I’m thinking about writing a new book and/or starting a new organization, and I’m curious about how you folks would respond to the following mini-manifesto. Comments would be appreciated. ( Read more... )
I'd be interested in the membership organization. In particular I like the expression of the concept that we, the people, are hiring specialists to do things which need doing with our tax money. That states the need quite well, IMO.
Thank you for both the encouragement and the specific feedback. One of the things I'm trying to figure out is how to talk about taxes in a way that people will find interesting and persuasive, so I find your comment here quite helpful.
I would love to get involved with something like this. I agree with you 100%. You should use that case of the firefighters letting a house burn down in Tennessee as a key example of anti-tax feeling run amok.
I hadn't heard about the fire-not-fighting incident. I was on vacation at the time and deliberately not paying attention to the news. Thank you very much for the pointer. I find especially relevant the mayor's comment that they can't let people pay on the spot, because otherwise no one would pay unless their house was burning. That's exactly what taxes-as-insurance is about.
As for getting involved ... Might you be interested in getting together with me sometime to talk about vision and strategy and tactics? I have lots of ideas burbling in my head and could very much use a few people to talk with. Does that sound like fun to you?
I would love to do that, with the caveat that I'm not sure when I'll have time. Right now I'm feeling overwhelmed with work. That will last at least until the end of October, then hopefully things will ease up a little bit (unless I have to go to Central Asia in November, which is a possibility. I'll know next week) So if you don't mind waiting until early November, I would love to get together to talk about these things.
I'd be intrigued to the extent it attempted to find common ground with large numbers of Americans.
For example, I'm a libertarian. I'm very mistrustful of government, and think it needs lots of checks and balances to keep it from mistreating people. I also might disagree about whether government is the right tool to do something, at least without checks and balances with teeth sharp enough to prevent corruption (e.g. strong transparency requirements). But I might totally agree with you on what things society as a whole should try to do. And I absolutely would agree with you that if government must do those things, they should be done effectively and competently, and should be paid for with taxes and not debt, even if that means raising taxes substantially.
So you would probably find lots of common ground with me, but only if you stepped back and looked for it. I suspect Americans agree on more than they disagree on, by a long shot. If someone on the left were to attempt to reach out to me and speak in a language I understood
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These are some of the qualms I've been struggling with myself these last few weeks, as I've been exploring this idea and trying to decide whether I want to move forward with it. Checks and balances, absolutely. I'm also quite concerned about the inefficiencies and lack of accountability that seems to me endemic to large organizations, however they are funded. Managing people well is challenging, as I know viscerally from my attempts to do it. And managing a *lot* of people is even more challenging. Add to that the difficulties of firing people from many government positions, and there's a real problem. I understand why civil service laws want to protect the people who are actually doing the work from the winds of political fortune, and it would be worse to have everyone who knows something be laid off whenever there's a new administration. But government jobs as sinecures
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donnad pointed me to this. As you know, I wholly agree with the sentiment and the project. Another angle (which, predictably, is the angle which frustrates me right this moment) perhaps worth pursuing is where the so-called liberal agenda actually make good, conservative business sense. My two favorite examples are universal healthcare and welfare
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yes - please!ext_287635October 16 2010, 13:55:52 UTC
I don't think I've got a lot of insight that would help, but this country so so so desperately needs this common sense (or, apparently not-so-common sense) explained briefly, eloquently and forcefully. Thanks! -pablo
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As for getting involved ... Might you be interested in getting together with me sometime to talk about vision and strategy and tactics? I have lots of ideas burbling in my head and could very much use a few people to talk with. Does that sound like fun to you?
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For example, I'm a libertarian. I'm very mistrustful of government, and think it needs lots of checks and balances to keep it from mistreating people. I also might disagree about whether government is the right tool to do something, at least without checks and balances with teeth sharp enough to prevent corruption (e.g. strong transparency requirements). But I might totally agree with you on what things society as a whole should try to do. And I absolutely would agree with you that if government must do those things, they should be done effectively and competently, and should be paid for with taxes and not debt, even if that means raising taxes substantially.
So you would probably find lots of common ground with me, but only if you stepped back and looked for it. I suspect Americans agree on more than they disagree on, by a long shot. If someone on the left were to attempt to reach out to me and speak in a language I understood ( ... )
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