As Chris Floyd recently quotes:
How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.-- Henry David Thoreau
I'm going to avoid such associations as much as possible. I don't believe this government has a right to my money, but I'm not willing to risk a direct challenge to their power. So I just won't work until I have to for pure survival, at which point I hope to be able to earn income without compromising my values.
16 comments:
I'm sure all the kids who need money for education and families who need money for health care very much appreciate your political statement. I'm also sure that everyone else in the country who works to provide you with an unimaginable number of necessities and conveniences also appreciates your political statement. I don't, but maybe they do.
Gangsters do nice things in their communities.
I think that's too abstruse to qualify as an aphorism. Explain.
Nice job on your GRE by the way.
That an organization might do good things sometimes doesn't mean its overall effect is good. More relevantly to me, that an organization might do some good doesn't give them a right to take my money and use it for profound bad as well as some good.
But your decision directly affects people who need assistance. Your choice isn't made in a personal vacuum, even if it is self-imposed. As for gangsters, I don't think that's a great analogy.
So you think it is important that I continue to provide financial support for our illegal and immoral crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan because the same mechanism might also help people? That is pretty weak.
I think organized crime is a great analogy. They acquire funds by illegitimate means and use them for both good and bad. They use violence and coercion and torture and they generally hate people of different racial backgrounds.
Interesting debate. If you are a utilitarian it all boils down to a simple calculus. 1) Percentage of tax money that goes to military vs. social welfare spending (I estimate roughly 20% military vs. 45% social welfare spending based on this bullshit source); and 2) the effect of every dollar spent on quality of life (in 2007, my guess is that this is hugely negative for military spending, and positive for social welfare spending). It all boils down to the relative negatives and positives of military vs. social justice spending as to whether contributing tax revenue produces a net benefit to society or not. Unfortunately, these values are probably nigh impossible to assess well, since they're pretty much totally subjective. And I've to this point assumed you value the lives of Iraqis and Afghans (maybe shortly Iranians) as much as you do the lives of Americans. This is almost certainly not true (I won't speak for you Sparks, but for the population at large I think that's accurate) so most people would probably implicitly discount the military suffering term in their calculations.
While for my part there's more to it than dollar for dollar utilitarianism, I have a couple notes on that calculus.
First, our military/defense budget is always larger than the way it looks as they present it. Veteran's benefits, the nuclear program hidden in the department of energy, and a huge portion of the interest on the national debt need to be added back. I think there are some other hidden pieces.
Second, I find a number of other types of federal government activities to be negative. Energy, transportation, and agriculture are environmental disasters. The state department is part of our foreign policy evil. I've seen the belly of the department of education and I'm fairly convinced there's more negative than positive there. Any funding for the war on (people who use some) drugs. There's probably more I'm forgetting.
As a bit of an explanation as to why pure dollar for dollar utilitarianism doesn't do it for me, I offer this, which I've found fairly convincing:
Fuck the system.
You guys are great at arguing numbers you don't seem to have. That really bolsters your case. You're also good at arguing against a nuclear program you know nothing about.
23% of the entire budget goes to social security. 19% goes to medicare and medicaid. 13% goes to other mandatory programs like the earned income tax credit. That's 55% of the budget that goes to helping people directly. Of the remaining 45%, 10% goes to interest payments, 14% to defense, 16% goes to non-defense programs, 2% goes to defense R&D and the remaining 3% to non-defense R&D. This calculus is, in fact, smart enough to know where the military money goes, unlike yours.
So for every dollar of tax money you don't contribute, you're hurting people more than you realize.
There is no nuclear program hidden in DOE, it's right in the fucking budget, and a lot of the money goes to nonproliferation and environmental protection programs. In fact, most DOE money goes to energy development and science rather than NNSA, the "hidden" nuclear agency with its own website. Your beef with transportation and Ag is bizarre, since they provide an unimaginable array of services to you that you slough off because of what amounts to a complaint. As for State, they are involved in many other activities you aren't aware of that are actually beneficial.
But, you paint everything so black and white that you have to be wrong. If you can't understand how reality works, I encourage you to go find and live in that country that operates identically to your utopian vision. If it doesn't exist, maybe you should live off the land in the wilderness somewhere in the Canadian north. I'm not being sarcastic, either.
I'm getting pretty sick of you coming on here and telling me what I do and don't know. You assert my ignorance repeatedly (and this comment isn't the first time), with no basis aside from my blog posts of minimal effort. What kind of asshole does that? You read a few comments and repeatedly tell me how little I know? Who the fuck are you?
Contrary to your condescending accusations, I'm familiar with the budget numbers, the nuclear program, and how to accurately (as possible) gauge which pieces of all of it should be considered military. By "hidden" all I meant was that it isn't listed under "defense." You might have considered taking a deep breath and asking what I meant by that before ranting about how ignorant I am. On top of all that, you might have noted that I indicated the utilitarian dollar-for-dollar math wasn't particularly important to my way of thinking, and might have considered that before lambasting me for not looking up the exact values.
Your idea that I'm somehow hurting people by not contributing tax dollars is very unconvincing. 1) Are you hurting people by not working a 2nd and 3rd job and using the proceeds to by food for starving orphans (but not paying taxes on it so 100% of the proceeds instead of just 55% go to the helping)? 2) Which budget items are/should be the marginal ones? 3) I don't spend that money, I can just throw it in a pile that I can't control. It is basically stolen from me. 4) how do you weigh 55% of the dollars that go to "helping people" against the x% of dollars that go to our terrorist campaigns against people in south america, the middle east, and asia? against the ones the subsidize our polluting and unhealthy policies? against the ones that keep people locked in holes to be tortured? even by the utilitarian method, and even assuming that failure to help is equivalent to harm, it is more complicated than which dollars go to which programs.
My beef with Ag is not bizarre, because the unimaginable array of services they provide need to be balanced against the unimaginable array of damage they do. I haven't elaborated on this. You might have requested such an elaboration rather than tearing into me, but you're a fucking asshole instead.
Your concluding paragraph, as written, is so full of non-sequiturs that I don't even know how to respond, though I'll consider taking your advice. It is pretty dispiriting (and more deeply entrenches my "black and white" vision) that you have such a knee-jerk reaction to a statement of principled dissent. Your palpable discomfort with nonconformity is surprising, though I guess it shouldn't be.
If you want to come to my site and participate in a discussion, please try not to be such a flaming asshole. I'd prefer to have you in these conversations, but not like this.
Actually, NNSA is considered "defense." So yeah, you're wrong on that. And I'm surprised to know about your knowledge of the State Department's involvement in the recent World Radiocommunication Conference which I just went to. You know, the one where they, with the help of over 120 other countries, try to prevent certain other foreign countries from fucking up spectrum usage for everyone else in the world, and ensure that the U.S. and EU can keep conducting necessary Earth science observations that save lives around the world. i don't know why I explained all that, you must have known about it, since you're fully knowledgeable of everything the U.S. government is involved with.
Hey, I'm so sorry that your glancing remarks about how awful transportation and Ag contained nothing to back them up, and you think I'm an asshole for calling out the fact that you guys (not just you) look ignorant because of it. You also quote no figures when wondering about military versus welfare spending, which I helpfully supplied. As far as I'm concerned that's actually perfectly ripe for cricitism. You offer no arguments, so why shouldn't I assume you don't know what you're talking about, or at least fill in the vacuum? I'm sorry you think I'm an asshole who shouldn't participate in your blog, though, that's fair.
And thanks for saying this: "Your palpable discomfort with nonconformity is surprising, though I guess it shouldn't be." Is this an insult? Do you think you're trying to mindfuck me or something? Am I supposed to think now that I really want to prove I'm not uncomfortable with noncomformity and agree with you? Or am I supposed to think that I should be disappointed because I thought you perceived me as being a noncomformist and no longer do. The tension is killing me. I think the truth is just that you can't hide your arrogance. I'm not being an asshole, I'm responding to your comment.
And hey, surprise surprise, you don't find my argument convincing. If it doesn't line up with what you've already determined as absolute then that's the response I always get.
Do you know that you seem completely immobile to reason most of the time? In your world, it seems that no other viewpoints can exist. Maybe you should work on how you present your arguments rather than lambast me for being an asshole. In fact I've told you this probably 12 times by now. Unless of course you don't care whether or not you influence anyone, though I imagine you do because you've referred to me as someone who is on the right track but needs to learn more. As if I'm you're student.
Since we're laying into each other yet again, and I thank you opening that up, what really bothers me about your little plan of not working, and your modus operandi in general, is that if you're so convinced that everything is so fucked then do something positive to fix it, or just remove yourself from it entirely and live in a shed in the woods in Canada.
Lastly, I really appreciate that you'd prefer to have me in these conversations, but only in a way that would please you. In that case, you won't have to worry much about me being involved in these conversations, especially considering how "sick" you are of me "coming on here" and violating your rules. And that is a shame. I'm not being sarcastic.
And I'm surprised to know about your knowledge of the State Department's involvement in the recent World Radiocommunication Conference which I just went to. You know, the one where they, with the help of over 120 other countries, try to prevent certain other foreign countries from fucking up spectrum usage for everyone else in the world, and ensure that the U.S. and EU can keep conducting necessary Earth science observations that save lives around the world. i don't know why I explained all that, you must have known about it, since you're fully knowledgeable of everything the U.S. government is involved with.
Reaction after 1 paragraph: wow that's a bad start. good luck showing me where i claimed omniscience about all aspects of state department activity. regardless, i'd bet good money that we somehow fuck everyone else over on spectrum. so far, so stupid. on to the 2nd paragraph with low expectations!
And my initial reaction to the rest of it is that there's not much to it. But I suppose I'll give it another chance later.
Going back to the stellar first paragraph though, this item tells me that there are Department of Energy funds spent on our nation's nuclear weapons. This is not part of the DoD, but should be considered defense spending. Feel free to continue your belligerent objection to this notion.
I'll just respond to ideas one at a time.
"Do you know that you seem completely immobile to reason most of the time? In your world, it seems that no other viewpoints can exist."
Let me know when someone presents a well reasoned viewpoint that opposes mine, and then we'll test my mobility. I don't believe you have much if any relevant data to back up your impression here.
And you'd properly lose that bet. since the U.S. gets as many votes in the process as Lesotho and Fiji [one], but hey, continue making things up.
I don't know why you continue to try and prove a point about DOE that is fully public knowledge. Of course there's money going to nuclear weapons research in DOE, I never said there wasn't, I actually said there is. In fact, my point was that there's an entire agency within DOE, called NNSA, whose budget includes money for nuke research! NNSA is a full line item that's about 1/3 of DOE's budget. DOE used to be called the Atomic Energy Commission! I don't understand how much more clear I can be here!
As for your omniscience, you certainly wouldn't dare make that claim, no, but my evidence is your arrogance.
Lastly, while I appreciated your conciliatory private email, it doesn't mean much to me now that I've read your response. You probably don't care, or it makes no difference to you that you're presenting two faces, and that's fine, but I'll keep that in mind in the future.
What possible point are you trying to make about the energy/defense issue? All I've said is that there are more items in the national budget that ought to be included in defense spending than what is listed under the spending of the department of defense. That's it. You seem to think that I'm trying to make some sweeping claim about secret spending or something, which isn't the case. I already explained that my previous use of t he word "hidden" might be the source of this confusion? Did you not see that?
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