From the Libertarian Party website:
It’s a government slowdown, not a shutdown.
If you read this Libertarian news release, yet continue to use the term “government shutdown” in news reports, then you’re willfully deceiving the American people.
News media commonly warns that a “government shutdown” will result if there’s a breakdown in funding negotiations between Democratic and Republican politicians. But there is no pending “government shutdown.”
Nor has there ever been anything close to a “government shutdown” in modern American history.
A government slowdown merely reduces spending to the level of taxes collected. In other words, it balances the budget. And that’s bad — why?
The term “government shutdown” is designed to scare people into thinking there can be no police protection, military defense, road repairs, or other essential services unless Americans cough up more money to fund the ludicrously over-funded federal government.
This is a manipulation and a lie.
Let’s review what happened during the 16-day government slowdown of October 2013:
•Not a single emergency service was suspended.
•Politicians gave full back pay to 100% of government employees who they had furloughed immediately after the slowdown ended. It amounted to a free vacation for government employees (who already get, on average, far more generous personal, sick and vacation time than private sector employees).
•Despite claims that the U.S. economy would lose $24 billion, it suffered no loss, only a shift in where money was spent.
•When the slowdown ended, Democratic and Republican politicians raised federal spending and government debt – again.
“Call it what it is: a government slowdown,” said Nicholas J. Sarwark, Libertarian National Committee Chair. “And tell Americans the truth: We need much more than a slowdown. We need to dramatically and permanently roll back the federal government to an appropriate size.”
“The federal government should be limited to protecting American lives, liberty, and property,” he said. “We must start by removing government barriers that prohibit or impair free market alternatives to health care, education, finance, communications, housing, manufacturing, agriculture and virtually every market where it improperly intervenes. This will allow Americans to enjoy high-quality, competitively-priced goods and services.”
“Such a small, lean, accountable federal government with a strong military defense would cost no more than a few hundred billion dollars – about ten percent of current spending levels,” said Sarwark. “This would stop mass surveillance, inflation, destructive foreign wars, the failed Drug Prohibition, laws that disarm innocent Americans and other infringements on our rights.”
“Government downsizing would put an end to mounds of wasteful red tape and bureaucracy, allowing American businesses to thrive in a competitive world marketplace,” he continued. “Transferring wealth out of the government sector and into the private sector would create roughly twice as many productive jobs as the number of government jobs lost – a win for both government employees and the millions of Americans looking for jobs or better pay.”
“What Americans should really fear is the likelihood that, despite the hullabaloo we hear over a phony ‘shutdown,’ the government will stay big and continue to grow,” said Sarwark. “The Libertarian Party exists to correct this. We are the only political party in America dedicated to making government small, enabling prosperity and advancing freedom.”
L: The phrase “simply not true” is generally assumed to be logically equivalent to the phrase “simply false”, which, based on the context, was clearly what you were trying to say.
me: Believe what you will, but it’s — again — simply not true *IMO*. If you share that opinion, wonderful. If you don’t, that’s OK, too, but for you to convince me, you’d need to show A LOT of evidence.
I would also say that there’s a difference between “not true” and “false.” “Not true” leaves open the possibility that something IS true, at least for ME to believe it. “False,” OTOH, sounds TO ME far more definitive, as in no way, no how.
L, it’s SIMPLY not true since it cannot be proven that “essential services” are essential. We can’t know, since we’d have to test what life would be like without those services.
That’s obviously not what you meant. The phrase “simply not true” is generally assumed to be logically equivalent to the phrase “simply false”, which, based on the context, was clearly what you were trying to say.
Those uni-variable are nothing like a complex, multi-variable situation, such as whether one or more government services are “essential.”
Don’t you agree?
Yes, I do agree, and I’m happy that you pointed this out, as it just reinforces my point. The complexity inherent in evaluating claims about which services are “essential” just underscores the silliness of your claim that the initial statement about essential services was “simply” [false].
l: Imagine that there were no objectively reliable scales.
me: As for scales to measure one thing, in this case weight, such a measurement is quantifiable within the context of the situation. In the US, we all generally agree on the measurement “pounds,” and so we have a serviceable convention. Europeans have the metric system for measurement. Whether those conventions are “objective” is a matter of interpretation and semantics.
Those uni-variable are nothing like a complex, multi-variable situation, such as whether one or more government services are “essential.”
Don’t you agree?
L, it’s SIMPLY not true since it cannot be proven that “essential services” are essential. We can’t know, since we’d have to test what life would be like without those services.
I — and we all — could append IMO to every sentence we speak or write, but that would get tedious.
You do however make a point that one of my favorite Indian philosopher, Nisargadatta Maharaj, makes. There must be someTHING that is eternally present against which to measure. Unfortunately, that someTHING cannot be perceived or “objectively” proven.
It all depends on the mind of the observer.
You’ve lost me. It’s quite correct — near as I can tell — that there’s no objective standards for truth discernment, true enough.
You said that the claim that [various functions currently performed by the state] are “essential services” is “simply” not true. However, your use of the term “simply” does not square with your claim that there is no objective measure of truth. Imagine that there were no objectively reliable scales. Obviously, it would not be at all “simple” to weigh yourself (or anything else, for that matter). In fact, it would be damn near impossible, just as (operating under your assumptions) it is impossible for you to state with any degree of confidence whether something is or is not true, let alone that it is “simply” not true, as you did above. Is that explanation clear enough?
L This, from the same person who has repeatedly claimed that there are no objective standards by which truth can be determined.
me: You’ve lost me. It’s quite correct — near as I can tell — that there’s no objective standards for truth discernment, true enough. If there IS one, please do share. However, just because there’s no objective standards does not mean that there is no truth! In fact, there is no un-truth!
I assure you I am not “pissed.” An energy drain if there ever was one!
Inner Lao Tsu is all about truth, and it’s simply not TRUE that certain services are “essential,” meaning “can’t do without them.”
LOL! This, from the same person who has repeatedly claimed that there are no objective standards by which truth can be determined.
It’s obvious that RC is just pissed because the press release is worded cleverly enough that it doesn’t provide a natural segue to his favorite topic, and so this is his ham-fisted attempt to steer the conversation in that direction anyway (as he invariably tries to do with literally every single thread on which he comments).
Thanks for finding it.
Martin Passoli,
For some reason your comment on The Saturnalian from Nov. 29 was picked up by the SPAM filter. It is now publicly posted. I’m still trying to figure out what caused the problem.
The best lie is the truth and the best truth is a lie.
pf, yes, from the ave person perspective, it’s a fine word, as it is common nomenclature. However, Inner Lao Tsu is all about truth, and it’s simply not TRUE that certain services are “essential,” meaning “can’t do without them.”
Unlike the Inner Rothbard, who objects as a matter of “principle,” Inner Lao Tsu bends like a reed in the wind….Inner Lennon taught, Whatever Gets You Through the Night, S’all Right… and that works pretty well, too.
What’s the problem from a lessarchist perspective? If I was the average person who assumed that these “essential services” could only be provided by government and I read this release, I would just assume that the LP doesn’t question that either and is just saying they can be provided at a lower cost.
It works either way you read it.
MP, I’ve not said I wasn’t happy with it. I was playing Murray’s Advocate.
As a lessarchist, I’d probably not use the word “essential.” Overall, the message is helpful to the cause of lessarchy, as — yes — the media uses the term “government shutdown” as a scare tactic, one that is false.
I don’t find the linguistic gyrations necessary to satisfy nonarchistic fetishes as being especially useful to the cause of lessarchy, and probably holds the cause back, like a millstone. It feels more like a game than an actual movement toward a freer society.
So we are both happy with it. Excellent!
MP, exactly, good job. Right up there with …governments, when instituted…, as I said.
99.8% of the world would not see the need to say “when instituted,” and it camouflages the anarcho-linguistics buried within the term. IOW, it is language that most anarchists can live with and yet it avoids being overtly anarchist.
It may be torture to have to play such linguistic games, but such is the LP.
It might make that clearer, but not all Libertarians are anarchists, although some are, so the ambiguity in the way this press release– between whether we agree that those essential services can only be provided by government, albeit at a lower cost (as some of us do), or that they are not services that have to be monopolized by government at all and people are just being scared into thinking they are (as others of us do) — covers both bases nicely.
Good job!
MP, yes. However, were Murray himself writing it, the more honest phrasing would be:
…police “protection,” military defense, road repairs, or other so-called “essential” “services” …
That would make it clearer from an anarchistic perspective that the police don’t “protect,” but in fact they STEAL. And it might help to wake up statists of all stripes (i.e., non-anarchists) that Gangs do nothing that is “essential.” They in fact don’t “serve,” they parasitically take.
The term “government shutdown” is designed to scare people into thinking there can be no police protection, military defense, road repairs, or other essential services unless Americans cough up more money to fund the ludicrously over-funded federal government
What comes after “scare people into thinking” is what they are being scared into thinking, not necessarily what all Libertarians think. The idea that these things are “essential services” that can only be provided by government is not necessarily something Libertarians have to agree on. Some of us do think that, but believe they can be provided at a much lower cost than at present, while others believe they don’t need a government monopoly at all, but the more important thing is that we agree that most of the non-Libertarian public is being fed a bunch of scaremongering that all these things are both essential services that can only be provided by government and that at the same time they can only be provided if government stays as big as it is or gets even bigger.
And MNR would have been proud that it says “military defense,” not “national defense,” the latter being the more common term. It lines up nicely with MNR’s, “Since governments, when instituted,…” from the SoP. That leaves open the possibility of them NOT being instituted.
Yes
MP, yes, I think even MNR could contort his interpretation that the actual language doesn’t foreclose the possibility that all those services could be provided privately. He might not have referred to them as “essential,” though. Essential is subjective. Is “military defense” any more “essential” than, say, ice cream?
As I read that, it refers to a state of mind of the general public, not to the opinion of the LP.
LNC: …or other essential services
me: Is this a violation of the NAP? I would think so, especially because they are funded by force and are monopolies.
That would be a good start 🙂
I like this press release. Especially the cut 90% part