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A has had an extended discussion with B over the thesis: A democracy cannot last long beyond the point at which the public realizes that it can vote itself money from the public treasury. Bankruptcy will follow not long after that."
The latest (and perhaps last) episode in that discussion was about B's claim that the recent payroll tax reduction was a beautiful example. The Rs were reluctant last fall and voted only for a two month extension. They took a major beating in the polls later and in Feb they reversed themselves. (A few politicians on each side pointed out that this was coming from SS which already is short of long term money, but most said this is what people want so, bingo, the govt. handed the people $160 billion dollars that it doesn't have.)
A blames the politicians for anything that is bad in that. B argued that we can't blame the politicians because we are the ones who are insisting that they give us these things. A's position was that it was the job of Congress to refuse to give us what we demanded when it was bad for us. B then claimed that that was contrary to the bedrock principle of democracy and A said that they would not discuss this topic in the future.
I would point out that if you have a moral populace, then they will not go for this easily. But if you have them pay for a bit of what they are going to be getting, then they will become self righteously indignant in demanding what is "owed" to them. They will do that even if they know that they do not have a clue about how to calculate how much is "owed to them" as a repayment for what they actually paid into the system. Recall the ad by the old people telling politicians what would happen to them if the pols tried to reduce the medicare that "they had paid into", and the one about the little old lady being pushed over a cliff, and the riots in Greece when reality caught up with them.
When our entitlement bubble bursts, it will not be pretty.
Other versions of this proposition are:
Benjamin Franklin: "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." [added 3-2-12 - a questionable quote - see comment 3]
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
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Showing posts with label BOB. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BOB. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Belief in Science and Religion
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This is a prelude to a post on Climate Change and Capitalism.
Those who are familiar with the topic of belief will find nothing new here. This is a note for those who, like most of the reporters that I see on TV, could not pass the science part of Jeff Foxworthy's ten question test to decide if one is Smarter Than a Fifth Grader.
I come from the math-science side of Academia. I believe in science (thank you Aristotle, Roger Bacon, et al.) I believe scientists in general, even those whose work I know nothing about. That is because I know how they decide what they claim is true. That is, I believe in the scientific method and I think that those who have not practiced it may not understand that, inherent within science, are two of the most charming devices for the prevention and correction of errors.
The first is that your evidence must be reproducible. If you get results and someone else performs the same experiment and doesn’t get those results, then there is a problem and you basically start over. This is quite different from the way disagreements in religion have been handled. When Jesus and Mohammad have different visions then you had a very long religious war. Then of course there was the Pope and Martin Luther.
The second involves the difference between scientific and faith based belief. Faith based belief is often absolute – the expression that comes to mind is “written in stone”. Scientific belief is very tentative and can perhaps best be described as a belief that the position in question is the “best explanation available” at the present time. It may give way to a better or more complete theory at any time. The example that comes to mind is Newton’s mechanics which stood for 300 years before the arrival of Einstein's relativity. Those who are familiar with (or should I say committed to) faith based belief often imagine that the practitioners of science meekly accept its current beliefs as if they too were written on stone tablets. (I think I have seen this argument used by the intelligent design folks.) This is a more profound question because it speaks to the possibility that the whole enterprise may become biased in favor of its current beliefs. (The claim currently made about global warming.) In fact, it is true that errors have, in the past, been allowed to linger too long, the Piltdown Man comes to mind.
The corrective for that is, I think, one of the most profoundly delightful aspects of science. It is this: far from worshiping the pedestrian follower of the current perception, the scientific community reserves its highest accolades and greatest honors for those individuals who shake the very foundations of the current “best available explanation.” Carl Sagan is very well thought of as a presenter of science, but he will never compare to Albert Einstein or Charles Darwin in the pantheon of scientific stars.
Science saves its loudest applause for those who “look where all have looked and see what none have seen.”
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This is a prelude to a post on Climate Change and Capitalism.
Those who are familiar with the topic of belief will find nothing new here. This is a note for those who, like most of the reporters that I see on TV, could not pass the science part of Jeff Foxworthy's ten question test to decide if one is Smarter Than a Fifth Grader.
I come from the math-science side of Academia. I believe in science (thank you Aristotle, Roger Bacon, et al.) I believe scientists in general, even those whose work I know nothing about. That is because I know how they decide what they claim is true. That is, I believe in the scientific method and I think that those who have not practiced it may not understand that, inherent within science, are two of the most charming devices for the prevention and correction of errors.
The first is that your evidence must be reproducible. If you get results and someone else performs the same experiment and doesn’t get those results, then there is a problem and you basically start over. This is quite different from the way disagreements in religion have been handled. When Jesus and Mohammad have different visions then you had a very long religious war. Then of course there was the Pope and Martin Luther.
The second involves the difference between scientific and faith based belief. Faith based belief is often absolute – the expression that comes to mind is “written in stone”. Scientific belief is very tentative and can perhaps best be described as a belief that the position in question is the “best explanation available” at the present time. It may give way to a better or more complete theory at any time. The example that comes to mind is Newton’s mechanics which stood for 300 years before the arrival of Einstein's relativity. Those who are familiar with (or should I say committed to) faith based belief often imagine that the practitioners of science meekly accept its current beliefs as if they too were written on stone tablets. (I think I have seen this argument used by the intelligent design folks.) This is a more profound question because it speaks to the possibility that the whole enterprise may become biased in favor of its current beliefs. (The claim currently made about global warming.) In fact, it is true that errors have, in the past, been allowed to linger too long, the Piltdown Man comes to mind.
The corrective for that is, I think, one of the most profoundly delightful aspects of science. It is this: far from worshiping the pedestrian follower of the current perception, the scientific community reserves its highest accolades and greatest honors for those individuals who shake the very foundations of the current “best available explanation.” Carl Sagan is very well thought of as a presenter of science, but he will never compare to Albert Einstein or Charles Darwin in the pantheon of scientific stars.
Science saves its loudest applause for those who “look where all have looked and see what none have seen.”
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Monday, May 16, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger
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Go back in time to the summer of 1974 when the country was waiting on pins and needles to see what would be the outcome on the effort that was being made to separate Richard M. Nixon from the Presidency of the US. I was among those concerned about whether he would go quietly. I recall reading a story in the paper that said that the Secretary of Defense, James Schlesinger sent a memo to the Joint Chiefs of Staff directing that no orders should be executed unless they came through the chain of command. That is, through him.
Some folks would say, of course, that is what he should have done.
Some folks would say that he was exceeding his authority.
Some folks would say that he should have counted on the Generals to refuse any inappropriate order.
It seems to me that Secretary Schlesinger acted in an extremely courageous manner with that action.
Perhaps it was not necessary. But that is the kind of thing that you can never be sure was not necessary.
Schlesinger countered any temptation that Nixon might have faced to try to use the military to continue his presidency.
Most importantly, I think, he gave the generals cover in the event they had been obligated to refuse an order from the President.
He took the peril of what might have been labeled their treason onto his own shoulders.
Now, I cannot find a reference to that memo.
But I did find the following, which is close.
August 22, 1974: Pentagon, Joint Chiefs ‘Kept Watch’ on Nixon to Prevent Coup Attempt, Newspaper Reports
The Washington Post prints a small, almost-buried story entitled “Pentagon Kept Watch on Military.” The relatively innocuous headline conceals a potentially explosive charge—that during the final days of the Nixon administration, Defense Secretary James Schlesinger and the Joint Chiefs of Staff had “kept a close watch to make certain that no orders were given to military units outside the normal chain of command.” The article, careful in its word choices, says the extraordinary alert was “based on hypothetical situations that could arise during a period when President Nixon’s hold on the presidency was not clear.… Specifically, there was concern that an order could go to a military unit outside the chain of command for some sort of action against Congress during the time between a House impeachment and a Senate trial on the impeachment charge.” Pentagon sources say no one has any evidence that any such action was being contemplated, but steps were taken to ensure that no military commander would take an order from the White House or anywhere else that did not come through military channels. The implication is clear: Pentagon officials worried that Nixon might use certain elements of the military to stage some sort of coup. Schlesinger gives the story “legs” by issuing the following non-denial: “I did assure myself that there would be no question about the proper constitutional and legislated chain of command, and there never was any question.”
Go back in time to the summer of 1974 when the country was waiting on pins and needles to see what would be the outcome on the effort that was being made to separate Richard M. Nixon from the Presidency of the US. I was among those concerned about whether he would go quietly. I recall reading a story in the paper that said that the Secretary of Defense, James Schlesinger sent a memo to the Joint Chiefs of Staff directing that no orders should be executed unless they came through the chain of command. That is, through him.
Some folks would say, of course, that is what he should have done.
Some folks would say that he was exceeding his authority.
Some folks would say that he should have counted on the Generals to refuse any inappropriate order.
It seems to me that Secretary Schlesinger acted in an extremely courageous manner with that action.
Perhaps it was not necessary. But that is the kind of thing that you can never be sure was not necessary.
Schlesinger countered any temptation that Nixon might have faced to try to use the military to continue his presidency.
Most importantly, I think, he gave the generals cover in the event they had been obligated to refuse an order from the President.
He took the peril of what might have been labeled their treason onto his own shoulders.
Now, I cannot find a reference to that memo.
But I did find the following, which is close.
August 22, 1974: Pentagon, Joint Chiefs ‘Kept Watch’ on Nixon to Prevent Coup Attempt, Newspaper Reports
The Washington Post prints a small, almost-buried story entitled “Pentagon Kept Watch on Military.” The relatively innocuous headline conceals a potentially explosive charge—that during the final days of the Nixon administration, Defense Secretary James Schlesinger and the Joint Chiefs of Staff had “kept a close watch to make certain that no orders were given to military units outside the normal chain of command.” The article, careful in its word choices, says the extraordinary alert was “based on hypothetical situations that could arise during a period when President Nixon’s hold on the presidency was not clear.… Specifically, there was concern that an order could go to a military unit outside the chain of command for some sort of action against Congress during the time between a House impeachment and a Senate trial on the impeachment charge.” Pentagon sources say no one has any evidence that any such action was being contemplated, but steps were taken to ensure that no military commander would take an order from the White House or anywhere else that did not come through military channels. The implication is clear: Pentagon officials worried that Nixon might use certain elements of the military to stage some sort of coup. Schlesinger gives the story “legs” by issuing the following non-denial: “I did assure myself that there would be no question about the proper constitutional and legislated chain of command, and there never was any question.”
Thursday, December 31, 1970
BOB What's this
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Over time I am going to post some of the best material at the end of the blog so that a new reader can get a sense of that more quickly.
We begin with two pieces one from this blog and the other famous.
Over time I am going to post some of the best material at the end of the blog so that a new reader can get a sense of that more quickly.
We begin with two pieces one from this blog and the other famous.
Thursday, January 1, 1970
BOB "What Blood are Americans"
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Talat, a 16-year-old Turkish boy, kept asking me the question. He lived in Istanbul when I met him in June of 1983. I told him about the indigenous population (I have a bit of their blood) at the time of the European discovery of America and the successive waves of immigration that came: the Northern Europeans, the Southern Europeans, those who were stolen from Africa (and from themselves). Later they came from all over the world. I mentioned the melting pot (denied by some).
But his question does not have an answer.
Americans are not defined by blood. As many have noted an American is defined by location and the acceptance of the creed: the” self-evident truths” of the Declaration; the Constitutional restraints that begin with things like “Congress shall make no law …” or “No State shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”. I don’t believe that I succeeded in explaining it to Talat.
Twenty seven years later I got a census form with ten questions on it. Two of them were about race. Like Talat, they wanted to know what blood I was. They offered the usual choices.
I thought about it for a while and then checked the box for “other” and wrote: American.
.
Talat, a 16-year-old Turkish boy, kept asking me the question. He lived in Istanbul when I met him in June of 1983. I told him about the indigenous population (I have a bit of their blood) at the time of the European discovery of America and the successive waves of immigration that came: the Northern Europeans, the Southern Europeans, those who were stolen from Africa (and from themselves). Later they came from all over the world. I mentioned the melting pot (denied by some).
But his question does not have an answer.
Americans are not defined by blood. As many have noted an American is defined by location and the acceptance of the creed: the” self-evident truths” of the Declaration; the Constitutional restraints that begin with things like “Congress shall make no law …” or “No State shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”. I don’t believe that I succeeded in explaining it to Talat.
Twenty seven years later I got a census form with ten questions on it. Two of them were about race. Like Talat, they wanted to know what blood I was. They offered the usual choices.
I thought about it for a while and then checked the box for “other” and wrote: American.
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