I'm fine with your free stuff. We've built the wealthiest, most prosperous nation in the history of the planet. Our citizens deserve to live well. And we have a vested interest in educating the next generation on into perpetuity.,
Maybe reduce the bloated military budget though -- & considering being *nicer to people* instead. Resurrect the Peace Corps. (Lord, am I dating myself with that reference. I will be 78 on Mar 24 -- next week. I was part of the "Radical Left" in my college days. Find me to the left of Bernie. There's plenty of room out here.)
Hey Steve, may I ask you to please make the concrete case for the possibility of too much free stuff, so we really know what you mean?
Start with free, clean air. Where is a good place to draw the line?
-enough free clean air for each person to breathe and stay conscious?
-enough free clean air for each person to have sex once a day?
-enough free clean air for each person to productively work?
-enough free clean air for each person who wants to dance or run a marathon, to do so?
-enough free clean air only for powerful people who can afford to buy air filters everywhere they go, while 99% of humanity's morlocks live shorter, lower quality lives?
This is rhetorical but useful, I think, since it would seem clear to most that there is NO general social or economic benefit to anyone, to limiting free clean air. This is similar to the observation that owners of an NFL team give ALL their players helmets, not just the QB.
If you want the best team you can have, you feed them well, teach them well, maximize their development, protect them, and give them whatever healthcare they need to do their best. Duh, right?
In short, there is a base level of meeting necessities that any decent government guarantees to ALL citizens, BOTH because it is a moral result of egalitarian principles [that most of us hold dear], AND because it makes financial sense to optimize the capacity of each member of a society or nation. Each of these independent reasons is sufficient.
This 'free' list of human necessities includes:
- clean air
- clean water
- clothing and shelter
- food (draw the line at optimal nutrients & cal / day needed for growth & good development, not for recreational eating? or draw no line?)
- education through high school (that includes probability & stats, scientific method, history & civics, ethics, governance, philosophy, and great books literature)
- meaningful work & tools for those able to produce added value
- meaningful care for those who need it, which provides us the opportunity to express compassion for the less fortunate and to help us understand and remember 'that can, and soon may be, me', and so that we don't live lives of fear - of decline or misfortune.
- a community and mission that gives joy and meaning to life.
Perhaps there can be too much of a good thing. I understand the moral hazard argument that given a choice, people will not produce, but will drink beer and watch a screen.
But I'd like you to be clear about what you think, and where you'd draw the line... since it is a readily argued case ('End of Poverty' - J. Sachs, etc.) that there is enough for everyone to have everything in the list above - the things they need.
As a career civil servant I understand better than Elon that simplifying complex things, [like arbitrarily firing half the staff of SSA] is not likely to make them work more efficiently or effectively - no matter WHICH color staff you fire... :).
[But to be fair, in Elon-speak, 'inefficient' means 'blue', the efficiency objective is another big lie, and it increasingly seems possible to fire most of the true blue deep state.]
Back on topic:
One might reconcile "$18/hr" and "$50K/yr" base (which is ~$25/hr)?
Does the employer pay the $18/hr, and the gov't tops it up to the $25/hr annual min?
Otherwise, might end up with perverse incentives - where businesses pay no-one a wage between $18 and $25... or business may tend to cap at $18/hr and do all higher pay via elaborated/extended benefits, so that gov't ends up paying the last $7/hr of most salaries (below perhaps $50/hr?) unless government wants to get into the messy businesses of surveilling the non-cash compensations that may be VERY hard to monitor (like, random no-work days, etc. for full pay).
Details don't communicate well. But if one has integrity, they matter. This is the bigger challenge, I expect, particularly if one has a pandering-type policy platform. Dem's lost because they had more integrity AND because they failed to play sufficient hard ball to convict and put away those without it.
If you want to have non-kleptocratic, non-zero-sum society, you MUST a) train and educate the youth in civics/ethics [for generations; can't be done in a single generation I fear], and b) be successfully and sufficiently punitive to the 'cheaters'. I suspect addressing this needs to be part of any workable governance platform, but it is also unlikely to communicate well.
I will leave the fleshing out for the seance. We need to get the brains together to work this out. You and Steve have been a tremendous help. I added these things inside the original post.
Attended an annual Tumor Registrars Conference in Florida in 1992. As a CDC stats & informatics nerd (and bit more rare, Certified Tumor Registrar), less than a year before I’d been asked to review the draft technical language of a cancer registry bill working its way through Congress by an unknown to me freshman named Sanders. Turns out he came to speak as guest speaker at the omnibus session. He was introduced as the only non-Republican, non-Democrat in the US Congress. He received a standing ovation before he said a word.😏 So there’s an appetite!
Risk in changing boats is that period while your center of gravity is moving between them… and it can be decades (>33 years for Bernie)… and that’s too long right now.
Dems (rather, ANTI-Ts) must forget ALL differences to stop the info/AI/crypto oligarch coup, or our next government will be an X-AI mediated totalitarianism, personalized for each of us.
But yeah, I’d be happy calling it the Independent Party, if that was a center of gravity. 😉
Maybe too much free stuff.
Overturn of Citizens United.
I agree with you. Will add that to the list.
I'm fine with your free stuff. We've built the wealthiest, most prosperous nation in the history of the planet. Our citizens deserve to live well. And we have a vested interest in educating the next generation on into perpetuity.,
Maybe reduce the bloated military budget though -- & considering being *nicer to people* instead. Resurrect the Peace Corps. (Lord, am I dating myself with that reference. I will be 78 on Mar 24 -- next week. I was part of the "Radical Left" in my college days. Find me to the left of Bernie. There's plenty of room out here.)
I agree with you. Russia is not the military threat it was. There is more than the free stuff on the list now. See below comments.
Added that to the post. Need to keep the list somewhere!
Hey Steve, may I ask you to please make the concrete case for the possibility of too much free stuff, so we really know what you mean?
Start with free, clean air. Where is a good place to draw the line?
-enough free clean air for each person to breathe and stay conscious?
-enough free clean air for each person to have sex once a day?
-enough free clean air for each person to productively work?
-enough free clean air for each person who wants to dance or run a marathon, to do so?
-enough free clean air only for powerful people who can afford to buy air filters everywhere they go, while 99% of humanity's morlocks live shorter, lower quality lives?
This is rhetorical but useful, I think, since it would seem clear to most that there is NO general social or economic benefit to anyone, to limiting free clean air. This is similar to the observation that owners of an NFL team give ALL their players helmets, not just the QB.
If you want the best team you can have, you feed them well, teach them well, maximize their development, protect them, and give them whatever healthcare they need to do their best. Duh, right?
In short, there is a base level of meeting necessities that any decent government guarantees to ALL citizens, BOTH because it is a moral result of egalitarian principles [that most of us hold dear], AND because it makes financial sense to optimize the capacity of each member of a society or nation. Each of these independent reasons is sufficient.
This 'free' list of human necessities includes:
- clean air
- clean water
- clothing and shelter
- food (draw the line at optimal nutrients & cal / day needed for growth & good development, not for recreational eating? or draw no line?)
- education through high school (that includes probability & stats, scientific method, history & civics, ethics, governance, philosophy, and great books literature)
- meaningful work & tools for those able to produce added value
- meaningful care for those who need it, which provides us the opportunity to express compassion for the less fortunate and to help us understand and remember 'that can, and soon may be, me', and so that we don't live lives of fear - of decline or misfortune.
- a community and mission that gives joy and meaning to life.
Perhaps there can be too much of a good thing. I understand the moral hazard argument that given a choice, people will not produce, but will drink beer and watch a screen.
But I'd like you to be clear about what you think, and where you'd draw the line... since it is a readily argued case ('End of Poverty' - J. Sachs, etc.) that there is enough for everyone to have everything in the list above - the things they need.
Would you have fed, or executed, Socrates?
All good thoughts. How to articulate it succinctly is the challenge. These are things we have inherent rights to expect from government. Thank you.
Mark, I added these for now:
• Health-Centric Ecology and Environment Mandate
• Health-Safety Food and Drug Mandate
Brevity is indeed a challenge ;).
As a career civil servant I understand better than Elon that simplifying complex things, [like arbitrarily firing half the staff of SSA] is not likely to make them work more efficiently or effectively - no matter WHICH color staff you fire... :).
[But to be fair, in Elon-speak, 'inefficient' means 'blue', the efficiency objective is another big lie, and it increasingly seems possible to fire most of the true blue deep state.]
Back on topic:
One might reconcile "$18/hr" and "$50K/yr" base (which is ~$25/hr)?
Does the employer pay the $18/hr, and the gov't tops it up to the $25/hr annual min?
Otherwise, might end up with perverse incentives - where businesses pay no-one a wage between $18 and $25... or business may tend to cap at $18/hr and do all higher pay via elaborated/extended benefits, so that gov't ends up paying the last $7/hr of most salaries (below perhaps $50/hr?) unless government wants to get into the messy businesses of surveilling the non-cash compensations that may be VERY hard to monitor (like, random no-work days, etc. for full pay).
Details don't communicate well. But if one has integrity, they matter. This is the bigger challenge, I expect, particularly if one has a pandering-type policy platform. Dem's lost because they had more integrity AND because they failed to play sufficient hard ball to convict and put away those without it.
If you want to have non-kleptocratic, non-zero-sum society, you MUST a) train and educate the youth in civics/ethics [for generations; can't be done in a single generation I fear], and b) be successfully and sufficiently punitive to the 'cheaters'. I suspect addressing this needs to be part of any workable governance platform, but it is also unlikely to communicate well.
Review the recent NYT podcast on why progressivism is working in Denmark and not elsewhere: they have a rational, numbers/formula driven bound on their immigration and other free-bees. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/24/magazine/denmark-immigration-policy-progressives.html
I will leave the fleshing out for the seance. We need to get the brains together to work this out. You and Steve have been a tremendous help. I added these things inside the original post.
1 Wages is employers.
2. Supplementation is government.
3. Details TBD
Yay! I wish the DNC cared.
The future of democracy in the US simply may not have 'democrat' in the party name.
The leadership of both parties are mostly in the 0.1%, and owned.
One simply can't have a Democracy when billionaires are allowed to exist in the same domain.
Until the world gets the money back out of billionaires, you will NOT get the money out of politics.
I think another party is needed. The Independent Party gets my vote.
Attended an annual Tumor Registrars Conference in Florida in 1992. As a CDC stats & informatics nerd (and bit more rare, Certified Tumor Registrar), less than a year before I’d been asked to review the draft technical language of a cancer registry bill working its way through Congress by an unknown to me freshman named Sanders. Turns out he came to speak as guest speaker at the omnibus session. He was introduced as the only non-Republican, non-Democrat in the US Congress. He received a standing ovation before he said a word.😏 So there’s an appetite!
Risk in changing boats is that period while your center of gravity is moving between them… and it can be decades (>33 years for Bernie)… and that’s too long right now.
Dems (rather, ANTI-Ts) must forget ALL differences to stop the info/AI/crypto oligarch coup, or our next government will be an X-AI mediated totalitarianism, personalized for each of us.
But yeah, I’d be happy calling it the Independent Party, if that was a center of gravity. 😉
Thank you, I do approve of those platform ideas.
Yay! I wish the DNC cared too!