Somebody's going to be getting paid for doing nothing - it might as well be me.
But it is doublethink if you hold other people in contempt for getting benefits from tax revenue, or if you think they are immoral for doing so.
For example, I think Ayn Rand's position was not just that "looting" is bad for the country, but that it is immoral and that doing it makes you a bad person. A Randite who made special efforts to get any kind of money from the government would either have to think of themselves as a looter, or make a special exception for themselves.
Are you then looting somebody every time you make a cash withdrawal?
Social Security, on the other hand, is a "pay as you go" program. When you contribute money into the Social Security trust fund, it is used to satisfy payments to current recipients. If it's still solvent and operating when you retire or become disabled, then you can expect to receive benefits similarly (though, technically, retirement/"old age" and disability benefits come from different funds).
Moreover, if the fund were to go insolvent — or Congress were to shut the program down — tomorrow, you would have no recourse. (Whereas with bank deposits, you have recourse at least up to the FDIC insured maximum.) If you renounce your US citizenship, or decide to fund your retirement yourself, you don't somehow magically get back the money you contributed, and you're still subject to payroll taxes in the latter case.
That's now how it works. The reason you get those annual pamphlets from Social Security Administration is to know exactly what you're entitled to. It's highly dependent on your rate and consistency of contributions.
> or decide to fund your retirement yourself, you don't somehow magically get back the money you contributed
Not sure what you're saying. When you reach proper age, you're entitled to Social Security payouts as long as you've contributed into the system the way that was intended. A lot of people fund their own retirements through 401(k), annuities or personal savings, that does not disqualify them from Social Security.
PS: congress is just as capable of shutting down the FDIC as the SSA
Either it's a trivial point that applies pretty broadly outside of SS, or you meant something more significant and I'm interested in knowing what that is.
Ayn Rand, and any other person who has become independently wealthy in a way that has nothing to do with the government, can despise looters and be consistent. Government workers in particular cannot.
Or someone like John Kerry - both independently wealthy and a government worker?
It's quite possible to be the user of the system due to the lack of other alternatives and oppose it in principle. People with mortgages or shares do not necessarily support corrupt Wall Street practices and financial institutions getting "too big to fail", yet benefit from low mortgage rates or bullish runs in the stock market.
It's easy to say that a truly just person would not work in an industry that benefitted from tax dollars they would rather not have paid, but considering that the government tends to overpay, it is often the best position for one to be in.
If you worked for the TSA, you would also have sworn an oath to the Constitution.
> It's easy to say that a truly just person would not work in an industry that benefitted from tax dollars they would rather not have paid, but considering that the government tends to overpay, it is often the best position for one to be in.
So, some people who have sworn an oath to the Constitution should optimize their personal income even when that means benefitting from things they see as a contrary to the Constitution, while others shouldn't?
I believe my point still stands for all those federal contractors who have not sworn such an oath, but are similarly suckling off of the federal teat.
Contractors don't.
> I believe my point still stands for all those federal contractors who have not sworn such an oath, but are similarly suckling off of the federal teat.
Its not necessarily incoherent (but, still, IMO, somewhat odd) to argue that it is immoral to choose to benefit from violations of the Constitution only if you have sworn a special oath. That argument isn't about the Constitution, just the binding nature of oaths.
The oath of office is perhaps a thinner line than I'm making it out to be, but there's a larger point to be made there about the role of the federal government, the incentives of office, etc.
That said, I'm high (low?) on Valium at the moment, so I'm in no shape to argue it at the moment.
Do you shun others when they fail at it? Do you respond poorly when someone calls you out for having the same problems? Then you're somewhere in that hypocrisy/doublethink territory. (from what you've written it sounds like you're in the first group, not the second.)
It's really a lot about the degree and self-awareness of the individual. A federal employee is not a hypocrite for wanting smaller government. A federal employee is a hypocrite/doublethinker for failing to acknowledge that they want a smaller government, their program is too large or wasteful (F-35!) and that they should be affected by cuts.
brb gotta murder someone.