Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (92207)	10/28/2008 3:00:59 AM
From: slacker711	Respond to of 541652

Paying people for work that has no real benefit is, I think you'll agree, just one tiny step short of simply giving them money and not pretending it's for work. In fact, I'd call that welfare thinly disguised as something else. Personally, I wouldnt call that a small step. Then again, I would be shutting any base that couldnt justify itself on its military value alone....along with the various weapons systems that are approved due to the location of their manufacturers. Corporate/political welfare doesnt have quite the same negative aspect in terms of its impact on communities but it should be stopped anyway. Slacker

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (92207)	10/28/2008 10:28:42 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541652

My point was that it's simply a matter of degree. I disagree. I think there is a key principle involved. If you redistribute money by creating jobs, you at least maintain the pretense that people are supposed to work for a living, not sponge off of others. I tend not to support pretenses and I sure don't approve of the business behind this one, but at least the practice doesn't establish a right of the recipient to this largesse. Bases can be closed and the resulting unemployed haven't had their rights violated. Why that is important is that, without the rights issue, this is something from which we can recover if we find the will. And I would very much like us to do that. I disapprove as much as you do. We pay them because they're voters and if we stop paying them then our politicians risk losing votes. We pay them because, hey, the politicians who generously continue to pay them are not spending their own money. You are making my point for me. This is insidious. People will vote for those who take money from others and give it to them. The more people on the receiving end, the more this cancer grows until we all quit our other endeavors to concentrate on increasing our share of the spoils and there aren't enough contributors left to support the system. IMO, once we establish this kind of benefit as a right, recovery is not possible. That is why I draw the line where I do. It's not that I don't want to clean up other types of redistribution, only that I think that the one I'm arguing is the critical battleground right now. I'm putting those problems that we can undo on the back burner and focusing on keeping us from crossing a line into something that we will never be able to undo.