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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (146066)	11/6/2008 7:01:57 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

I can make an argument for saying that we should democratically elect our president when you look at the alternatives such as armed civil war or dictatorship. And I'd agree with you. But its still an opinion. There is nothing wrong with an idea beign an opinion, some opinions are in certain ways more reasonably established than some facts (say a scientific study shows that substance X is harmful for you, that would be fact in that it would be a specific peice of information backed up by data, but it would often be less reliable than an opinion like "democracy is better than having a totalitarian dictatorship". The "fact" could be shown to be false in further studies. The opinion, not so much. Even ideas like "the scientific method is a reliable way to find out information about the real world", that ideas of logic and math which science relies on are true and meaningful in the real world, and that the evidence of our senses is largely real, are all opinions, but most facts rely on assuming those opinions are true. Saying something "is an opinion" is not an argument against it, or reason to think it isn't true. What is your argument for saying that our current government is too big and too intrusive? When you look at highly intrusive government you see poorer economic performance, and more restrictions on individual freedom. When you look at our government you see numerous economic problems and restrictions on freedom resulting in whole or in part from government intrusion. "Based on percentage of bills, number of mandates or prohibitions, pages of regulation or just about any other way you measure regulation." Maybe, I don't know. It's not so clear. No its very clear. Government regulates in a huge number of areas, most of that regulation does not concern fraud. Is a regulation mandating the cleanliness of restaurant kitchens based on prevention of fraud? No. How about the requirement for carrying your insurance card when you drive? Possibly to an extent but its not purely about fraud. Its partially about enforcing the requirement to have insurance, which is not itself an issue of outlawing fraud, or seeking to prevent fraud. Much of the function of the IRS is based on preventing fraud The IRS isn't about preventing fraud its about raising government revenue. Of course it doesn't want to be defrauded itself, but preventing fraud isn't its purpose, and most of the laws and regulations covering it are about the details of how people have to pay, and the requirements for what they report. There are laws and regulations against tax fraud, but they represent a minority of the total body of tax laws and regulations. as is much of the nature of the SEC. Here is one of the best cases of a government agency that's about preventing fraud, but not all of its activities are fraud related, a lot are not. Then you have the the EPA (probably the biggest single agency in terms of regulations), BATF, the FCC, and a host of other government agencies who do not have the purpose of, and do not primarily act to, combat fraud. And other sections of the government. Is the Social Security Administration (the biggest spender in government) mostly about fraud prevention? No. Its whole operational cost (which includes dealing with fraud but also many other things) is a small fraction of its total spending. Is the military an anti fraud agency? No. Is the State Department? The Office of the presidency? The Department of Agriculture? NASA? The Department of Transportation? All no. We spend about $3tril on federal government and a similar amount for state and local government (combined). Only a small fraction of that is on anti-fraud activities, and a lot of the anti-fraud activities are frauds against the various government programs, not to protect the people at large against fraud. If you don't have a particular program then you don't need to keep it from being defrauded, so in the case of that type of anti-fraud activity, it should be counted as part of the cost of the program, not as part of protecting the citizens of the country against fraud.