Republican Administrations Are Just As Incompetent as Democratic Administrations: Governor Doug Ducey in AZ
Strong supporters of both political parties maintain a delusion that all government problems are the result of the incompetence of the other political team, rather than the inherent incentive and information problems facing all government efforts.
Republicans, for example, made fun of Obama's competence with the horrendously bad rollout of the Federal Obamacare exchange. But now, Doug Ducey's Arizona Department of Revenue is having the same problem.
As of this month, the agency is requiring that all multisite businesses (like mine) must file online rather than with pen and paper. So we logged in today to file our report. What a disaster! The only thing I can even compare it to is stories of the early days of the Obamacare exchange. First, the site is set up so that even a relatively simple return must have data entered across scores of pages. In basic layout, it is probably the worst site of any of the ten states we do business in.
But what has really made today a nightmare is that it is taking 5-10 minutes to load each page. The agency clearly was not ready for the load. Combined with a site design that requires many many page loads to complete simple tasks, and it makes filing (a 10 minute or so job on paper) a multi-day nightmare. Four hours into it and I have not completed one location out of 15 or so I need to enter.
When I called the DOR, they basically said I had to suck it up. I begged them for some sort of simple accommodation -- I have filed by paper for 13 years, why not allow me to file by paper for one more month until they get their act together? No dice. They instead suggested that my accounting staff come in at midnight tonight to do the work when the load on their servers would be lower.
If anything, the response from Republican Doug Ducey's office was even more insulting. They said to me that this change had been announced for months, as if it was my failing to enter the system in a timely manner that was the problem. According to Ducey's staff, I could have avoided the whole problem by filing my June revenue numbers a few months back, lol. I patiently explained that June numbers could not be reported until the bank statements had arrived and were reconciled, such that most all returns had to be filed between the 15th and the 20th of the month. And what is more, if this had been in the works so long, why hadn't the Administration seen fit to do an adequate job of testing the site and preparing for adequate capacity?
The answers from the governor's office were just as absurd and arrogant as any coming out of the Obama Administration about the failures of the exchange. Which again proves to this libertarian that there is no much real difference between the Coke and Pepsi parties. The problem is the government -- without the accountability brought by market competition -- trying to do these sorts of things.
Very few people have any interest in "your life".
However, like every convinced Libertarian you live in a world that is not defined by reality. Maybe in a different world imagined by Libertarians, Penn Gillette included, I would totally agree with you. But, listen carefully, we don't.
We live in the world as it exists. Want drug legalization. I would agree with you except for the fact that drug addicts impact OTHER PEOPLE's lives every day. They create enormous health care costs that are borne by the taxpayers. THey create terrible consequences from their behavior. Your response is "We shouldn't pay their health care costs." BUT WE DO. That is the problem.
Same with illegal immigration. Clearly we should have laws and regulations that minimize the friction to the free flow of labor and capital. But, in a country with our existing welfare state that is an truly an impossible situation. I know, your response is "we shouldn't have a welfare state". BUT WE DO. Letting illegal immigrants without any control to their number cripples the welfare apparatus.
Sure, you want a system were everything is regulated bu "tort laws". If you do something wrong to me then I can sue you. The problem with that is in some cases you cannot make good your harm to me. Drunk drivers kill people. Therefore, regulated such behavior is respecting the rights of other individuals, not jsut yourself. Laws designed to DETER unwanted and risky behavior make sense from every angle. The only people whose "rights" are being suppressed are those that want to engage in such behavior like drunk driving, running stop lights, etc.
Further, the tort system is not a cost effective way of resolving issues. If I had to sue you in court because you are playing your music loud, YOUR RIGHT, because it is MY RIGHT to have peace and quiet nothing would ever be resolved.
Luckily, we have adults that understand this much better than you and we have created statutes and laws that resolve these conflicts in individual rights.
The Founders of this country understood this and that is why they wisely left the police powers to the states, and lower forms of government. Unfortunately these powers were abused with such things as slavery and Jim Crow laws and have severely damaged the federal system that maximized liberty.
You are the one in an unreal world.
You are not permitted to use force against others but for a very limited number of justifications.
That is the social contract.
Your wish to do so - is not sufficient. Some hope of a better outcome - is not sufficient.
You have offered no compelling justification for any of the uses of force you think are required - yet you think other live outside reality ?
What argument do you have - beyond - I think it is a good idea ?
No drug adicts do not impact others lives - except when they actually resort to violence, when government may legitimately intervene.
No Drug addicts are NOT a burden on our health system.
No one is obligated to provide healthcare to others - not doctors, not hospitals, not government.
Doctor's and Hospitals are free to choose to do so - just as the rest of us are free to help others in whatever way we please.
But the spiritual or religious obligations we impose on ourself are NOT societal obligations.
The claim that we through governement must shelter the homeless, feed the hungry, ... is a spiritual or religious obligation - and it has no more place in government than jailing homosexuals, banning birth control or adultery.
Our religious obligations are individual. If you are christian - Christ did not say - go get ceasar to feed the hungry. He directed you to do so yourself.
When you transform a personal moral obligation into a societal one - you act immorally.
You steal from others to avoid your own obligations.
Churches, Doctors and hospitals are free individually to take on whatever obligations they wish - or not. Government is not free to impose those moral obligations on us by force.
The use of force to do so makes slaves of us. Neither a slave nor their master can fulfill a moral duty.
If you compel someone else to do good - you have done evil not good. There is no merit for you, and none for them.
When we do something stupid - we should cease doing something stupid.
Not use that as justification for doing even more stupid things.
Regardless, I do not think helping addicts is something stupid. But it is an individual choice - not a societal one we may impose on others by force.
My daughter is adopted from China - the orphange she came from was pretty bad.
Every time I see some late night "save the children" commercials it tears me apart - because those children are living in conditions similar to my daughters.
But my desire to do something about the myriads of children in the world in bad circumstances can not be imposed on you or anyone else by force.
There is really no difference between our obligation to children in horrendous conditions a world away and the addict on the street. If anything we owe the children more.
But we do not have the resources to do everything - and quite honestly charity is fairly ineffective - only superior to government. There will always be more need than ability to meet it.
The choice as to which needs to meet - and the obligation to do so it individual.
It can not be imposed morally by force.
We have no obligation to immigrants, nor a right to bar them entry solely based on the accident of the location of their birth. The fact that you have created this enormous unsustainable entitlements monster that would bankrupt us if we did - is your failure, not mine.
All you are saying is that you get to use government force to pick and choose which group of needy receive help and which do not ?
"But we do" is not an argument. Just as I have shot my left foot off, is not a justification for shooting your right foot off.
If we are doing something stupid - or that we may not do through government, the answer is to quit doing it - not to use that stupidity to justify other stupidity.
I have zero problems with whatever personal acts of charity or moral duties you impose on yourself.
I have no problems with your choosing to help the poor or homeless here rather than Cambodia.
But I have major problems with your using government - force, to dictate that I must synchronize my moral obligations with yours. I share with those on the left moral concerns about the less fortunate.
But I choose - as each person does not merely a different degree of obligation, but to prioritize those obligations differently. And I have the right to do that. When you use government to dictate those things you abridge my rights to make those choices myself.
And you steal from me - not merely my wealth - but my freedom to choose how and who to help, as well as whatever merit might accrue to helping.
If government takes my wealth and helps drug addicts - there is no merit to me, nor any merit to anyone else. In fact all that has been done is evil - theft and enslavement.
We should not be surprised that evil acts bear bad fruit.
Drunk drivers do kill people - last I checked killing people is still a crime.
I do not care if you are drunk or otherwise criminally negligent.
If your negligence is not criminal - then we have tort law. If it is - then we have criminal law.
For the overwhelming majority of us law is not - and should not be deterance.
I will not argue that laws have no deterent effect - but that effect is primarly on sociopaths - those who would do whatever they pleased if it were not illegal or if they would not get caught.
That is only a tiny portion of us - and infact it MUST be that way.
If we depend solely on the deterent effect of law we would require more law enforcement than there are people. If as little as about 11% of the population is going to disobey a law - regarldess of consequences - that law is unsustainable.
The vast majority of us obey the law - merely because we have an innate understanding of right and wrong, and given that the few who do not can be held in check, the rest of us will follow that innate sense.
That is also why societies that are not diverse can support more intrusive law.
Because the shared sense of values is far greater. But we value diversity, and because we do we must accept a much smaller subset of shared values.
Finally, even the deterent effect of law requires one of two things - actual knowledge of the law, or law that strongly conforms to our innate sense of right and wrong.
I doubt you can accurately cite a single law that applies to you - yet you are obligated to know and obey litterally millions of laws. There is no deterent effect of a law you do not know that does not conform to your innate sense of right and wrong.
I will also note that all my purportedly non-real world libertarian arguments - are rooted int he real world of human behavior.
You presume that law can make us behave in some way that you think is desireable.
Again by what right do you have to decide what is desireable ?
Those justifications I have provided for the use of force - are very near universal.
Outside of sociopaths we all share them. We do not need to read the criminal laws to know what is a crime and what is not. We need not know the elements of criminally negligent homicide to know that getting drunk and killing someone, or shooting into a crowd is a crime.
Actually all kinds of rights are supressed by your nonsense.
My ability to engage in charity is restricted because you have taken my wealth and decided what charity I must engage in, worse still you have stolen from me any merit that charity might have.
With respect to stop lights - we are constantly fine tuning laws - because law is a bad instrument.
My state - and most others have permitted running stoplights under certain circumstances.
Why ? Because the purpose of a stop light is NOT to make people stop, sit and then go.
It is to keep them from harming others.
If you are able to get through an intersection without harming others - then anything that bars you from doing so restricts your rights AND protects no one.
There is nothing wrong with driving drunk. What is wrong is harming or killing others.
And that was wrong - before drunk driving laws.
In fact in much of the country we can drive drunk - as well as violate all kinds of other laws - on private property.
There is no luck involved. Most of us knew well what was right and wrong - before any statues.
We are far past those few laws actually necescary to assure the orderly functioning of society.
I have condensed the justifiable parts of our legal system to three separate principles.
All legitimate law is reflects one of those.
Our founders did leave police powers to the states - they also had a far more limited concept of police powers - there was no police force in this country until approximatley the time of the civil war - federal or otherwise.
You think torts is an ineffective means - yet you wish to substitute other laws - how is that superior ?
Ypu still have to demand the government step in, you still have to demand that some part of government excercise discretion - how load is too loud ? As well as deciding if an actual infringement occurs - if I am playing music loudly on my own property and it is faint at best when it reaches you - then has the law been breached or not ?
All you are doing is torts by a different form - one you do not need.
It is you that is fixated on deterent.
Torts resolves itself easily.
If you sue me for having my music too loud - you will have to demonstrate real harm - the court will decide, and that decision will be commonly available. If the court finds for you I will have to make you whole for the harm I have caused - if that is a small harm - there will be small consequence.
And in fact torts wisely disincentivizes the use of government to adjudicate small and subjective harms. Those that each of us can better work out on our own.
Further is peace and quiet is a high value to you - you can move to a community that shares that value. I have no problems with private voluntary communities having their own rules - whatever them maybe. You value peace and quiet highly - and you choose to pay the price to have that peace and quiet. Or build your home on 100 acres or .... or walk over and tell me I am playing my music too loud and you are trying to get sleep. One of the most evil things we have done is converted neighbors working their problems out between each other, with give and take into neighbors using the local municiplaities to torture each other. Do you know your neighbors - could you ask one politely to turn down their music ? If you must resort to the law to sort all this out - you are the problem.
Conversely if there is a serious problem it has likely already been addressed and we all know that if you drive through someones front porch - you are going to have to buy them a new porch.
The disincentives you are so concerned about are already in torts.
You will not have lots of people in court suing each other - because they know they will lose and just avoid the tortious behavior.
But I can't sure you for having music too loud. Low level harms simply cannot be adjudicated by the slow moving and costly judicial system that requires due process of the law.
And your claim aboout "moving" is exactly right. Most communities properly set statutes to regulate noise, to set up proper zoning, and set community standards to protect property values. Representative democracy is the best way of identifying and settling the conflicts that exist between individual rights. And, if you are unhappy with your elected representatives YOU can move and finda different place.
And, looking at your last example about running into someone else's porch, the real fact is that many of the people that would cause such property damage can never pay such restitution. They cause harms that they will never pay back. I guess maybe it can be like a Seinfeld episode and that person can be your butler, but in reality this is the case. The new porch is either going to be paid by your insurance which means you and your insurance pool will pay higher premiums, or out of your own pocket directly.
The world is not a tidy place; its actors are not all reasonable and rational (in a normal sense); there is more mental illness and violence in the real world that most people can even dream about. That is what makes the prescriptions of the pure libertarians laughable.
YOu saying we have no obligation to immigrants does not mean that billions of dollars is not spent on immigrants via one welfare program or another.
Listen, I have "not created" anything. But it still is what it is. You claiming it is someone else's fault means you are just a chickenshit coward. You refuse to accept anything possible, and continue to cling to politically impossible policy. ANd, government force is going to pick and choose which group receives help because there is no political consensus to remove the vast bulk of the social welfare state.
Of course you can sue me for having my music too loud.
Of course the tort system can adjudiucate that.
If our torts system is too slow that means we need to increase its resources.
It does not mean we construct a parallel system that inverts the standards of proof - you think that my music is too loud - the burden of proving harm rests with you.
Once you do the burden of making you whole rests wiht me.
M any communities have a wide cvariety of regulation - there is a tremendous about of study been done of those - and they are a disaster in numerous ways.
First they demonstrate how a few either powerful of vocal people can manipulate the law to their own interests.
BTW "protecting property values" is not a legitimate public interest.
If the value of your property increases because you can restrict what I can do with mine - you are stealing from me. You are sacrificing my freedom for your gain in value.
Your property is only worth whatever the market will pay given the most offensive use that I make of my property. BTW the converse is also true.
You are not entitled to restrict my freedom for your financial reward.
I happen to be a building code expert.
The most architypeal american architecture - Frank Llyod Wrights "falling water" is illegal today.
We have myriads of laws and regulations governing how a building is to be built.
No representative democracy is NOT the best way of resolving "these conflicts"
Because "these conflicts" do not exist.
You do not have the right to demand that I conduct my life in the way that works out to your best advantage - whether that results in the highest value for your property or whatever e3lse you think you are entitled to.
That is why when I talk of torts I note "actual harm" - actual harm is not the loss of something you hoped for, even something you expected. It is the loss of something that is yours by right - and by right only.
Your expectations are your problem. You are not entitled to use force to infringe on the rights of others - even rights they do not care much about, merely to protect your expectations.
There are a small portion of us that can not repay others the harms we cause.
That is overall quite rare. We have bankruptcy for that, it is also why people end up with poor credit and with fewer options in life.
Most of us, most of the time can make whole - atleast to the extent the law can adjudicate the harms we cause.
But as you note the world is not perfect. Tomorow a tornado could take off my porch and absent insurance I would have no one to make me whole.
Even with insurance - the insurance company will have made a bet and lost.
We are not guaranteed that everything will work out perfect. We are not guaranteed even that every harm will be made whole. The world does not work that way.
The law of entropy requires constant effort merely to stay in the same place - much less get ahead.
Since you are fixated on the porch.
Like I noted the world is not perfect. Rather than a car, your porch could be damaged by a tornado.
You presume everyone is forceably insured - I presume insurance is a choice - a wise one, but still a choice.
Because I might hit someone's porch and have to pay for it - I have car insurance.
Because others might harm me - or nature might piss all over me I have home insurance.
I am not entitled to insurance - I pay for it. I pay to have someone else accept the risk that either I might harm someone else - or some harm -through others or nature might come to me.
The world is not a tidy place - and it is outside the ability of government to make it tidy.
All actors are not reasonable or rational. Nor do we all share the same idea what is reasonable or rational.
Actually the rate of violence today is about 1/20 that of cave men.
About 1/4 of what it was for our founders.
The 21st century rate of violence so far is about 1/2 that of the 20th century - but we have a long way to go.
It is one of the few legitimate roles of government to protect us from or punish actual violence.
But it is not the role of government to protect us from or punish hypothetical violence
I am not a big fan of Iran or Iraq under Sadam. I supported the destruction of the Taliban post 9/11.
But I did not support the invasion of Iraq - pre-emptive war is immoral. Government may not pre-emptively attack another nation - or an individual in the beleif they are preparing to do violence.
If libertarianism is "laughable" then anarcho-capitalism is even more so.
Yet in the real world we have a gigantic example of functioning anarcho-capitalism.
It does not work well - but no one has ever come up with a better alternative - and likely never will.
What is that example - it is the relationship of nations to each other.
There is no "world government" not "world police force". Nations acting individually or together have some ability to manipulate the behavior of other nations - but only so far without resorting to violence.
But nations do not have rights - only people do. Yet somehow you tolerate far more freedom for nations than people.
Again - one mistake does not justify others.
We do not get to say - we F'd up - so we have to F'up even more.
If you did not create this mess - you are still arguing that a mistake justifies making further mistakes.
I do not know where you learned logic, but I am not aware of anywhere where one error can be used to justify a succession of others.
How am I a coward ? I am pointing out what is wrong. I am taking a difficult and unpopular stance that angers people. Believe me that takes courage. It is not cowardice.
Doing things properly is "possible" - it is just harder because of the mistakes already made.
What is chicken shit cowardice is refusing to face the fact that we have made a mess, and cleaning it up is going to hurt people - in many instances innocent people. And there is little or nothing we can do about that.
Or we can take the easy way out - kick the can forward, let the mess get even bigger. Let the harm get ever greater. Leave the problem to our children.
That is what sounds like cowardice to me.
Given a conflict between human nature and politics - in the short run politics will likely prevail, in the long run nature ALWAYS rules. We are merely debating the details of when and how that will occur.
What an incredible argument - government is going to get to pick the winners and losers - because through government we have F'd up and are unprepared to confront that.
One of the reasons there is no consense to abandon the social welfare state is because too many people like you are not prepared to accept that it is a failure - it has always failed, and it will always fail.
Social Security has been the great flagship of the left - yet it is leaking like a seive and is in great danger of capsizing and taking the entire nation with it.
And your response is "the political reality is it can not be touched" - so what - we are all going down with the ship ?
It is amazing the US federal government spends $4T/year, other nations in agregate much more.
Yet it is very very hard to look arround and find anything that any government anywhere does that is worth a tiny fraction of what we pay for it.
If I ask you to name a single successful govenrment program - you will be very hard pressed to do so.
How is it we can spend $4T and not have myriads of successes ?
Maybe if you try hard you can find one or two - but can you find $4T/year worth ?
Are you dumb or are you just being argumentative. The cost of suing someone for music being to loud is prohibitive. You know that but you prefer to argue nonsense. And, if you lost how is this court decision going to be enforced???? Being in business means I have won lots of judgements against debtors that never pay and short of the police coming out to enforce the noise problem, idiots like you will just ignore the wishes of other people. ITS YOYR RIGHT YOU BELieve that NO ONE CAN TELL YOU WHAT TO DO.
this is why we have noise ordinances. If you play your music too loud the police might show up and fine you. Way more efficient way of settling these disputes. Only weirdos think otherwise.
Apparently you have never been sued or sued anyone.
There is very little cost to do so.
You are always free to represent yourself, and court filing costs are minimal.
If you sue over some harm that is deminimis - you are likely to lose - and that is how it should be.
Enforcing court decisions - win or lose, is the legitimate role of government. Though if you lose, there is nothing to enforce.
So you are saying that because some people can not pay for the harms they cause - we should revive debtors prison ? Because that is really all you are doing when you change from compensating for harms to locking people up for them.
There is no "the wish of the people". There are merely our individual wants, wishes and needs. You are free to associate with others of like mind to acheive whatever wishes you might have - without using force.
You are not free to use force.
Do you beleive that you can shoot someone who plays their music too loud ? That is what using government means - using force. If you are not prepared to see those who offend you lose their property, their freedom or their lives over that offense - then you should not use government. Eric Garner died because he refused to cease violating laws against selling loose cigarettes.
What no one can do is infringe on my rights by force.
Your entire argument reduces to I and others who share my point of view may impose that point of view on others by force.
What criteria do you use to determine may and may not be done through government ?
It appears you think Government can lock people up for playing their music loud - because that offends you.
For centuries whites were offended by contact with blacks. What distinguishes your offense from theirs ?
What justifies your use of force and not theirs ?
Or we can use the holocaust. Hitler had the support of over 80% of germans - how by your logic does that not justify the holocaust ?
You have no rational basis for what constitutes a harm, for the scale of that harm, or for when the use of force is justified to address that harm.
Yet absent any ability to articulate any of that, you seem to believe you are entitled to use force against others.
The use of force must be justified.
One of the reasons for torts is that it allows us to cover all actual harms - without enumerating each, and it requires proving the harm and justifying the use of force to remedy it.
Yes, it might be harder than calling the police to pummel your neighbor - and that is what you are demanding when you call the police.
You complain that you can not get judgements enforced because people will not pay and use that to justify the police showing up and fining people ?
BTW the objective is NOT to use force efficiently. In fact it is exactly the opposite. We do not want it to be easy and efficient to use force - that is a short road to the Hollocaust. The Nazi's were one of the most efficient governments in existance - is that your ideal ?
We make the use of force difficult and inefficient deliberately.
There are myriads of reasons.
But lets start with your loud music example.
Is there one very clear specific rule for your neighbor's playing music that accurately covers when it is harmfull and when it is not ? We should not be making laws when we can not formulate clear bright lines that all agree on nearly all the time.
When we make laws we break down rather than build community. These ordinances you are so found of are excuses to use the police to deal with our neighbors rather than actually talking to them ourselves.
It should not surprise you that as we have more and more ordinances, we have less and less interaction with our neighbors and more and more interaction with the police.
Nor is there any limit to this.
If there really were clear rules for the way humans should interact with each other - we would not need to add new ones every year. We would not need millions of pages of laws that none of us have ever read.
You presume the legitimacy of all of this. Think of what it would cost - how inefficient it would be, if we actually enforced all these laws all the time ?
You are not after efficiency. That truly is a goal of Nazi's
If we actually enforce all of our laws all the time - we would inarguably end up with a police state.
Actually we already have a realtively benign police state.
We paper over the inability to know or enforce all our laws with discretionary enforcement. A clear breach of the principle that we are a nation of laws not men.
We can change law - we can not change the arbitrary governance of men.
I am a wierdo - because I think that any law we pas we should always enforce - no discretion.
Because I think we should not pass laws unless we are prepared to accept that enforcing them will deprive some people of their property, their freedom or their lives.
Because, though I am very smart, I do not think I am smart enough to run someone else's life.
Because I beleive that the use of force must be clearly justified.
Because I think that if a law does not or can not accomplish its purpose it should not exist.
Because I think if you are bothered by your neigbors music - that the problem might be you.
Because I think you should actually interact with your neighbor directly rather than through police officers.
Because I do not think you may tell others how they must live.
If that is wierd - then I am a Proud wierdo.
State that positively: I'll do everything I can to let you keep _your own_ money instead of fighting over who gets the most of other people's money", and you have the core of Justin Amash's platform. He won two elections to Congress -- and we keep voting for him because he really means it!
That's not the whole of his platform. It also includes voting on each and every bill that reaches a vote of the full House. AFAIK, he holds the record for the most NO votes in a session of Congress, and I hope he'll continue to do so for a long time.