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Thursday, July 14, 2011

On The Size of "Government" - 2

In the first post of this series Dredd Blog began to discuss what seems to have become a mystical component of U.S. political discourse: the "size of government".

The formula Ġ = (ρ * ή) / ų was introduced in that first post along with some discussion of the individual symbols or components of that formula.

In this post we will focus on the ή component, which was described in the first post as "the collective need of an individual citizen".

To expand the meaning of the formula beyond the first post, from a general depiction of "the needs" which the ή component represents, we would generally define those needs symbolically as:
ή = (Ş + ĉ + + ŧ + Ħ + Ę + Ĵ + ŗ + ş)
Note that these symbols represent the human needs of shelter + clothing + food + transportation + health care + education + job + recreation + security.

This now allows us to expand the overall formula to:
Ġ = (ρ * (Ş + ĉ + ₣ + ŧ + Ħ + Ę + Ĵ + ŗ + ş)) / ų
The security factor in the equation ş, when multiplied by the national population ρ, comprises all expenditures that are militant in nature, including the espionage factors in the "security budget" (a.k.a. the defense, homeland security, and spy budget):
We have seen that military expenditures of the U.S. are more than the rest of the entire world.

We have also seen that such expenditures are in fact entitlements, as in welfare.

The great general who also knew how to be Commander In Chief as well as head of budget concerns, has said that when the military entitlements get out of hand, the military is in effect sacrificing the common people on an iron cross.
(Entitlement Wars - Guns v Butter). We are 5% of world population, but we spend more on imperialism (military, war, espionage) than all the other nations of the world combined.

But when it comes to domestic spending issues like health care for example, we are way down the ladder when compared to just one of our single peer nations.

The rich 1% possess most of the wealth, because they own the weapons industry companies that are in bed with the war establishment headquartered at the Pentagon.

In past posts we have pointed out what this shows is that the militant budget is a tumor, a large unhealthy growth on the national amygdala, which is causing our country serious economic and foreign policy complications.

Thus, a normal balance among the needs of shelter, clothing, food, transportation, health care, education, employment, recreation, and security has become perverted to the point that the notion of "SECURITY" is eating up everything else.

Paranoia posing as "SECURITY" is not part of national sanity folks, nor is it secure.

We must radiate the national tumor with reason and common sense, bring security out of paranoia and into a sensible use of the military, and then keep it that way going forward.

Reagan rhetoric exclaiming that government should be small enough to drown in a bathtub was a psychopathic notion being repeated by an Alzheimer sufferer (Reagan mentored G. Norquist: "ATR was founded in 1985 by Grover Norquist at the request of President Reagan"). Reagan repeated a lot of things fanatics ignorantly said.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

7 comments:

  1. There's a fundamental problem with the underlying concept -- that by just multiplying or dividing by the population count, one can directly transform between the need of the nation and (a contradiction in terms) "the collective need of an individual citizen".

    This embodies the fallacy of division ("what is true of the whole must be true of each part").

    For instance, on the "SECURITY" topic: the police exist "to protect and serve" society, but (as the Supreme Court has ruled) have no obligation to protect any individual citizen -- even one with a court order in hand which demands exactly that.

    And that expectation is even clearer with the Armed Forces, particularly when serving overseas.

    In a police state, the contrast is made sharper: the police serve the state against the citizen, no-one doubts that. But do you doubt that the police also serve the state here as well? And in any conflict between state and citizen -- here, in the Land of the Free -- on whose side will the police serve?

    So does the need of the nation truly equate (when divided by p) to "the collective need of the individual"?

    Or, conversely, is the need of the individual at all reflected or considered in "the need of the nation"?

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  2. Raven,

    You have falsely described the post and the formula.

    For comparison's sake, consider another department, weather.

    Formulas for weather prediction are not designed to forecast in perfect detail, instead they are generalized predictions to help the most people, not just one person.

    Getting back to the generalized formula in this post, it is easy to see that if you add up the food needs of an individual for a day then multiply by the population figure you have a working value for the food needs of a nation on a given day.

    You have rejected the principle in favor of mere shadows of detail.

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  3. The size of government is the subject of the formula.

    Ġ = (ρ * ή) / ų

    It is quite apparent that the principle is valid by using two values for ρ. Use 100,000 then use 1,000,000 and it becomes obvious that size of government is based on or related to the size of a nation at a given time:

    Ġ = (100,000 * ή) / ų
    Ġ = (1,000,000 * ή) / ų

    The principle is valid, one must always work on the details.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Quote from the About page:

    " ... for those who ... comment, be sure to note that Dredd Blog does not suffer foolishness lightly ..."

    ReplyDelete
  5. Do you have any source showing that *Reagan* ever exclaimed (or repeated) that government should be small enough to drown in a bathtub?

    He may well have "repeated a lot of things fanatics ignorantly said" -- though he also borrowed rhetoric from the Kennedys, as your "Reagan rhetoric" link points out -- but that doesn't mean he repeated *everything* fanatics *ever* said. Neither of your links quotes Reagan saying that particular thing.

    Grover Norquist *did* say that. Why not properly attribute the line to him?

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  6. Yes Raven, me. I have heard Reagan say it, but the media is the source of attributing it to Norquist.

    They don't always tell the truth, even when they know the truth. So I usually suspect their assertions.

    You can like it or not, but Norquist followed Reagan, not the other way around.

    You can find this quote on Norquist's web site: "ATR was founded in 1985 by Grover Norquist at the request of President Reagan".

    I am not an apologist for the first Alzheimer suffering president.

    There will be more of them. You can quote me on that: Crazies Are Seeking To Be Elected

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  7. MOMCOM's media is a deceitful bunch, not to be trusted.

    They created the liberal media meme in the hearts and minds of the populace, in terms of planting, watering, and pruning it, even tho technically the Reagan ilk created that seed. Link

    ReplyDelete