the grandstanding. Unless one spends his own money, one is not compassionate. Similarly, one not wanting to spend public money on somebody else's foo shall not be called a villain, who wants to take foo away from others.
You don't get to agree on a deal and then call your debtor a thief when he comes collecting.
When two wolves and a sheep vote on what's for dinner, the sheep does get to call wolves murderers...
I don't really consider myself entitled to tell other people, what to do. I just don't want to pay for their mistakes.
Sadly, this attitude is not shared by this country's current rulers (especially, but not only, the Democrats): while they are happy to tell everybody, what to do, they want me to pay for any mistakes anyway.
All of that being said, I am 100% on board with getting our books balanced.
Balancing the books is a related, but distinct problem. The Socialist reality remains in the objective figures — you can't explain the growth of government's spending by mere inflation, because the figure is already relative (share of the GDP). When the politicians decide, how to spend 45 cents of every dollar spent in this country, it is a very serious problem even if the budget is balanced.
And you need to deal with the Socialist attitudes — in Congress, Senate, and on this very page numerous people are asserting, basically, that my not wanting to pay for somebody else's foo (be it education, food, healthcare, cellphone, TV) is equivalent to my wanting to deprive them of it. And they think themselves benevolent and compassionate, when the vote to spend my money on their causes...
Anyway, I don't see how expanding programs from 30+ years ago really qualifies as becoming a leftist state.
While you may be right in that there have been no significant qualitative changes, as Stalin once put it, "quantity has a quality all its own". If only a tiny sliver of the population is collecting tax-funded benefits, you are Ok. But, once that sliver expands beyond a certain threshold, it becomes bad.
But food stamps is just one example. The best measure of how far Socialism has crept upon a country is to look at how much of the GDP is spent by the governments (federal and local)... And by that measure we are looking pretty sad.
Also, it sounds like you only want wealthy people to have children. Just another way the wealthy is keeping the poor down
Raising a child is a majorexpense. With modern contraception methods it is rather irresponsible for people, who can't afford it, to have children.
Wanting them to not do it is not "keeping the poor down" — it is dissuading the poor from making a mistake. There is nothing wrong with it — especially for those, who will, likely, end up paying the poor's bill...
It is not "compassion", if the poor and the sick are provided for by the government. No, it is not. You can not claim to be compassionate, if you are spending (voting to spend) somebody else's money — however just and noble the cause.
If it really is just and noble, then you should have no problem persuading people to donate to charity(ies) meant to address it.
And if you can not persuade the selfish pricks (your fellow countrymen) to support a particular cause, forcing them to do it at gun-point (via the IRS) is not "compassionate"... It is patently dishonest.
Those with an extra $30K get evaluated and get a tailored education, the rest get a one size fits all education.
There was time, when a watercloset was a luxury only available to the rich. Or a personal automobile. Or air-travel. Or a telephone (first wired and then cellular). Or a personal computer...
If government blocks adoption of foo until even the poorest can afford it, we'll never have it at all. Fortunately, with all of the items I listed, the government was not really in a position to block adoption.
Unfortunately, with innovative education methods it is...
And unfortunately, one tends to get what one expects.
Yeah, that must be why Soviet Union and other Socialist/Communist governments, which could only function with omniscient and benevolent rulers, did so well...
If you think the data that the gov't has on you isn't leaking out of their servers all over the place, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.
Though I'm not at all certain about the IRS, I'm fairly confident, that getting financial data about me from the FBI would be harder, than from the bank itself.
Give you a history of a larger income than you declared on taxes
This can not be done with the level of access an ordinary user has.
Or they could show you made payments to an online purveyor of kiddie porn
This can be done, yes. But it is already known, that electronic banking is not fool-proof and a person claiming, their account was accessed by an impostor, will be believed.
Or they can simply withdraw all the money leaving you stranded. But what they can — and do — instead is officially freeze your account(s).
and guess what they'd find when they seized your computers.
Interestingly enough, the US did not do that to Snowden. And although the attempts to manufacture "rape" accusations against Assange do ring a bell, no SSL keys were involved in that.
I doubt that your health insurer right now would ask for anything more than a polite request from law enforcement to voluntarily turn over anything requested.
Maybe yes, maybe not. However, with centralized records the government will not even have to ask. The least scary abuse of this convenience would be for an incumbent (with ready access to such information) to schedule a speech or some other political event, when some major opposition figure is having a surgery.
It's not just the FBI that can see it though. Once the system is compromised, the compromise is out there and discoverable by any number of malicious agents - Russian mob, Chinese competitors, your psycho ex-boyfriend or whoever.
But it is not compromised. FBI requests the key — for anyone else getting it out of that agency may be even harder, than from the bank itself.
You're like the Roman empire -- in decline and oblivious to it.
Roman empire fell apart not because the government was monitoring the citizenry too closely — exactly the opposite. The broke into two (the Eastern half surviving for another thousand years, BTW), because the means of communications and control then available simply weren't sufficient for a country of that size.
Their government structure, unlike ours, also was not up to the task of running such a big country and could only work, if all rulers were wise and benevolent. Ours, on the other hand, expects no outstanding qualities from the people in charge...
So, while I share your dissatisfaction with America's recent developments, I don't think, we are anywhere near collapse.
As such, no U.S. company that relies on SSL encryption can be trusted with sensitive data.
I'd say, my banking is still reasonably safe even if FBI can see, what I'm doing. There is simply nothing there, that they (or the IRS) can't get through traditional means. My banking secrets haven't been secrets for the government (unless the banks are abroad) for a long time — but smaller-time crooks are still kept away by SSL.
When/if the national healthcare is implemented — despite our fiercest opposition — medical history will be similarly "safe".
E-mails and like communications are a different story — for now...
Finally, what this also means, is that the government still does not have the means of breaking SSL — they wouldn't be needing the keys otherwise. Which is comforting...
Nope, no need. While happy to report the proceedings and the action, mass media was very critical of the Iraq war and happy to report any slip-ups — however minor — by the government or the military.
Nowadays they are mostly cheering for the President — and many have gone to work for the Administration outright. But, with any luck, that will all change again in January 2017.
Not all conspiracy is in a smoke filled room. Sometimes it's just going along with the gag when you know something is screwy (AKA accessory to a crime).
Being an accessory (especially by a mere omission), is vastly different from being part of a conspiracy...
You might be surprised how much doesn't get reported at all because it's the sort of thing that get you un-invited to press conferences.
I know, what you mean, but the talk was about those times (2000-2008), when dissent was still patriotic (rather than racist) and the media was duly skeptical (if not outright hostile) towards the government...
Slashdot Mirror
Be sure to narrow this sentiment down to the Executive Government. It costs more to enforce the closures of the parks and memorials, than to simply keep them running... That the Administration is doing it anyway means, they aren't trying to trim the operations to the "essentials", but to cause pain to the greatest number of people.
Various memorials and parks are being forcibly closed — despite it costing more to enforce the closures, than to keep the facilities operating (which may be why the same facilities remained in operation throughout all previous government-shutdowns). One ranger is quoted by a news paper: "We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting."
Likewise, various government web-sites are displaying "we are closed" pages instead of the actual content. If, in fact, they had to be shut down due to lack of funds, the servers wouldn't be responding at all. That they do work (and promptly) means, their services are sabotaged by order of the Administration.
Obama may not be a very good Executive under normal circumstances, but he is certainly vicious... Or someone else in his close circle is...
Police — and other law-enforcing efforts (such as courts and prisons), as well as, before you mention it, maintaining and operating the military, are all explicitly-stated responsibilities of the government under the Constitution.
Road-building and fire services — not so much... Welfare, cellular phones (for the poor), school lunches and food-stamps — even less.
As a matter of fact, having a PC or a car — and knowing, how to use them — did make the owner more employable, but I see your point: let's keep all children worse educated, or else, heaven forbid, some of them may turn out more employable than others...
Yeah. And thus created the AT&T monopoly on phone service, that had to be broken-up through years of law-suits... Aren't we lucky, they didn't do it to cars, for example, which dropped three-fold in cost on their own instead...
Exactly. Rich parents... Because only the rich can afford to both pay for some other kid's public-school education and their own child's private schooling. The public school system does not have real competition because of this — and that is exactly why its cost climbed up four times in fifty years (inflation-adjusted — nominal increase is 25-fold), while the quality is, if anything, only worse.
Being the check-writers is an enormous power. Various rather restrictive and freedom-infringing federal laws begin with ".... receiving federal funds ...". Throughout the (short) history government having this power, it was (ab)used to enforce lower speed-limits ("States receiving federal funds to maintain public highways shall ...."), to coerce registration with "Selective Service", and, of course, quite a few details about schools.
It all seems perfectly fair — after all, if the recipient does not like the strings attached, he can refuse the things, they are attached to, can he not? Except that he often can't — the funds in question have already been confiscated from him (or her, or it) and the only way to benefit from the program is by complying with the additional rules. Or, of course, to forgo the benefits and pay for an alternative in addition. Which is why only the rich can afford it...
In this particular case, if this particular official's opinion prevails — that structuring the schooling based on individual child's (expensive) assessment is "bad", prevails, the check-writing authority (Department of Education?) can issue the same sort of directive, banning public schools "receiving federal funds" from using the program. And yes, they can do that, even if the new assessments themselves are paid for by other means. For example, religious schools already have problems getting public funds even if the actual classes on religion are optional and funded separately.
The local city governments paid for their infrastructure. But this is off-topic anyway — even ancient Romans built the viaducts to bring-in water, yet the water-closets made a leap from a rich-only item to mass-use within a generation. Thanks to the power of Capitalism...
Again, local governments (and private companies) built the roads — long before automobiles were even invented. And they were invented in Europe, but it required true Capitalism to make them affordable for the masses.
There were plenty of private telephone lines long before (federal) government decided to give AT&T the ill-devised monopoly (which they had to wrestle back through the courts some decades later). And, unlike with plumbing or roads, telephone wires were entirely privately-owned. For a while there were competing phone-companies (such as "Bell" and "Home") — a grocery store or a hotel would have multiple sets for the patrons to use (for a fee).
Ford-T cost $850 in 2013 which is over $20k in today's dollars. Had there been more people like you back then, the government might've stepped in to fund it, and the price would've remained the same — or climbed up slowly. Fortunately, the US was healthier back then and it did not happen — by the 1920s, the price had fallen to $260 because of increasing efficiencies of assembly line technique and volume.
Yes... If there are only 10 pairs of pants available to 20 people, then 10 people will be without pants, no matter, how you divide them — by race, creed, or by charging high prices. However, if you choose the latter model, charging the high prices will help paying the tailors to sew ten more pairs in short order. And it will encourage one or two tailors to come up with a more efficient method of making them too.
If, instead, you distribute the 10 pairs available by government decree (fixing the prices, of course, to prevent "profiteering"), the shortage of supply will remain for ever.
Darling, whatever you say. Until you can explain, reasonably and without name-calling, the existing fact, that public school education costs four times more than it did in 1962 (inflation-adjusted), with no measurable improvements in quality, your method of paying for public education shall remain as discredited as its results.
Before it became "public" it was somebody's — someone was forced (at the implied gun-point) to pay taxes. In other words, public money is someone else's and your attempts to make a distinction are in error.
Yeah, perhaps. The point was to stop the name-calling — and the grandstanding. Unless one spends his own money, one is not compassionate. Similarly, one not wanting to spend public money on somebody else's foo shall not be called a villain, who wants to take foo away from others.
When two wolves and a sheep vote on what's for dinner, the sheep does get to call wolves murderers...
I don't really consider myself entitled to tell other people, what to do. I just don't want to pay for their mistakes.
Sadly, this attitude is not shared by this country's current rulers (especially, but not only, the Democrats): while they are happy to tell everybody, what to do, they want me to pay for any mistakes anyway.
Balancing the books is a related, but distinct problem. The Socialist reality remains in the objective figures — you can't explain the growth of government's spending by mere inflation, because the figure is already relative (share of the GDP). When the politicians decide, how to spend 45 cents of every dollar spent in this country, it is a very serious problem even if the budget is balanced.
And you need to deal with the Socialist attitudes — in Congress, Senate, and on this very page numerous people are asserting, basically, that my not wanting to pay for somebody else's foo (be it education, food, healthcare, cellphone, TV) is equivalent to my wanting to deprive them of it. And they think themselves benevolent and compassionate, when the vote to spend my money on their causes...
While you may be right in that there have been no significant qualitative changes, as Stalin once put it, "quantity has a quality all its own". If only a tiny sliver of the population is collecting tax-funded benefits, you are Ok. But, once that sliver expands beyond a certain threshold, it becomes bad.
On Obama's watch, the number of people receiving food stamps has increased dramatically. He added more people to the rolls in his one term so far, than Bush did in his two terms. Perhaps, that's because Democrats want more people on the dole — so as to keep more voters supporting the party of government. Heck, the current Administration runs advertisements encouraging people to sign-up — I can't imagine such enrollment efforts being considered, when the program was first introduced, can you?
But food stamps is just one example. The best measure of how far Socialism has crept upon a country is to look at how much of the GDP is spent by the governments (federal and local)... And by that measure we are looking pretty sad.
Raising a child is a major expense. With modern contraception methods it is rather irresponsible for people, who can't afford it, to have children.
Wanting them to not do it is not "keeping the poor down" — it is dissuading the poor from making a mistake. There is nothing wrong with it — especially for those, who will, likely, end up paying the poor's bill...
It is not "compassion", if the poor and the sick are provided for by the government. No, it is not. You can not claim to be compassionate, if you are spending (voting to spend) somebody else's money — however just and noble the cause.
If it really is just and noble, then you should have no problem persuading people to donate to charity(ies) meant to address it.
And if you can not persuade the selfish pricks (your fellow countrymen) to support a particular cause, forcing them to do it at gun-point (via the IRS) is not "compassionate"... It is patently dishonest.
Children should be fed (and educated), there is no one, who opposes that.
The debate is, whether or not tax-monies — the funds collected at gun-point — should be spent on it.
There was time, when a watercloset was a luxury only available to the rich. Or a personal automobile. Or air-travel. Or a telephone (first wired and then cellular). Or a personal computer...
If government blocks adoption of foo until even the poorest can afford it, we'll never have it at all. Fortunately, with all of the items I listed, the government was not really in a position to block adoption.
Unfortunately, with innovative education methods it is...
Yeah, that must be why Soviet Union and other Socialist/Communist governments, which could only function with omniscient and benevolent rulers, did so well...
Though I'm not at all certain about the IRS, I'm fairly confident, that getting financial data about me from the FBI would be harder, than from the bank itself.
This can not be done with the level of access an ordinary user has.
This can be done, yes. But it is already known, that electronic banking is not fool-proof and a person claiming, their account was accessed by an impostor, will be believed.
Or they can simply withdraw all the money leaving you stranded. But what they can — and do — instead is officially freeze your account(s).
Interestingly enough, the US did not do that to Snowden. And although the attempts to manufacture "rape" accusations against Assange do ring a bell, no SSL keys were involved in that.
Maybe yes, maybe not. However, with centralized records the government will not even have to ask. The least scary abuse of this convenience would be for an incumbent (with ready access to such information) to schedule a speech or some other political event, when some major opposition figure is having a surgery.
Records being electronic is not a problem. Records being centralized is the problem. Centralized and overseen by morons.
But it is not compromised. FBI requests the key — for anyone else getting it out of that agency may be even harder, than from the bank itself.
Roman empire fell apart not because the government was monitoring the citizenry too closely — exactly the opposite. The broke into two (the Eastern half surviving for another thousand years, BTW), because the means of communications and control then available simply weren't sufficient for a country of that size.
Their government structure, unlike ours, also was not up to the task of running such a big country and could only work, if all rulers were wise and benevolent. Ours, on the other hand, expects no outstanding qualities from the people in charge...
So, while I share your dissatisfaction with America's recent developments, I don't think, we are anywhere near collapse.
I'd say, my banking is still reasonably safe even if FBI can see, what I'm doing. There is simply nothing there, that they (or the IRS) can't get through traditional means. My banking secrets haven't been secrets for the government (unless the banks are abroad) for a long time — but smaller-time crooks are still kept away by SSL.
When/if the national healthcare is implemented — despite our fiercest opposition — medical history will be similarly "safe".
E-mails and like communications are a different story — for now...
Finally, what this also means, is that the government still does not have the means of breaking SSL — they wouldn't be needing the keys otherwise. Which is comforting...
Nope, no need. While happy to report the proceedings and the action, mass media was very critical of the Iraq war and happy to report any slip-ups — however minor — by the government or the military.
Nowadays they are mostly cheering for the President — and many have gone to work for the Administration outright. But, with any luck, that will all change again in January 2017.
Being an accessory (especially by a mere omission), is vastly different from being part of a conspiracy...
I know, what you mean, but the talk was about those times (2000-2008), when dissent was still patriotic (rather than racist) and the media was duly skeptical (if not outright hostile) towards the government...
How about the White House "pool"? Is that also evidence of government-media collusion?
Or sports-reporting? Are the folks reporting live from sport-matches "in bed" with the teams? Which sides?
Or a shuttle launch? Plenty of reporters there — are they all conspiring with NASA?
Most curious indeed!