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Whaddya think about the Three Things?

Sounds good to me
's OK.
Nah.
Really don't like 'em
SSSSIIIIIINNNNAAARRRRRR!!!
[Voter is a lolcat playing with a keyboard.]

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Author Topic: Lol Polaticks  (Read 3953 times)

PTTG??

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Lol Polaticks
« on: October 26, 2010, 05:59:36 pm »

[Originally going to post this in the yellow peril thread, but it grew...]

How about this; we make the government only have three tasks;

1: Tasks that can't properly be paid for individually (military, police, infrastructure, environmental protection, fire protection, health services, since all of these end up helping everybody or else nobody- for instance, you can't have the military only protect the houses of people who've paid their social security bill, and flu shots are so much more effective if everyone gets them, and not just the rich people. Infrastructure includes roads, power, water, and basic information access, but not content creation, of course. Got to have power there, otherwise it's California all over again.)

2: Ensuring the absolute maximum of liberty for everyone, which is actually really easy. You only have laws that prevent people from taking liberties away from other people, like people that take the liberty of life away from others, and otherwise keep everything as open as possible. Want to say you're married to that dude? Fine with me, bro. Wanna worship Yog-soggoth, god of tentacles? As long as you don't stab anybody, that's A-OK, buddy. Want to come over to my house and tell me to worship your crazy beardy white guy in the sky? Nope, sorry, that's infringing on my right to sleep in on Sundays, or as it might be put in more legal terms, my right to privacy, my freedom of religious expression, and freedom from coercion. But you want to put some statues in front of the church you run or whatever? That's cool. Some time you aught to check out the statues the Yog Soggoth guy's gonna put up at his place. Wanna get some guns? Sure thing. No, not you, captain aluminum hat. Gotta make sure that you aren't about to go around infringing on the freedom of life and the liberty of not being concerned that some guy is walking down the street screaming at himself and carrying an AK-47.

3: Provide the bootstraps for people of any disadvantage to pull themselves up by, such as education, emergency income, and health care free from debt so that when a tree falls on you and you loose your job at the skateboard testing company, you won't spend the rest of your natural life repaying the loans you needed to get to keep from dying; or so that you could get an education to become the medical doctor to keep skateboard testers alive. Yes, this will take some money away from everyone else, quite possibly a significant percentage of it, but this is an investment, so that next week when a tree falls on you, you'll at least know that the skateboard was well tested and that there's a doctor out there who isn't worried about his economic future and planning on quitting tomorrow to become a plumber.

And, of course, there's the secret fourth one that basically says that the design of this government should inherently ensure that people who try to change it can only do so if the new way is better. I figure that that, and the required freedom of the press from all influences, government and economic, is covered under #2.

That's pretty much all that a government needs to do. I notice that "invade places", "kill communism", "spread itself", "burn gays", "keep secrets" "convert Muslims" and "kill immigrants" aren't on the list, and really seem kinda counterproductive to the rest of it. I mean sure, you need a military, but they should only be doing anything if the neighbors start acting up. If it's just random hicks of some creed or annother that for some reason, hate us for being laid-back and helping each other, then what we really need is the police to prevent them from making their way in, and to figure out why these dudes hate us so much and see if we can convince them to chill.

There we go! I just laid out a plan that says more about what I want the government to be like than basically every politician out there, and the entirety of the republican, tea, and democrat parties put together.

Largely, that's because each of those parties platforms are "The opposite of those (red/blue) idiots!", with the added tea party note of "Only moreso!"

Anyway, is there anyone who disagrees with the three?
« Last Edit: October 26, 2010, 07:42:11 pm by PTTG?? »
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sonerohi

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Re: Lol Polaticks
« Reply #1 on: October 26, 2010, 06:01:55 pm »

Added clause: Don't be dicks about it.
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smigenboger

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Re: Lol Polaticks
« Reply #2 on: October 26, 2010, 06:06:23 pm »

So many threads lately.

Yes it sounds great and somewhat utopian, but people are greedy and some are just assholes. The liberties granted will conflict with each other, and we'll have the same problems as we do with our current forms of government.

It does sound great though. Sort of has a LeVeyan Satanism feel to it, where you can do whatever you want, so long as it doesn't negatively affect other's ability to do whatever they want.
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dwarfguy2

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Re: Lol Polaticks
« Reply #3 on: October 26, 2010, 06:10:00 pm »

OTHER:I become emperor of the universe. All who agree get the right to live... for now.
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Tsarwash

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Re: Lol Polaticks
« Reply #4 on: October 26, 2010, 06:10:41 pm »

Surely the military is there to protect the wealth of the country. Which means invading other countries if an essential supply is potentially jeopardised.

You need to have controls on the media from an independant body. That is very important.
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Earthquake Damage

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Re: Lol Polaticks
« Reply #5 on: October 26, 2010, 06:22:55 pm »

It's just so simple, isn't it?  But there are a few things you've left out that are bound to complicate matters, like competing interests, ideological differences, widely varying priorities, assholes, plain old economics, to name a few.
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dwarfguy2

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Re: Lol Polaticks
« Reply #6 on: October 26, 2010, 06:24:37 pm »

I can't help but notice those problems do not exist in my proposal.
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PTTG??

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Re: Lol Polaticks
« Reply #7 on: October 26, 2010, 06:33:52 pm »

My point exactly, smigenboger and Earthquake Damage. The whole reason you bother with the elections and the taxes and everything is so that you have somebody who can say, "Hey, you're not allowed to sit around on emergency income anymore! Get back to work!" or "Hey! Just because you are allowed to smoke LSD-soaked coke wrapped in hemp, doesn't mean you can give it out at kindergardens! You're outta here!" or even "Ok buddy, that was your last warning. Time to stop pirating music from indie musicians. Common, pay up... Ok, ok, I can give you change for a fifty..." etc.

Lemme put it in bold right here, 'cause I think it's important:
Put simply, the laws are there to create freedom, not take it away.

Tsarwash:

Ultimately, invading a country causes more problems for the invader. It becomes a constant cost to keep the occupation working. It's much better to have a better system of government and allow everyone to come to you.

It worked for the US once. Name one real monarchy in the world. Now name all the nations that have republics and other deviation off Democracy. Now look back to me. It's even worked against our greatest rivals. As we speak, china becomes ever more free and capitalistic, because they see that our system, while not perfect, probably is more fun than sitting in a hovel and getting told what to do. So, we improve ourselves, increase our own liberties, and help the world in non-agressive ways (who's going to bomb somebody who just gave their hometown a new school, including books and tools, run by locals, not some missionaries, and comes round once a month and gives medical checkups?

For 10,000,000 dollars, you can buy a lot more schools than tanks, and a lot more stethoscopes than guns.

So maybe, fifty years from now, they're our allies, have their own system, much like ours, and they say, "Hey, you guys want some solar power and plastic products?" and we say "Sure thing, can we give you guys some of this crapton of wheat we got growin' here?" and amazingly, everybody's happy. Sure, you've got some 109-year-old Ihatolas who are writhing with anger from their beds in the old folks' we built them, but nobody cares what they say. The new Ihatolas know that hey, everybody makes mistakes, and what's past is past. When you grow up with clean water and plenty of food and a certain lack of robots dropping land mines on you, you tend to be laid-back like that.

Dwarfguy2, an exellent point. I'll implement that on the 32ed.
« Last Edit: October 26, 2010, 06:35:25 pm by PTTG?? »
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dwarfguy2

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Re: Lol Polaticks
« Reply #8 on: October 26, 2010, 06:35:58 pm »

And I'll implement it with a hadoken.
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Nikov

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Re: Lol Polaticks
« Reply #9 on: October 26, 2010, 07:15:31 pm »

For 10,000,000 dollars, you can buy a lot more schools than tanks, and a lot more stethoscopes than guns.

$587 Million in Education.
$341 Million in Defense.

I tried really hard to find a match in the $500 million range, but apparently anything bigger than an amphibious warfare ship runs a billion or higher. Tanks however? Four million each. Hard to build a school in that range.
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Aqizzar

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Re: Lol Polaticks
« Reply #10 on: October 26, 2010, 07:25:07 pm »

$587 Million in Education.
$341 Million in Defense.

Yes, pointing to what is identified in the title as the most expensive school in the country, compared to one escort carrier, is the perfect refutation of the sentiment.
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Re: Lol Polaticks
« Reply #11 on: October 26, 2010, 07:25:13 pm »

Why are there four five so many lolcats on the forum?
« Last Edit: October 26, 2010, 07:43:33 pm by Urist Imiknorris »
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Auto Slaughter

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Re: Lol Polaticks
« Reply #12 on: October 26, 2010, 07:28:34 pm »

I don't think the military is an especially worthy expense, but Nikov does have it right there - unless you actually start wars (particularly preemptive wars... I'm looking at you, George W. Bush) social spending will tend to significantly eclipse military expenditures.

The problem is really that once you've got those big shiny guns and missiles you just can't resist pushing the big red button; for some reason "Hey, let's solve our problems with violence!" and "Better yet, let's completely ignore problems at home and go start a war somewhere overseas!" are lines of non-reasoning that are particularly attractive to people, especially Americans in the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Nikov

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Re: Lol Polaticks
« Reply #13 on: October 26, 2010, 07:30:34 pm »

Five.

Aquizzar, the Wasp class is not an escort carrier, and the point was that throwing a half billion dollars at education doesn't guarantee better education.
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Phmcw

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Re: Lol Polaticks
« Reply #14 on: October 26, 2010, 07:33:21 pm »

And having the most expensive army in the world apparently doesn't guarantee that you can bring peace in a small third world country. Your point?
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