Galt's Gulch

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  • Posted by Herb7734 8 years, 10 months ago
    Well...first of all, there are too damn many Federal employees anyhow. But we are on the threshold of no privacy. Anyone who goes on line can be hacked, either directly or indirectly. Firewalls? Some of them work today, but I'll guarantee that they won't tomorrow. I'm not sure if I'm able or want to get off the grid, but then, I'm old.
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    • Posted by $ Thoritsu 8 years, 10 months ago
      Way too many!
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      • Posted by scojohnson 8 years, 10 months ago
        I work for a federal/military contractor... you should see how many contractors there are (not counted in the employee numbers)... if you actually want something done in government, it has to be contracted out... so the 4 million or so federal employees really don't actually accomplish much.
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        • Posted by johnpe1 8 years, 10 months ago
          yessir!!! . when I started my engineering "career" in
          1975, I was considering a job as a fed, versus a job
          as a contractor. . I was surprised to find that the feds
          Really Did Nothing -- Just Administrated Stuff. . the
          real engineering was done by the contractors. . so,
          that's where I went. . it was an amazing contrast!!! -- j
          .
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          • Posted by scojohnson 8 years, 10 months ago
            Well, they endlessly debate minutiae and spend more time bitching that something isn't in their labor category or job description than it would take to just do it. There is also the dark cave and red hooded robes they all disappear to frequently.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 8 years, 10 months ago
    Hackers attacking government employees electronically may be the best allies of individual liberty.
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    • Posted by johnpe1 8 years, 10 months ago
      I am afraid that I don't understand. . individual liberty
      requires some govt employees for national defense
      and -- oh, I wish -- border defense. . yes? . do you
      want the government dissolved? . anarchy? -- j
      .
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      • Posted by freedomforall 8 years, 10 months ago
        No, I want it to resemble the government under the Articles of Confederation. That would include millions of current government employees finding productive work and not being government employees.
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        • Posted by scojohnson 8 years, 10 months ago
          We don't need to advocate revolution and anarchy... simply returning the federal government to the limited scope of the Constitution is more than adequate. Just burn the billions of pages of US Code.
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          • Posted by freedomforall 8 years, 10 months ago
            The millions of government employee looters will feel its revoutionary. So will all the cormpanies that only survive because of the unconstitutional spending by the Offence Department, the Dept of Ejukashun, the Bill of Rights Destruction Dept (aka CIA, NSA, FBI, Homeland Suckurity), the Insurance Profitability Dept (aka Obamacare, Medicare), the Promote Socialism Dept (aka EPA), and the Banking Profit Assurance Dept (Treasury Dept.)
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            • Posted by scojohnson 8 years, 10 months ago
              We make hydro power, a bit more noble of a cause, unless you are offended by lights or love floods.
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              • Posted by freedomforall 8 years, 10 months ago
                You may eventually end up employed by a company instead of the government.
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                • Posted by scojohnson 8 years, 10 months ago
                  You may have misunderstood,I'm already do work for a private company, one if our many contracts is for ops/management support of fed hydro dams in many states and marketing the power generated when it's available. The intermittent nature of hydro power in the west makes it unsuitable as a private business, it's predominantly for flood control, but when there isn't any water, nothing to spin the generators. But when the torrents come, it both creates power to sell, but also keeps some major cities I won't name from being under 30+ feet of water.
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                  • Posted by freedomforall 8 years, 10 months ago
                    Understood. Thanks for sharing your experience.
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                    • Posted by scojohnson 8 years, 10 months ago
                      There are many things the private sector and too small of government can't address... just look at the on-going floods right now as an example. That stuff is completely preventable by a levee system and power dams for affected-areas... but in their defense, climatic change (call it global warming or whatever) is changing weather patterns. It's noticeable... I grew up in northern Minnesota and always had -50 degree temps and 4 feet of snow in the winter. Now, something like +10 to 20 degrees is the norm, and snow is rather rare it seems like in the same area. Global temps as an average have grown very little, but in some areas, particularly in the arctic, it is very, very noticeable and not really deniable. Whether humans cause it is open to debate, I'm sure we impact it, but to what extent, its not 100%, and it's probably not 60%, but half is probably believable to me. Obviously, Alaska was once a jungle or you wouldn't have so much fossil fuel there... we have cycles, but I think we (humans) are speeding them up to be noticeable in our lifetimes rather than on geologic terms. I also think we'll accelerate a reverse of the cycle.

                      Dealing with this stuff has to be done on a government level, its not something that private business has the scale, resources, or profit incentive for doing.
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                      • Posted by freedomforall 8 years, 10 months ago
                        Believe whatever you want, but there is no evidence to support any theory of significant anthropomorphic climate change. I agree there are cycles, probably primarily caused by the sun, and man's effect on those cycles is trivial (less than 1%) if there is any effect at all. It' a red herring created to manipulate people and concentrate power and wealth.
                        That 'stuff' must not be done by government because government has a vested interest in creating the crisis to justify higher taxes, more controls, and more power for itself.
                        Cui Bono.
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                    • Posted by scojohnson 8 years, 10 months ago
                      Most of the larger government projects actually have some kind of self-supporting funding mechanism in the capital plan. Hydro dams are primarily for flood control, but the power generation is usually enough to either completely or nearly entirely service the bonds issued to build the project (depends on environmental factors - how much water/power, how big the dam, construction technical details, etc.). Highways in theory are supported by their users in the form of gas tax & vehicle registration, but I'm sure that is redirected later... Bridges by tolls usually (but in San Francisco the Bay Bridge & Golden Gate & others pay for SF Section 8 housing and the state & federal taxpayers foot the cost of the bridges).

                      On a private level, the dollars involved for some of this stuff really isn't practical, it really does take sovereign resources to build this stuff (and it's needed for an evolved economy).

                      The real function of government should be national defense, public safety, civil engineering projects, "common" economic development - a power grid, interstate transport, air travel controls, import/export, basic public health - inoculations against pandemic, etc.

                      The as-designed framework of the government is fine - it's the overreach in the name of "national security" or "safety & security" or "protecting the consumer" I think is where government really runs amok.
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                      • Posted by freedomforall 8 years, 10 months ago
                        Most of your functions of government are unconstitutional and would be done by private firms if government didn't steal our paychecks at gunpoint and spend them without authority.
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                        • Posted by scojohnson 8 years, 10 months ago
                          Can you articulate an example of how a private firm would build and maintain a heavy (multi-billion dollar) engineering project? I'm not talking a bridge across a river in Minnesota... I'm talking Golden Gate, or a 20 mile bridge in Seattle.

                          Can you articulate how a private firm would defend the United States against attack? or are you talking about some freak-stupid militia shit with the city-states on TV shows like "Revolution'.

                          How would a private company manage air transit across the United States?

                          How would a private company negotiate a trade deal with China or Venezuela? And yes, we really are better off now than when we built & consumed everything here.

                          Would you want JP Morgan issuing currency? Or maybe different money minted in every city or state and you pony up a 20% conversion rate if you drive 20 miles from home? Or are you thinking about reverting to the wagon train days and washing your laundry in a river?

                          Most anarchists & revolutionaries usually don't really have a flushed-out plan... that has always been my observation.

                          I fully agree that 4 million federal employees is probably 3.75 million more than there should be, but not having a government isn't realistic either. Although 4 million would also include the armed forces and the reservists... so the civilian force is probably 1.5 million or so, give or take, and that could probably be 250,000 to adequately do the job.
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                          • Posted by freedomforall 8 years, 10 months ago
                            As for most of your questions, David Friedman's book Machinery of Freedom explains how private businesses can efficiently replace many tasks that government is unconstitutionally doing today.
                            The constitution limits government in many ways that have been ignored.
                            Basically government should protect private property rights in the US, and that includes national defense, but not "nation building" overseas.
                            JP Morgan etal do effectively issue legal tender for its own profit at our expense. I'd love to see them issue their own currency that they back with value instead of profiting due to IRS collections.
                            Yes, I think many currencies are a great idea, and with competition, there is no reason to expect massive transaction fees because the technology exists to do it very cheaply and with reasonable transparancy and verification. Much better than the current system gives us.
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                            • Posted by freedomforall 8 years, 10 months ago
                              In addition the number of jobs that are government paid for are much larger than your 4 million. 16% of employees are directly employed by the public sector (government at all levels.) In addition, about 20% of all private sector employment is paid through federal contracts per this article:
                              http://mercatus.org/publication/governme...

                              This estimate does not include jobs from the banking looter cartel that only exists by government edict.
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