Why Do People Who Need Help from the Government Hate It So Much? | Hacker News Reader

Why Do People Who Need Help from the Government Hate It So Much?

nytimes.com

52 pointshelloworld86 comments

I come from the heart of tea-party country. My impression is that people believe government handouts destroy any illusion that one might have of self-sufficiency and instill a sense of helplessness. There could be some merit to this idea. [1]

It's one reason I'm skeptical of basic income. Burying money and putting people to work "mining" it, as Keynes once suggested, might even be a better alternative. [2] :]

1.) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2202/1944-2858.1158/ab...

2.) http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote/john_maynard_keynes_quot...

I agree with you. UBI will be hated by people because it is a forced equalizer and removes agency from their hands.

UBI depends on tax collection, but state is corruptible and companies are greedy. This puts people in a bad position, but, if you think about it, companies are going to be in a weird position too - when people are moneyless, who's going to buy their products? Is it sane to tax companies, give free money to people in order to buy products from said companies?

The solution should include breaking automation monopolies and empowering people. Instead of UBI, what we need is to spread the use of automation and AI technologies in all parts of society, with the aim of achieving self sufficiency on a country, region and community level.

Research in self sufficiency should also include solar energy, water filtration, sustainable agriculture and 3D-printing - all that is required to live off-grid. I envision co-ops formed of a few thousand people, farming land, making houses, offering education and health services for its members.

If we're not going to get jobs, we need to own and rely on automation instead.

Isn't the whole point of UBI is to smooth out and provide a safety net for those displaced by advancing technology?

But in order to happen, it requires the cooperation of the state and companies.

In the past, people had work. Each person was inextricably linked to his/her work power. In order for companies to function, they simply had to pay people to work, there was no other way around it. But after automation, most people will have nothing to offer any more. So people lose their self reliance ability and become dependent upon the state, at the mercy of political and economic games.

A horror scenario I imagine is if the state does give UBI, but it is too small. It would feel like communism in the Eastern Europe where everyone had a "job" (mostly posing to work) and everyone got a salary, but it wasn't much. The joke going around was "We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us!" What can people do if the UBI is too small? Start a revolution? I'd bet on self-reliance as a much more stable solution.

Instead of collecting tax in a big pot and then doling UBI to everyone, self reliance splits the single point of failure, and allows more experimentation and ingenuity at grassroot level.

In the past, people had work.... But after automation, most people will have nothing to offer any more.

The same arguments were used at the advent of the industrial revolution. There will still be work after robotics, just not the same work.

How do you know? You are just making an assertion. It is not a law of nature.

If you will forgive some hyperbole: After the industrial revolution, you no longer needed peoples' hands, just their brains. Now we will no longer need peoples' brains.

Automation is a process that proceeds step by step, not a repeating pattern.

Hopefully there is still something left that means there will still be a need for a large number of humans. But I think it is arrogant to just assert that. For every part of what humans can deliver that you replace there is less left where humans are needed.

> How do you know?

We don't know. But it has been true for every technology change since the discovery of agriculture so it is a high probability assertion. It might be different next time, of course, but the implication is that humanity won't create knew things to do as it has always done in the past. I don't see any evidence of a diminution of creativity but maybe you do.

In the industrial revolution we mostly automated blunt physical labor. In the AI revolution we will automate intellectual labor. Robots are also becoming more dexterous. I don't think history can guide us here.

Objectively valuable human endeavors could shrink to nothing, though we will probably at least buy ourselves time with genetic tampering and brain prostheses.

Perhaps humanity's salvation will come from selling hand-crafted goods? Maybe the AIs will keep us around like pets (see The Culture novels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks#The_Culture_novels)?

No sense in not charging ahead though. The potential upside is too awesome to leave on the table. We face existential risk regardless.

> I don't think history can guide us here

Of course it can. What has been consistent over centuries is that, as we've automated physical and intellectual labour, we've replaced it with other forms of physical and intellectual labour. Not in equal amounts, sure, but we've adapted. It's why we have, on average, more people in education for longer than historically, for example.

I agree it's fun to extrapolate this to some form of asymptotic future but just because we can envisage future X doesn't mean it will occur (William Gibson novels aside, of course).

UBI doesn't have to depend on tax collection. It can also be a replacement for monetary policy, and in that form would be more delicate control than the current open-market operations, since it is not subjected to an easily-manipulated money multiplier. It may also be fairer since it creates capital markets from the bottom up, thus enabling small-scale entrepreneurship through personal liquidity. Some might see that as far more democratic than buying bonds from merchant banks. It also suggests a more direct adjustment of inflation, rather than manipulating inflation through the effects of interest rate on debt.

This is all somewhat theoretical because any discussion of change to central banking systems ends up stymied by institutional resistance, public confusion, entrenched interests, and political reluctance. Nonetheless the option exists. If I was studying towards an economics PhD right now, I'd probably be modelling the comparative behaviours & outcomes of UBI-based monetary policy.

p.s. your vision of autonomous communities makes me dream of an end to nation states and a return to the sovereign municipalities of both the distant past and a [science-fiction future](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age).

I thought one of the major benefits of UBI was that, because it's universal, there's less stigma attached? If you're either "working" or "on the dole" then the latter makes you feel pretty useless. If everyone gets UBI then looking forward to yours is legitimized. It'd become no different to a tax return.

Yes! A great example of this is Social Security (US national retirement income). SS is not mean-tested, and enjoys the fiction of "you get what you put into it." So there's no stigma attached in receiving it.

I do not support means-testing SS because I believe in the program and want to see it continue. Means-testing will make it indistinguishable from welfare and thus politically vulnerable. UBI is the same.

> fiction

This is key. The reality is irrelevant. What matters is how the culture chooses to interpret it. Social attitudes are not particularly rational.

Social Security recipients feel that they have "earned" their retirement income, though, because they paid into the system during forty-seven-or-so years of their working life.

UBI does not solve the basic problem that a good percentage of one's sense of personal worth is tied up in work. Giving people a check is not the same as giving them something meaningful to do with their life.

Personally I find it hard to support UBI on any large scale without more understanding of the unintended side effects.

UBI doesn't stop people from working - it provides the flexibility to chose to work at what is meaningful to you.

The reason unintended side effects happen is because they can't be articulated beforehand.

What if it’s not payed work but meaningful activities that leads to self worth. Many activities may not be generating direct economic value but may still contribute to society. Different types of environmental or community work are examples of that category.

I feel like there will still be a stigma attached. The people who are paying more in to UBI than they receive back will (rightly?) feel like they are propping up those who are not working and therefore paying less / nothing. I would not personally 'look forward' to receiving a UBI check if I know that my taxes have increased by more than the value of the UBI.

As a corollary, 70% of the people in the Dust Bowl stayed.

Well, how about a citizen's dividend[0]? Instead of making people jump through hoops to prove they're not secretly working (why do we want people to not work?) and that they're not doing drugs or buying nonessential goods (heaven forbid they buy a new phone!), why not give everybody certificates and paperwork explaining to them their rights as citizens of the country to a portion of the wealth produced from the bounty of the land to which they are entitled? Give them detailed information on the economy and the GDP, its growth, and show directly how it affects their bottom line in the form of a dividend paid monthly into their bank account.

It doesn't even have to stop there. The information can also talk about how they as individuals can get involved in having a say in the future direction of the economy, including what to do with future tax, tariff, and bond revenues. If you treat people like the owners of their nation and give them a real piece of the pie and a real say over how it's governed, their learned helplessness [1] is liable to diminish!

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen%27s_dividend

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

In a democracy, giving some people a "real say" means denying other people a "real say."

Pavlina Tcherneva on Job Guarantee vs Basic Income: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_-CRquE_bU&feature=youtu.be...

Ah, the illusions. Many Russians lives in poverty and the state doesn't do anything for them, but the latter fuels their ideal of being a Great World Power. So they keep voting for those who fleece their country in exchange of some illusory identity.

My impression is that it's largely down to who they think gets those handouts. The perception that the face of need and poverty in the US is principally black, has always driven conservative opposition to 'big government', welfare and government paid healthcare, certainly since the Civil Rights Act.

This invites the question of whether socialist policies might have a better prospect in a hypothetical future US partitioned into ethno-states.

>It's one reason I'm skeptical of basic income.

The major problem of means tested welfare is that if you want to do a low paying job that you lose more in benefits than you gain in income. The dependees are acting rationally in this regard, they didn't lose their "self-sufficiency".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_trap

UBI doesn't have this problem.

“‘Let me give you a lesson in practical politics.’ Senator Burt looked at his wristwatch, leaned back and smiled. ‘It is a mistake,’ he said, ‘to suppose that the public wants the environment protected or their lives saved and that they will be grateful to any idealist who will fight for such ends. What the public wants is their own individual comfort.
‘Now then, young man, don’t ask me to stop the Pumping. The economy and comfort of the entire planet depend on it. Tell me, instead, how to keep the Pumping from exploding the Sun.’
Lamont said, ‘There is no way, Senator. We are dealing with something here that is so basic, we can’t play with it. We must stop it.’
‘Ah, and you suggest only that we go back to matters as they were before Pumping.’
‘We must.’
‘In that case, you will need hard and fast proof you are right.’

‘The best proof,’ Lamont said stiffly, ‘is to have the Sun explode.'”

There is always a tension between short term gains and long term planning. I think history, economics, psychology, behavioral economics all pretty much agree that most people are terrible at long term planning and they will consistently sacrifice long term gains for short term gains in exchange for a much worse future for all involved.

I'm not as optimistic as the author of that book. I don't think there is a way to crack this nut and get long term thinking to be the norm. When even people who have cancer because of the kind of environment they live in are voting to weaken the power of the EPA what hope is there?

Progress comes from technology, not politics. We evolved despite our political mess, not the other way around.

For those not familiar with it, the above quote is from "The Gods Themselves" by Isaac Asimov--a very good science fiction novel.

I recognise that excerpt. The Gods Themselves, by Asimov.

Of his works that I've read, "optimistic" is not the word I would associate with this particular book. It is cynical from the outset, with even the prologue making a point that scientific progress is mostly achieved out of spite.

As for the solution to the problem in the book ... IIRC it happens mostly by accident. The underlying tone in the story is that despite the importance of scientific advances, the driving force is always that of a personal vendetta. After all, in the story Lamont spends his career seeking revenge, trying to find a way to shoot the messenger of the uninformed and dangerous view.

Optimistic? I prefer jaded.

EDIT: originally I remembered it was a Heinlein book. Changed to Asimov.

The leading assumption of this book review (and many articles like it) is that it's hypocritical for poor people to both accept government assistance and be in favor of reducing it in general.

What a crock of shit.

Notice we never see headlines asking…

- Why Do Tech Workers Who Need Software Patents Hate Them So Much?

- Why Do Billionaires Who Need Tax Breaks Hate Them So Much?

- Why Do Tenants Who Need Rent Control Hate It So Much?

…because it goes without saying that those people are smart enough to vote outside of their short term economic interest. Anyone accepting a food stamp, though, how dare they vote for anything except more food stamps!?

I consider myself pretty progressive, but come on. How would you feel about being told you "need" any law which happens to benefit your bottom line and being treated like an idiot for opposing it?

Your point is well taken. But how can the state redistribute wealth to the needy without paternalism?

This is arguably one of the main points of UBI, which should, by construction, solve paternalism. One of the main points is changing people's view on income.

I was listening to Dan Savage today, and he mentioned that the racism of Trump is nothing new, we did it with Catholics, Irish, Chinese, Italians, it seems most every nationality got it's brief turn as the "other". His point was that the right will eventually look back with shame on this moment too, when they demonized Mexicans and innocent refugees from Syria.

His point reinforced sort of the opposite in me, something else that I have been feeling for a long time: we need to understand that many people, now and in the future will have significant problems with immigration. Whether it's right, wrong or just illogical, we on the left do ourselves no favor by writing off their feelings as racism and not at least attempting to address them. Furthermore, this is a democracy, where they should have their viewpoint at least somewhat addressed, they certainly have the numbers to warrant it. It doesn't mean we buckle to racism, but it means we accept that wariness and fear of immigration is something that has existed in this world for a long time, and these sentiments are tied to real feelings people have to feel secure.

True, the real solutions to these insecurities are based on education and economic growth, not limiting immigration, but perhaps it's time we on the left said loudly "We hear you, and we understand."

> but perhaps it's time we on the left said loudly "We hear you, and we understand."

Yes! A friend of mine was expressing exactly this sentiment to me the other day. One good result of this election is that it's made me aware of the sense of unhappiness and despair that a large portion of the country has; a portion of the country that I never think about or really ever sympathize with. These people have real grievances with the system that didn't help them, but those grievances are being overshadowed by their overtly racist and xenophobic solutions.

Everyone should take this away from this election: lots of people are unhappy for legitimate reasons and we need real solutions to help them, or the racist solutions will have a strong appeal.

Marco Rubio tried that, everyone mocked him.

A book titled "Hillbilly Elegy" goes into this in great detail, and is a very important read for anybody trying to make sense of the insanity that is modern American politics (on both sides of the aisle, really).

One problem people seem to skip over is that the current state of immigration is broken. Regardless of the number of immigrants you think should be allowed in, none of those should be illegal. The presence of illegal immigrants hurts everyone, especially those who have no legal status. They are removed from normal legal protections, this needs to be fixed. You can not have a large part of the population in such an exploitable position. Some people who agree with what Trump is say are swayed by this side of the argument and it's valid.

> Regardless of the number of immigrants you think should be allowed in, none of those should be illegal.

The obvious technical solution is to greatly increase the number of legal immigration slots--boom, problem solved, everyone now has legal status.

Unfortunately this solution would not change the conversation. Why? Because most anti-immigration folks are not concerned about protecting immigrants from exploitation, they are concerned about Mexicans and Muslims. A bunch of legal Mexicans moving into their town is no better to them than a bunch of illegal Mexicans.

In fact they prefer to keep the system the broken way it is now, because it gives them a "rule of law" fig leaf to place over their racism.

It's good that casting aspersions on large groups of strangers is limited only to most anti-immigration folks.

> The presence of illegal immigrants hurts everyone

There is a tremendous amount of work and economy in cities like Houston done by illegal immigrants. Ethics aside, there are those who benefit from this arrangement.

True, but where they paid fair wages? Did they pay taxes? If not there is also a negative impact from all that work they did. Don't get me wrong the taxes argument is crap when you look at the tax dodge most large companies are doing via Ireland, but still.

Why I said "ethics aside" :-)

Let's please distinguish between "illegal immigrants" and "people who entered the country illegally." Illegal immigrants very often entered legally, e.g. visa overstays.

It's going to get much worse, especially in Africa, which is predicted to grow by 3 billion people until 2100. Asia will top out in 2050 at a little over the present population level. Europe, USA and Latin America leveled out.

There are going to be 3 billions of people born in Africa, wanting to emigrate to Europe or USA. It's not going to work out, and it will get desperate unless Africa becomes a place where they want to live.

Add in the effects of climate change and it will make the Syrian problems trivial in comparison.

You're on the right track. But it has to start with realizing that there are practical, rational reasons for opposing unfettered immigration. That it's not always a fear and an insecurity, which someone needs to be "educated" out of. That it could be a well-considered position arrived at by an intelligent adult equal to yourself. As soon as you treat people as your equal (ironic ain't it) you might have a shot with them.

It's not true that Trump's base is composed of communities who have "significant problems with immigration;" in fact Trump does worse in these areas. Contact with immigrants makes people less likely to support Trump. [1]

I agree that the left does no good by labeling Trump supporters as racists. This at best shuts down dialogue, and at worst falsely accuses well-meaning citizens.

But that doesn't mean the left must buy into a false narrative about Trump as a reaction to immigration or economic anxieties. Any such anxieties are a rationalization of Trump's support, not its driver. Efforts by the left to address these "anxieties" won't move the polls at all.

[1] http://www.vox.com/2016/8/12/12454250/donald-trump-gallup-tr...

The nation-state is founded on the ideal of a sovereign state for a specific ethno-cultural group, and immigration fundamentally contradicts this. However, that is not a reason to oppose immigration. Mass immigration in sufficient volume will ultimately destroy the national culture. However, that culture has no inherent existence rights, not should the world be so arranged to preserve national cultures.

Consider, too, that a wealthy democracy could simply refuse to help a poor neighboring nation, and let them all starve to death. That would be unjust, even though it would be perfectly democratic. This indicates that there is a fundamental problem with democracy; democracy is wrong. The flaw is not hard to find: the people most affected by the democratic decision are not those who get to make the decision. The basic problem of democracy is how the demos is defined.

It is very probable that many people have xenophobic and racist instincts. Racism may be biologically ingrained. Probably 10-20% of people would like all immigrants deported. They will never be happy as long as they are not living in an ethnically 'pure' state. That is a good reason for not allowing those views any political representation. We should exclude immigration from being a legitimate democratic issue, because democratic votes on migration always turn into racist populism. Just like we shouldn't put minority rights to a vote, neither should immigration be put to a vote.

Yes, immigration disrupts the way people live, but so does (for example) industrialization. The interests of the indigenous population and immigrants do conflict. But there is still no ethical reason to stop people moving to improve their lives, to limit immigration, or to confer migration veto rights on their present of former inhabitants.

Actually there are identifiable factors at play in what we're labeling 'racism' (and maybe it is for a lot of these people who knows) that could have nothing to do with racism.

For instance, it's not at all weird to feel like immunity for illegal immigrants would be unfair given that there is an immigration backlog for even highly skilled foreign workers. When there are millions of people in Africa and Asia who are both more qualified and more in need than the average illegal immigrant from Mexico, it's tantamount to arguing that geographic proximity should imply preferential treatment.

Chances are the legal (voting) Hispanic demographic has reached a sizable enough proportion of the electorate that Dems have decided they're worth annexing with some platform concessions. Slap on a veneer of compassion and all of a sudden it's a part of the progressive agenda. That they got away with it so cleanly and we're no longer questioning the logic of these policies is a demonstration of one way in which the liberal left can be bamboozled as easily as the Tea Partiers.

The question of improving H1-B visa geographic allotment or whatever is very shaky ground on which to build a national campaign.

The movement to grant immunity to illegal immigrants is both ethical and pragmatic. Ethical because illegal immigrants who have been present in the US for more than a decade (more than half of them!) are de facto Americans, and it's wrong to deport Americans. Pragmatic because there's millions upon millions of them, and any deportation effort will be both very expensive and sure to accidentally sweep up some legal Americans.

Conservatives often pair this grandfathering-in with increased border and interior security. This is at least a thoughtful and consistent response.

The idea that Democrats have consciously decided to "annex" Hispanic votes gives far too much credit to the Democratic party: the hostility of Republicans explains Hispanic voting patterns much better. For example, in Florida, there are 40% more unaffiliated Hispanics than Republican-registered Hispanics [1].

[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/03/09/democratic-e...

That's a valid opinion. Here's a different one: the ethical thing to do would be to repatriate Mexican citizens to Mexico, thereby demonstrating that we have a zero-tolerance policy for cutting the line and breaking our laws. It will cost more and take considerably more effort, but upholding our laws is the ethically correct thing to do. Time spent here does not constitute legal status. The only point of contention I can think of is what should be done with anchor babies.

Upholding an unjust law is not ethical. The right thing to do is repeal the law. It is absurd to say refugees and fruit pickers living on next to nothing are cutting in line, as though they are in an equal position to German mechanical engineers with PhDs.

I don't subscribe to Utopianism. I'm a pragmatist. And what you're describing is patently naive.

Trump doesn't have a problem with immigration. He has a problem with illegal immigration, which is why he said - over a year ago - that there would be "a big, beautiful door in that wall so that people can come into this country legally." There's a big difference, and to make it sound like he has a blanket objection to immigrants is just plain false.

This makes no sense at all. Most illegal immigrants did come into the country legally.

Look, these people have missed out. No one cheated them, they are stuck in a time that says if you are white and not a complete idiot, you can get a factory job and make a good living. But those days are over and being white is no longer the only requirement to living a good life. They look around and no longer see a world where they are naturally at the top and they start to blame others.

Bit on the racist side there mullen.

It's a rephrase of the content in the article.

It seems that white privilege is drying up correct, nothing wrong with that. But at the same time white people are villainized by some in the left for that very privilege.

Your race shouldn't matter full stop.

Before even reading the article (Hey, I'm a real blogger!): Perhaps because they (rightly or not) feel they have been pushed to the borders of society and rendered unable to provide for themselves and their families by government policies, such as for example free trade agreements that have destroyed factory jobs (for example in the Rust Belt in the US and in areas of the UK that voted in favour of Brexit). How did I do?

I don't think anybody voted to leave the EU to end free trade in the UK.

Trade can be freer without the EU - no slow central bureau deciding with whom we are free to trade. No central price setting. No obligation for HM Government to open tender for public projects to foreign companies - which may seem protectionist, but it's not free trade unless you're free to choose as you please.

Free trade agreements are negotiations where the countries involved make concessions in order to balance out their exchanges. When UK will go out in the world to make FTAs, it will have to make a lot of concessions, probably more than those that were previously with EU. Having to negotiate with so many countries at once will put UK in a weaker position and get worse terms than normal.

If there was no government, there'd be nothing to assign protective tariffs in the first place, and the market would be even 'freer'. As it stands the government still limits transactions to some extent (eg: embargos on hostile nations)

(of course, if there were no government, there wouldn't even be global trade in the first place, but I'm just talking about trade deals here)

people traded before governments and international borders existed. But, yes, certainly harder to have property without governments protecting property rights.

Yes, they did. But long trade routes were expensive, and there was nothing like the current globalisation of labour. People making cheap garments in China weren't undercutting the European makers of clothes, for example.

That explains the rise of Donald Trump, but not the previous 30 years when many US factory workers supported the Republican party. Although both parties have similar trade policies, haven't the Democrats generally been more critical of free trade?

In regards to some peoples opinion on the U.S. government? You did okay. On the article, little off.

The article had a tone about it of folk who feel "cheated", who did everything they thought they were supposed to and still ended up in a bad place. Ultimately these folk look at others who are receiving welfare and feel like the welfare recipients get it easy.

The article tries to paint some genuine frustration into the complaints, but it still sounds like people voting against stuff because a political machine told them to.

I feel bad and understand feeling cheated, but it also comes off as a bit petulant, especially with how they use their vote to just make matters worse in the hope of upholding some vague ideals.

There is soup of things there, but at the very bottom is really the fact that those in power always manipulate those are not to fight amongst themselves so they don't interfere with the dealings upstairs. For example people are told to the hate mythical welfare single mom queen, because she is going to drive up in her Lexus and steal all the benefits.

Not to say that there aren't real issues, there are, but they are mixed in with racial rhetoric, hate for other groups, corporatist agenda and a heavy sprinkling of American Civil Religion and you get "Take your government out of my Medicare!" craziness.

Sometimes I like to imagine ridiculous scenarios -- in this case I imagine that Tea party is supported and funded by ultra-liberals, because crazies like birthers and so on are really effective at demolishing the conservative agenda by making them look insane and unstable by association.

To be fair, I also like to imagine that say some liberals are hidden ultra-conservatives and so they promote a steady stream of refugees to Western Europe. And there is no better way to turn people to nationalism and conservatism today that than.

So in my imaginary scenario each side is actually a false flag operation for the other side.

How about: In the US where there are effectively only two parties, people don't feel like the choices on offer suit their desires? 310M people and only two parties for general elections?

After all, the 'liberal' party in the US would be considered 'far conservative, but not extreme' in other western democracies. Not a lot of choice there.

If you think there are only two parties then your observational skills are lacking. There are multiple factions within the parties that are ascendant/declining due to support on specific issues and the candidates of these factions compete among each other for the party nomination at all levels of government. This is why third-parties in the US are only found at the extremes and tend to burn-out quickly, the factions and interest groups which have a nominal chance of actually governing are within one of the two major parties. Free-trade proponents in the Republican party get trade deals done, Libertarian party voters whine from the sidelines. Environmentalists within the Democratic party pass pollution control laws, Green party voters speak earnestly to each other about how more should be done.

Right! The two major parties in the USA are quite flexible. We saw this when Bill Clinton broke from 70s era liberalism (i.e. "Third Way"), we saw it with the Hillary-Sanders struggle, and we're seeing it now with Trump, who has quite a different platform from Bush or even Romney.

What would be a minority party run elsewhere can be accommodated by the major parties in the USA. This is a strength of American politics, not a weakness.

Oh, cool! So, how do I vote for a green-faction president?

How do I vote for a federal republican faction that won't bloc-vote to strangle legislation? You know, for those conservatives out there who want actual conservative governance, not fearmongering?

You vote for the one closest to your views in the primaries. They didn't win you say? Too bad. Your faction is too small to actually win all the marbles. OTOH, you can work at the legislative level where a smaller, dedicated interest group can actually get someone elected. It does not have the ego stroking that comes with top of the ticket wins, but it actually does manage to accomplish something and while you may be forced to compromise your principles and actually work with other people who do not share your views once elected it is better to be on the inside than on the outside complaining.

The most cynical government haters I know fall into two categories: they either receive handouts from the government, or they receive paychecks via the government. It turns out that in order to benefit from the government, you have to deal with it a lot. We should learn to accept that they can see problems with something that they ultimately benefit from. And such critics might actually offer some very important criticism that tends to go unheard because we're too busy making fun of their "stupidity".

This makes sense. Going to the DMV makes me strongly want to privatize the entire operation.

And then dealing with a large private entity that has a major public-facing requirement like Comcast makes you want to nationalize the entire operation again. Round and round we go...

Umm, a company like Costco has a large public facing requirement and is great. You do realize that Comcast has been effectively been granted government status through its various federal and state grants of monopoly over cable infrastructure?

Costco gets to pick and choose who its customers are, Comcast and others really do not have that option. Neither does the government. There is a big difference.

Comcast can ban your account and refuse to do business with you.

The answer is pretty simple. Most tea party members as well as most libertarians simply want the federal govt. to do what it was designed to do; no more and no less. They understand what happens when it gets too big and too powerful. It's what our Founders understood and the reason we have state legislatures and municipal govts..

I'm writing a paper about optimal government reach. Any tips?

you need to define optimal. does it result in highest gdp relative to <x>, highest gdp growth relative to <x>, happiest citizenship, lowest incarceration rate, highest incarceration rate, lowest recidivism rate of criminals, best education, least amount of divorce, etc.

good luck on the paper. things are simple on an individual level and complex when looked at as a whole (think economics / behavior / incentives).

Such an interesting topic to meditate on. It is at the same time deeply pragmatic and philosophical. In order to find the most important criteria, we have to know what is the purpose of life.

No metric is perfect, but "highest growth in real median income over the long term" seems like a pretty good approximation.

Read "Policy Paradox" by Deborah Stone. She gives a great example, where she describes bringing in a cake to class for her students to share - all would no doubt agree that the distribution of cake should be 'fair'...but that means many different things to different people.

Equal amount per student present ('unfair' to absent students)? Equal amount per student enrolled ('unfair' to those who made the effort to come vs those who didn't). Amount of cake proportional to body mass (unfair to small students)? Amount proportional to grade? Amount proportional to degree of historic injustice to a minority? And so on.

The point of course being, there is no such thing as 'fair', only that policy makers (and the voters who vote for them) need to balance benefits and harms to different groups, and make a set of choices that have the most benefit and least harm, according to some set of priorities.

I think it's unhelpful when the implicit criticism of the "people who need help" is that they are too stupid or too evil to know what's good for them. We might want to at least explore the possibility that they value the freedom they feel they might lose from increased welfare above the purely monetary benefits they might gain.

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