RPGPundit: Left wing or Right wing?

[GRIM]

Now, I'm open to lots of ideas about the reform of government social programs, but what I've heard in this thread is only the simplistic libertarian rhetoric that any government "charity" is inherently bad.

Indeed.  This 'I'm alright Jack!' selfishness worries me almost as much as the seemingly inexorable rise of Christian fundamentalism.

[RPGPundit]

How about if for starters, governments admitted that it is to their benefit to have an underclass that depends directly on them; and transform "welfare" to a "guaranteed national government income", and stop creating  concept of "welfare as punishment", the idea that the government is somehow doing dole recipients an enormous favour, or having to run through any hoops at all to get it?

Anyone who wants to be part of the underclass is welcome to it, and gets their subsistence income with no fuss.

Meanwhile, anyone who doesn't want to is provided with REAL job assistance (not the nonsensical sort that they mostly have now).  That plus the bubble of slackers who will no longer want to work now that there's "national income" will guarantee that people who actually WANT to work can.

It wouldn't be a perfect solution, by far; but it'd be much better than what's going on now.

RPGPundit

[Samarkand]

How about if for starters, governments admitted that it is to their benefit to have an underclass that depends directly on them; and transform "welfare" to a "guaranteed national government income", and stop creating  concept of "welfare as punishment", the idea that the government is somehow doing dole recipients an enormous favour, or having to run through any hoops at all to get it?

     What, we can't slaughter them to provide a tasty source of protein?

     Here's my take--you go on the dole, your ass is now the taxpayer's.  Take public assistance, you have to work for the public interest.  I'm not talking about BS "workfare" where you're rented out like a convict to various private contractors.  I'm talking old-school programs like the Civilian Reconstruction Corps that existed during the New Deal.  The US has any number of jobs that need doing, from infrastructure repair to scutwork like cleaning parks.  If you're satisfied with doing that work, fine.  If you ain't, there are any number of educational opportunities provided to help improve your skills.  As a bonus, it will take away jobs from self-satisfied and overpaid unionized blue-collar city workers.  Oh noes, some of your jobs can be done by minimum wage labour!  Suck it down!

    I want to give charity, I'll give to the United Way.  If it is the government telling me I must support someone's livelihood if they're bodily capable of working, they better be on tap to work for *my* welfare.

     Punishment?  No.  *Disincentive*?  You bet your bippy.  

     Now, damn it, where's my lumpenproletariat steak?  I want it medium rare.

Andrew

[RPGPundit]

The problem is, most of these make-work schemes, like most of the current beaurocratic loops created around welfare right now, the red tape, actually costs us far more as taxpayers than just giving people a minimum guaranteed income.

It sounds kind of crazy, but its actually better fiscal policy.

RPGPundit

[Akrasia]

So Pundit, what do you think about Friedrich Hayek?  Or John Rawls?

[RPGPundit]

So Pundit, what do you think about Friedrich Hayek?  

A grand old thinker, who sometimes went a little too far in his assertions, but then, they say the same thing about me sometimes.

Or John Rawls?

Well, I think his whole deal about "original position" are a joke; mental onanism of the worst kind that essentially invalidates the rest of his arguments about liberty versus "difference" (I think that's what he called it? its been a while).


In any case, there were some bits of his that I admired, but on the whole I think he's a muddled thinker.

RPGPundit

[Akrasia]

... Well, I think his whole deal about "original position" are a joke; mental onanism of the worst kind that essentially invalidates the rest of his arguments about liberty versus "difference" (I think that's what he called it? its been a while).

:rolleyes:

Okay, so you don't have a clue about Rawls.

Given that a number of Nobel-prize winning economists (Phelps, Sen, Harsanyi, etc) -- and not to mention most leading contemporary analytical political philosophers (on both the 'Right' and 'Left'), as well as many leading legal theorists (e.g. Dworkin, Posner, etc.) -- take Rawls's argument regarding the 'original position' quite seriously, you'll forgive me for dismissing your characterization of it as 'onanism of the worst kind' as a comment born from sheer ignorance.  Vulgar 'communitarian' and 'conservative' types have indeed made a career of misunderstanding Rawls (and Kant, and Mill, and Rousseau, etc.), so this kind of thing is to be expected, I suppose, so I shouldn't be too annoyed with your misunderstanding of the whole point of the o.p.

Also, importantly, Rawls never argues about 'liberty' versus 'difference' (if by 'difference' you mean Rawls's account of distributive justice, viz., the 'difference principle').  The basic liberties have 'lexical priority' over the difference principle in a just society (i.e. no basic liberties can be traded against greater welfare, even for the worst off in society).
 
(On a complete tangent, Onan in fact 'spilled his seed' in the act of 'normal' copulation.  It is strange that his name has become assocated with masturbation, a sin for which Onan was in fact not smote.)

[RPGPundit]

Also, importantly, Rawls never argues about 'liberty' versus 'difference' (if by 'difference' you mean Rawls's account of distributive justice, viz., the 'difference principle').  The basic liberties have 'lexical priority' over the difference principle in a just society (i.e. no basic liberties can be traded against greater welfare, even for the worst off in society).

Well, that's what he argues, but from my remembering of it (and again, its been like a decade), my impression is that what he was suggesting could not, at the practical level, work at all. His desire to incorporate "greater welfare for the worst off" would have trumped basic liberties in any real situation, whether he intended it that way or not.

This is evident by the fact that in his later work (who's name I forget right now) he changed those basic liberties from a "right" to a "principle" or something like that.
 
I mean, I kind of admire his efforts, but he was basically an intellectual writing an utterly theoretical proposition, trying to have it both ways.

I mean really, how does "original position" equivalate to anything other than "wishful thinking" when you get down to the real world level? He's just basically saying "gee, I wish that the state of nature weren't the way it was, that we had some other basis from which to operate".

RPGPundit

[Akrasia]

... His desire to incorporate "greater welfare for the worst off" would have trumped basic liberties in any real situation, whether he intended it that way or not.

This is evident by the fact that in his later work (who's name I forget right now) he changed those basic liberties from a "right" to a "principle" or something like that.

Rawls's conception of justice ('justice as fairness') remains the same in A Theory of Justice (1971) and Political Liberalism (1993).  The 'basic liberties principle' (i.e. the principle that secures for citizens an equal system of basic liberties) is not significantly revised between the two works, and retains lexical priority over the difference principle.  (The main difference between Theory and [/u]Pol. Liberalism[/u] concerns political legitimacy -- under what circumstances the state's use of coercive political power is morally acceptable -- not social justice.)

Also, I fail entirely to see why the 'basic liberties' principle couldn't have lexical priority over the 'difference principle'.  Most western societies that guarantee 'basic rights' in their constitutions legally enshrine a priority for such rights and liberties over whatever public policies the government might enact.
 

I mean really, how does "original position" equivalate to anything other than "wishful thinking" when you get down to the real world level? He's just basically saying "gee, I wish that the state of nature weren't the way it was, that we had some other basis from which to operate".

The original position is simply a theoretical tool to help people clarify their views -- and rethink them, if necessary -- concerning social justice.  Nothing in the original position guarantees that Rawls's own conception of justice is the 'correct one' (i.e. the one that would be endorsed by rational agents within the original position), and many people have disputed Rawls on this basis (e.g. Harsanyi, who argues that a principle of maximizing 'average utility' would be chosen by rational agents in the o.p.).  

As a theoretical tool, though, the original position is just as valid in helping us to think through complex issues as, say, the "prisoners' dilemma" in decision theory.  I don't see either the "original position" or the "prisoners' dilemma" as involving 'wishful thinking' simply because they are tools to help us focus on certain questions regarding rational choice under certain conditions.

Anyhow, one can defend Rawls's account of justice independently of the original position argument (as the o.p. is simpy a device to help clarify our thinking).  Both Ronald Dworkin and Brian Barry (leading legal and political philosophers) have made this point.

Finally, I should mention that despite agreeing with Rawls about most things, I am not myself especially committed to the 'difference principle'. I'm a 'sufficientarian' when it comes to distributive justice: all citizens should be guaranteed a certain 'baseline' of 'primary goods' (rights, liberties, opportunities, and wealth), but beyond that redistributive policies are generally unnecessary and unjustified.

[flyingmice]

The Pundit: Prune ice cream or footie pyjamas?

Same applicabilty as the other nouns.

-clash

[cnath.rm]

In the US, a true implementation of the 2nd would be every male between 18-45 mustering one weekend per month and showing proper skill with marksmanship and manual of arms with the .223 caliber assault rifle they keep in their own homes.

I heard this take on some NPR program and found it interesting, anyone have figures as to how well it works for the Swiss offhand? (and didn't the Brit's have something like it during the years the Longbow was popular?)

But the entire "War on Poverty" and "Great Society" thing?  Sorry, no.  With all the money spent on those various programs, we just might as well have handed each recipient a million bucks per year.  There's always the law of unintended consequences and the law of diminishing returns to account for.

Katrina relief comes to mind as well as a place where handing out checks might have been a faster/better route to go.

A rather cynical thought always came to me when hearing about illegal/undocumented immigrant labour.  On one hand, people say that we need this or key industries will fail because "no American will work these positions".  Yet on the other, there exists a huge underclass of welfare recipients who subsist on the dole.  The libertarian part of me wonders if the two situations could be neatly dealt with by handing each able-bodied welfare recipient a Greyhound ticket to California during harvest season and saying "there's your opportunity".

Had to laugh at this, the idea amuses me.  Illegal immigrants are another situation where the government is protecting it's own interests.  If the companies that are hiring illegals keep profiting, they are happy and keep donating to polititions.

Minarchists and limited-governments types like myself consider certain core functions--courts, police, troops to shoot invading Martians who leer at our nubile women, a neutral recorder of contracts--to be worth putting a revolver to the heads of our saintly grandmoms.

See, protecting american woman from lecherous Martian bastards is the perfect use for the rifle I'll have in the hall closet, (and will practice with as in the first quote above) and what nubile woman wouldn't be thrilled to know that I'm there to protect her should aliens show up to state at her?

[Hastur T. Fannon]

I heard this take on some NPR program and found it interesting, anyone have figures as to how well it works for the Swiss offhand?

A couple of links which explain why the Swiss scare me:

Their civil defense program is almost unbelievably good

The Department of Defense, Civil Protection and Sports? - what the hell kind of sports do the play up there?

Wiki article.   Note the photo of the militiaman buying groceries with his rifle slung over his shoulder and the way no-one pays any attention.  Guns are normal.  Ammunition is government subsidised.

But seriously, I can't locate the original report, but this AP report of a 1994 CDC metastudy apparently shows that the Swiss have one of the highest number of gun-related deaths in Europe.  However, given that almost every adult male has a gun and knows how to use it, I'd imagine that they'd be more likely to use it in a suicide attempt than another method.  It's also worth noting that the US had twice the rate of gun-related deaths as Northern Ireland during the Troubles

(and didn't the Brit's have something like it during the years the Longbow was popular?)

We did, and, technically speaking, I'm still supposed to practice my archery at least twice a month.  However, I only know of one couple who still do this

[Samarkand]

But seriously, I can't locate the original report, but this AP report of a 1994 CDC metastudy apparently shows that the Swiss have one of the highest number of gun-related deaths in Europe.  However, given that almost every adult male has a gun and knows how to use it, I'd imagine that they'd be more likely to use it in a suicide attempt than another method.

    It's one of the things that make me careful about the causal relationship between firearms and violence.  As I recall, the Swiss *murder rate* is very very low.  Most murders are spousal--typically, husbands killing wives.  Feminists have argued that eliminating the militia requirement to keep firearms in the home would reduce that and prevent husbands from "dominating their wives" through the threat.  But considering that only 250 people are killed a year, and that a spousal murder may have simply used other methods...  

   The Swiss choice seems to be that they prefer the risks of near-universal gun ownership so that every male is armed and obligated to defend the country.  Arms to them are the *qualification* for citizenship--many cantonal meetings are held in the open where citizens who come to vote wear sheathed swords as proof they are qualified because they stand symbolically as "men at arms".  This concept of the citizen militia is also important to them because they do not want a strong central government with power over a professional army.  The military power is distributed among the people as a whole, not regular troops who might be used to over-ride the freedoms of the highly independent cantons.

    The same idea was the inspiration for the American system, at least for the anti-Federalists who were suspicious of a Congress with central power over the military.  However, the Swiss militia system works well because the Swiss are...er...well, Swiss.  Orderly, calm, careful, very strong social bonds.  The US doesn't *quite* have that mentality.  Historically, the militia system tended to atrophy as people dodged the quarterly militia musters or the local companies became mere social clubs.  So the 2nd Amendment is an amendment where the institution it was intended to support--state militias of citizen-soldiers keeping arms in their own custody, led by men nominated by the state legislature--has withered away.  The situation got so bad that Congress enacted military reform laws in 1903 and 1916 that changed the militia system to a volunteer National Guard that is the reserve of the regular army.

     However, the militia system could be revived in its old form because there is, in fact, a second "Guard".  Current federal law allows states to form "state defense forces" that cannot be federalized by Congress or presidential order.  The idea was to have a local home guard available in case NG units were sent overseas or out of state.  These State Guards exist in many states and are not really meant as armed units.  But a "required service" law that has every able bodied man subject to muster into a State Guard...that might legitimize the 2nd Amendment in a way it hasn't been for a long time.

Andrew