Some interesting seemingly conflicted survey results wrt the millennials cohort here at BricBlog.
Amy Walter, national editor at The Cook Political Report, noted a puzzle within Pew’s data: Millennials both support a bigger government and exhibit the lowest levels of trust (of individuals and institutions) of any cohort.
Why would Millennials be more supportive of government but less trusting of both government and people?
In Pew’s most recent survey, Millennials have the lowest level of trust in their fellow citizens of any generational cohort. However, Millennials are more likely to support a bigger government providing more services.
All other generational cohorts support a smaller government providing fewer services.
While they continue to support a bigger government, Millennial views of both government as an institution and government as an assemblage of individuals has fallen.I would propose that the reason for this apparent irrationality within this cohort is as usual a heavy dose of the 'libertarian disease' that seems not to discriminate within humans based on age.
Our younger Americans are not immune to this tremendously economically debilitating libertarian illness that has infected a plurality of Americans in this era like any virus that we can someday hopefully hunt down and eradicate from within the general population.
21 comments:
It's not a bad thing really, when people need a bigger government but don't trust the politicians, we should get an exceedingly competent government for a change. People will hold politicians and bureaucrats on tight leashes, making them accountable for failures, lies and under-performance. It will be like the 1930s all over again where people accept bigger government but place high expectations on it and watch it like a hawk for any odor of complicity with 1%. It can be the Square Deal of TR all over again.
Lower taxes, tax credits and transfer payments could achieve the same goal.
I've realized I don't dislike libertarians, I dislike propertarians. Propertarians aren't libertarians as they aren't really interested in liberty, only in private property. Propertarians are often compulsive liars so their self-descriptions should never be trusted.
Ryan good points... it also lends itself to easily being able to agree with the govt just providing the settlement balances and letting the non-govt determine what we all are led to believe is the appropriate use of those balances for robust 'provision' of ourselves and our households ...
For instance Warren's proposals for healthcare vs. "Obamacare" where Warren just proposes govt just establish and distribute thru fiscal agents enough balances for US persons to purchase healthcare services for the year and then just do the same thing the next year and so on.... BUT this disease is SO bad within the libertarians that they think this is even going too far... and that the govt does not and should not have this authority to establish balances of state currency ex nihilo.... they instead prefer we turn this authority BACK over to the metals like they are in some sort of "love" with these metals like some sort of pervert fetishist type thinking ... its really wacko type thinking and they are examples of pure disgrace imo...
So you can see how this 'disease' can even effect human minds not just the results on the health of our bodies (malnutrition) and our society (chaos) ...
Pretty sad... rsp,
y,
dont give up the fight...
To these libertarians it eventually boils down to "me, me, me" and not just about their property.. it spills over into all other aspects of human life.. they corrupt the process to the point where the rest of us find it hard or really it becomes impossible to "work together"...
rsp,
As I said propertarians aren't really libertarians as they don't really care about liberty.
What propertarians desire is a strictly hierarchical and elitist social system determined exclusively by their particular concept of property rights. They want people to be stripped of their democratic and civil rights, and for the propertarian belief system to be imposed by force.
Propertarians refer to themselves as 'libertarians' because they are liars. They incessantly lie because their beliefs are completely unpalatable to non-deranged people, so they make up lies that make them sound a bit better.
"me, me, me"
Once again, I'm not opposed to liberty or genuine libertarians.
What I'm opposed to is the
extreme right-wing ideology of propertarianism and the various narcissists, egotists, solipsists, compulsively selfish shits, sociopaths, compulsive liars and dissemblers that populate its ranks.
right, you mean libertarians... rsp,
"As I said propertarians aren't really libertarians as they don't really care about liberty."
y - I think you are on to something here. Propertarians as you have labeled them, seek to entrench their position near the top of the pyramid. Propertarians are more likely than not to be crony capitalists who join with big government and big labor in an unholy fascist alliance. In a fluid society there would be as much potential for the wealthy 1% to descend the political economic ladder as their would be for the 99% to ascend it. I think libertarians simply want to have the freedom to ascend that ladder without having to pay bribes or thwart anyone else's chances to succeed.
propertarians as I label them are the fundamentalist followers of people like Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand. By fundamentalist I mean they buy the whole package, not just bits and pieces.
propertarians generally believe the following things:
1. either people should not have the right to elect a government through democratic elections, or alternatively elected governments should not be allowed to do anything that propertarians disagree with.
2. government should either "not exist", or simply be composed of a legal system designed to establish and protect private property rights as defined by propertarians and only propertarians.
etc.
3. all public services and all forms of welfare, public support and insurance should be terminated and never ever reinstated ever again because propertarians say so.
4. any form of public taxation should be declared illegal because propertarians say all forms of public taxation are unjust because of some silly argument about homesteading. Private forms of taxation are absolutely fine however.
etc.
y, c'mon, its like you've written the libertarian manifesto here... rsp,
"1. either people should not have the right to elect a government through democratic elections, or alternatively elected governments should not be allowed to do anything that propertarians disagree with."
Libertarians I know believe in democratic elections, although they emphasize that the US is not a democracy per se but a constitution republic with democratically elected representatives to legislate law.
Do they believe the government should be permanently forbidden (somehow) from providing public services (beyond maybe just police, courts and military), welfare, insurance, investment (or any other form of support), building and maintaining infrastructure, owning and maintaining public land, etc?
Do they believe it should be illegal for the population to elect a government to provide public services, welfare, insurance, investment, infrastructure, to own and maintain public land, etc?
If so then they are propertarians masquerading as libertarians.
1. Some libertarians, but not all, think that rule of a majority suppresses the minority, so many of them are not in favor of democracy or at least limiting the franchise, e.g. to persons of property.
This was an issue debated at the time of the formation of the United States. The extremes were a property qualification for the franchise and popular democracy. The compromise was a republic with male suffrage and a provision for slavery.
2. Propertarians tend to favor metallism, since they think that for money to have real value it must be real property in addition to being a financial asset.
"Do they believe the government should be permanently forbidden (somehow) from providing public services (beyond maybe just police, courts and military), welfare, insurance, investment (or any other form of support), building and maintaining infrastructure, owning and maintaining public land, etc?"
If you asking if that's what libertarians believe, I'd say no of course not for the most part. I think libertarian minded folks tend to believe that there is no inherent reason why the government can provide most services and better than the private sector. People working for the government don't have a monopoly on work ethics, efficiency and innovation. Of course there are some areas like infrastructure, national defense, law enforcement and the judicial system that naturally lend themselves to federal or local government ownership. That said, I have little doubt that there are hoards of people working for the federal government who are probably engaged in totally unproductive activities and likely getting well paid for it.
ok Ed, so what you made there was a rational statement which rules you out as a propertarian. It would be possible to have a reasonable debate with you about those matters as your brain exists within reality, whereas the typical propertarian brain departed reality a long time ago and has no interest in coming back.
"as your brain exists within reality"
Thats why I keep trying to tell you Ed and Tom are not really libertarians ..... their type is more like the "anti-tyrannical" or "anti-stupid" type as I am able to see them...
rsp,
@EdRombach
" I think libertarian minded folks tend to believe that there is no inherent reason why the government can provide most services and better than the private sector. People working for the government don't have a monopoly on work ethics, efficiency and innovation."
That may be true but treating these ventures like something that needs to be profitable is also wrongheaded. Somethings just need to be done regardless of the cost
"Of course there are some areas like infrastructure, national defense, law enforcement and the judicial system that naturally lend themselves to federal or local government ownership. That said, I have little doubt that there are hoards of people working for the federal government who are probably engaged in totally unproductive activities and likely getting well paid for it."
Trying to measure the "productivity" of public initiatives doesn't lend itself to the same methods as with private ventures, and trying to do so in the same manner is what usually leads to cries of inefficiency .
Im of the view that competition for resources and position in society should not start form ground zero. I don't think we should apply the rules of capitalist competition to everything.
We have the means for food (basic nutritional sustenance not filet mignon) shelter and healthcare to be provided at a basic level to everyone. If you want more than that then the competition begins, but no one gets more at the expense of some getting nothing.
Greg - Sounds rather utopian.
Utopian, maybe, but certainly possible if one thinks outside the box of capitalism. Bucky Fuller showed this decades ago. Why should be put up with dystopia so a few can have everything and over half the world practically nothing? That's where the craziness is.
Capitalism is touted to lead to efficiency and efficiency is supposed to be identical with effectiveness. But this efficiency is efficiency of capital obtained at the expense of efficiency of labor, where there is a chronic glut in the labor market. Moreover, capitalism equates efficiency and effectiveness with economics efficiency = effectiveness, and assumed that this includes social efficiency and effectiveness. NOT.
Time to abandon the crazy and aim for full potential.
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