The Most Important Reveal Ever

Reply to reply: The Demand For Defense?

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No, it really wouldn't, and it doesn't matter if they boycott the president or not. By removing Congress' power of the purse, and the budget bills that are thousands of pages long defining HOW each agency can spend its money, the president can simply redirect funds from one agency to another - including his own. 

Boycott all you want. It doesn't matter. - Galloism

If boycotting doesn't matter... then again, you're not critiquing pragmatarianism. If it doesn't matter how much money the people do not give the president... then again... you're not critiquing pragmatarianism.

In a pragmatarian system... the amount of money that a government agency receives would reflect the agency's credibility/legitimacy/necessity. If you choose to give the president your money... then you're giving him your stamp of a approval. You're verifying/vetting/vouching his particular use of society's limited resources.

Personally, I don't give my money to the NRA. Am I boycotting them? No. I simply believe that there are more valuable uses of my limited money. If you're a vegetarian... you don't buy meat. Are you boycotting the producers of meat? Yes. You strongly believe that there are far more valuable uses of your limited money.

And no matter how much you "boycott" the president funding wise, the constitution doesn't change. The constitution only changes if you comply with the requirements for constitutional change. Namely, you need to get 2/3 of both houses of congress to pass an amendment, sending it to the states, and then get 3/4 of the state legislatures to approve it under the procedures established by those states. - Galloism

If a tree falls in the forest, but nobody hears it, does it make a sound? If the constitution says we need a president, but nobody funds him, does he matter? If the law says that marijuana is illegal, but nobody funds its enforcement, does the law matter? If the law says that gays shouldn't be allowed to marry, but nobody funds its enforcement, does the law matter?

Every single one of our laws was created without knowing the actual demand for them. Most people don't realize this because they don't think that there's any real difference between voting for something and spending for something. Voting for something reveals popularity. Spending for something reveals demand. Demand depends entirely on personal sacrifice. Voting in no way shape or form requires you to reach into your own pocket and put your own hard-earned money where your mouth is. As a result... many, maybe even most, of our laws are total bullshit. Allowing people to choose where their taxes go would clearly show us which laws are worth keeping and which laws were worth discarding.

We don't exist for the laws... the laws exist for us. We don't exist for the president... the president exists for us. And the only way that we can truly discern whether the people genuinely want the president to exist for them is by allowing everybody to choose where their taxes go.

And barring thousand page funding bills, under your system, you can allocate whatever you want, but if you don't fundamentally change the structure of the government, the president can simply force redistribution of those allocations because he controls the hiring/firing of directors of those agencies. In order to do so, it would require a constitutional amendment, which requires vast political will, and a deep understanding of the current structure so it could be modified to suit your vision. This is why I keep harping on common ownership and control. If you do not change the common ownership and control of these agencies, your system will do nothing except give more power to the president. Full stop. - Galloism

It's not very significant to me that the president controls the hiring/firing of directors. You know why I'm not too worried about it? It's because, in a pragmatarian system, the taxpayers would control the president's funding.

Right now congress controls the tax rate. You know why I'm not too worried about it? It's because, in a pragmatarian system, the taxpayers would control congress's funding.

Let me geek out and quote Frank Herbert... "He who controls the spice controls the universe." In a pragmatarian system it would be... he who controls the funding controls the universe. And who would control the funding? Taxpayers.

Right now for most people it really doesn't matter how much money taxpayers would choose to give the president. This information isn't important to them. They aren't pragmatarians. They have absolutely no interest in knowing what the demand for the president is. Or they erroneously believe that voting reveals the demand for the president.

In order for a pragmatarian system to be implemented... enough people have to really appreciate the value of actually knowing the demand for the president. Enough people have to say, "It's a really huge fucking problem that we don't know the demand for the president or defense or environmental protection or public healthcare or cancer research or public education or space exploration or any other good supplied by the public sector!!!!" When enough people say this and believe it... then, and only then, will taxpayers be allowed to choose where their taxes go. So if, and when, pragmatarianism is implemented.... for most people it will be extremely meaningful and important to learn just how much money taxpayers are willing to give to the president. The amount of funding that the president receives will determine his fate. The president will know this. Taxpayers will know this. Everybody in the world will know this.

One time my girlfriend received a candle as a gift. This candle was a little different though because buried deep in the wax was a ring of unknown value. She was pretty happy to get the candle so she quickly set it on the coffee table and lit it. Then she went on youtube and started watching videos where people discovered which rings were in their candles. I think these are called "reveal" videos or something. Anyways, between the candle and the videos... I quickly fell asleep. I woke up shortly afterwards to find my girlfriend energetically trying to dig through the wax with a chopstick or something in order to get to the ring. Needless to say patience probably isn't her strongest suit. She couldn't take the suspense. It turned out the ring in her candle wasn't that valuable.

Actually... I might have mentioned something to her about the possibility of using a chopstick. I admit to being a little curious about the value of the ring. But as a pragmatarian... I'm infinitely more interested in knowing the value of the president and everything else in the public sector. The suspense is really killing me. Unfortunately, there's no way for me to cheat. I can't simply pay a psychic to tell me the true value of everything in the public sector. Instead, I simply have to try and persuade everyone that it would be really worth it to know the actual demand for public goods. I have to try and get them very interested in the "reveal". I have to try and persuade them to become pragmatarians.

So when you're critiquing a pragmatarian system... it's entirely necessary for you to appreciate that most people in the country will be extremely interested in the reveal. People in other countries will probably be very interested in the reveal. Maybe people on other planets will be tuning in to watch our first reveal. They will be reminiscing about their planet's very first reveal. They will be excited to compare the results of their first reveal with the results of our first reveal. For us on planet Earth it will be by far our most important "reveal" ever. People in other countries will want to have their own reveal. The suspense will be killing them.

Right now you're arguing that the reveal won't be that important. As if it really won't matter to the millions and millions of pragmatarians how valuable the president is. As if it could turn out that the president is entirely worthless... but it would still be business as usual. As if the people would say, "Ho hum, the president is worthless... nobody funds him... but no worries about him going about his regular business as if he was actually important to us. There's no problem with a worthless person living in the White House, flying around in Air Force one and meeting other presidents."

Imagine through mass mind control I could hire and fire directors of PETA and the NRA at my will, and the directors know this, and people MUST donate $100 amount to one of those two organizations by law. Does it matter which one? - Galloism

It still matters because people would still be very interested in the reveal. If it turned out that PETA was far more valuable... but you disrespected the reveal by shifting PETA's funding to the NRA... then people would disrespect you. And if people were not permitted to disrespect you... then clearly that would be a problem.

Divide and Conquer the Government

My response to....A Better System Than Pragmatarianism

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Everything boils down to people putting their own money where their mouths are.  All things being equal...the problem with our current system is that voters do not have to put their own money where their mouths are.  Therefore, to solve that problem we should simply give taxpayers the freedom to put their own taxes where their mouths are.

With that in mind...it's completely counterintuitive to pay congress in order to solve the problem of congress.  If there's a problem with an organization then you boycott it (Dude, Where's my Ethical Consumerism?) and encourage others to do the same.  The organization either changes or it goes out of business.

Clearly you're not going to be able to encourage every single taxpayer to boycott the government.  But believe you me...every single taxpayer would be more than happy to boycott one or more government organizations.  Liberals would be more than happy to boycott the military and conservatives would be more than happy to boycott everything but the military.

In a pragmatarian system...taxpayers would have the freedom to opt out of funding every single government organization...except for one.  Once taxpayers have the freedom to opt out of funding specific government organizations...then that's all you really need.  That was your biggest obstacle.  At that point you simply need to go down the list and encourage taxpayers to boycott each and every government organization one by one out of existence.

When faced with an insurmountable obstacle...it's extremely helpful to break the insurmountable obstacle down into several smaller more manageable obstacles.  That's the beauty of pragmatarianism...it allows us to divide and conquer the government.

Dude Where's My Ethical Consumerism?

My reply to Gary Chartier's reply to my comment on Matt Zwolinski's post on the New Student Libertarian Movement

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Dude, where's my ethical consumerism?  Yeah, all that stuff you mentioned is boringly clear to me so let's try a topic that you're evidently not familiar with...ethical consumerism.  What was so powerful about Charles Johnson's article?  Nothing.  Not a damn thing.  You know why?  Because he didn't even once mention ethical consumerism...and unfortunately neither did Rand Paul.

All Rand Paul had to do was ask Rachel Maddow if she would purchase goods/services from a business that engaged in discriminatory practices.  Obviously she would have said no.  Then he could have asked her if she would encourage a boycott of such a business.  Obviously she would have said yes.  Then he could have asked her, assuming that the business did not change its practices, if she would start a business to compete with the unethical business.  What would her response have been?  Obviously she can afford to start a business...so why wouldn't she have a responsibility to provide employment or products/goods to the people that were being discriminated against?

That would have been powerful.   But why would Rand Paul just stop there?

It's not hard to guess where you would have wanted the conversation to go..."by far the worst thing governments do is to make war"... Violence, Wars, and States

Clearly Rachel Maddow is a huge supporter of consumers being allowed to engage in boycotts...and obviously she's against wars.   So how would she have responded if Rand Paul had asked her whether taxpayers should be allowed to boycott wars?  Would she have said no?  Would she really argue that consumers should be allowed to boycott unethical businesses but taxpayers should not be allowed to boycott unethical wars?  Perhaps she would have asked how taxpayers could possibly boycott unethical wars.  Rand Paul's response would have been simple...by allowing taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes.

Rand Paul, Charles Johnson...and Gary Chartier...dudes, where's my ethical consumerism?  It sure wasn't evident in your own article.  Although you did recognize that war represents a misallocation of resources...but do you really think that taxpayers wouldn't also recognize that it represents a misallocation of their own hard earned money?  Do you really think that only you and Eisenhower grasp that war has opportunity costs?

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron...Is there no other way the world may live? - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953 

So here's my question to you, Gary Chartier. Do you support allowing taxpayers to engage in ethical consumerism?  In other words...do you support allowing taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes?