Paul Ryan steals lunch (story)

Politics & Elections
61

What’s the relevance of Jesus to this question? Surely you’re not suggesting that the formulation of government policy should be weighed against the teachings of Jesus? Or that it’s appropriate to judge proper government policy by the standards enunciated by Jesus?

There are, in fact, jobs available. And it’s certainly possible to take the position that it’s better to expend effort that will increase the numbers of jobs available by fighting a minimum wage increase, which will raise the take-home pay of those that keep their jobs, but reduce the number of jobs available.

Using the argument you offer, I could argue that those who seek to increase the minimum wage are evil, because they are arguing for an action that will put people out of work and create an increased burden on the business community – they are increasing the very problem you complain of: lack of jobs.

But of course I don’t, because I know that people who advocate an increase in minimum wage believe that their approach will do more good than harm. They might be wrong; they are not evil.

But you are apparently unable to make the reverse concession: you are certain that not only are your opponents wrong in their belief that there are better ways to help people than direct handouts…they are evil.

62

Each of these subjects can occupy an entire thread. My basic answer would be that a rising tide lifts all boats: that a government’s proper function is to create a framework in which individual freedom prospers and allow people to compete and prosper according to their ability and effort. Competition is a good thing: Darwin thought well of it. I contend that such a framework, in the long run, produces more safety, security, and well-being for everyone.

That’s why.

Now, you can certainly disagree about any one of those claims, and even more forcefully disagree about how to balance those goals against the undeniable need to step in and assist in a short-term urgent need.

But if you persist in saying that the failure to accept your vision of government is, by definition, evil, then you have adopted a definition for the word “evil” that’s unworkable.

63

How can I possibly take issue with that?

I can’t.

I mean, I probably won’t agree with the solutions you’re proposing in response to these goals, but notice that nowhere in that post did you call the opposition “evil.” You’re saying their goals are misplaced – that they are focusing more on financial consequence than on consequences for people. Whether that’s true, and to what degree, can be discussed. I don’t say that I am unambiguously right; i don’t say you are unambiguously wrong. Or evil.

And my point in THIS thread is to show how misplaced the claim of “evil” is.

64

That’s the only real point I’m making in this thread.

Was Scylla evil? Did he become un-evil after his experience?

Or was he mistaken? Did he hold a mistaken belief, decide to test his belief in order to prove it, and discover to his surprise that his belief was in error?

65

Yes, I agree that’s a fair reading.

Is that “evil?”

Or is it a belief that if you incentivize behavior, you run the very real risk of increasing it?

I’m paying attention.

But I don’t agree with all your premises.

66

I think most economic conservatives have this belief. In fact, I (an economic liberal) believe this risk exists as well.

But here is the big difference, in my opinion (broadly) – economic liberals believe that providing the social safety net to those who need it is more important than ensuring no one gets a free ride, while economic conservatives believe that ensuring no one gets a free ride is more important than providing the social safety net to those who need it.

I’ll note that this believe may stem from a difference in understanding of how many people actually need these kinds of services, but I think it’s a fair simplification.

67

Republicans never seem to make it to the second half of that adage.

Somehow theirs goes,

Give a man a fish and you can feed him for a day. Tell a man to go fish and slam a door in his face and he doesn’t get fed, but you can feel morally superior to him for a lifetime.

68

To me, the “give a man a fish” bit is a telltale sign that the person quoting it just wants an excuse not to help the poor. There are tons of people who know how to fish but there are no fucking fish to be caught. Smugly lecturing to them doesn’t help them.

69

Sorry, I thought we were talking specifically about good and evil. In the context of government, surely, but it’s not like God gives you a get-out-of-sin-free card just for stuff being done, or not, by the government.

Last I checked, you believe in the lordship of Jesus Christ. So do I. Sure, you’re a Roman Catholic, and I’m a Protestant, but we’ve got some common ground here for talking about good and evil. Tell me about how Jesus is all for ‘tough love’ for the poor, or is insistent that the poor only be helped by private persons, or something.

Only in the sense that there are always jobs available. There still aren’t anywhere near enough of them. So you’re going to deny aid to all unemployed people because some of them might be able to find jobs? Nice guy you are.

[QUOTE]

Not in any evidence-based manner, though. This one’s pretty much been studied to death, and minimum-wage hikes really don’t significantly reduce the number of jobs.

And in this particularly abysmal economic environment, there’s a strong argument that a minimum-wage hike would actually boost the number of jobs somewhat. Corporations are sitting on piles of profits and not spending them, but the extra money paid to minimum wage workers will be spent, almost all of it, creating additional demand and enabling additional hiring to meet that demand.

Yes, and you can argue that if the minimum wage is raised, the Great Green Arkleseizure will sneeze the world out of existence.

Again, since this one’s been studied to death, it’s only a matter of belief systems on one side of this issue. Yours.

No, there are many good ways to help people. But since this hasn’t sunk in yet, despite my repetition, if you can’t make it possible for the unemployed to find work, then you can’t morally decline to support them.

70

No only “ensuring no one gets a free ride,” but – as you acknowledge in your first sentence – ensuring that people do not come to depend on the largess and thus reduce their desire to avoid it in the future.

Yes, there may well be areas of disagreement in how many people need it, as opposed to how many are simply taking it by gaming the system. You certainly concede that latter number is non-zero, right?

So how do we get from there to “evil?”

71

Gentlepersons, let us be mindful of our Republican brothers and sisters, who are of a sensitive and vulnerable temperament. We must be careful of the words we use, lest we hurt their feelings. They are but delicate flowers, easily injured by the callous and off-handed use of such words as “evil”.

This is especially poignant since they, themselves, rigorously and invariably refuse to employ such injurious rhetoric. Well, OK, mostly. Frequently. Sometimes.

I’m sure if we ask politely and respectfully, friend Bricker will offer us a list of acceptable terms that we may employ, so that these poor dears do not cry themselves to sleep at night clutching their banky.

72

But that’s not true, unless the word “somehow” is intended to signal a rhetorical device that makes a point through exaggeration.

But given that I’m arguing against the use of exaggeration, this is not a good time to employ it, since I’m going to take it literally.

No Republicans are simply “slamming the door,” least of all Ryan. His favored programs do not prioritize direct handouts, but do favor creating a business climate that prospers, making more jobs available for those who can then “learn to fish” – that is, to feed themselves through their own efforts.

73

Sure. But encouraging business growth by keeping the minimum wage from rising to the point where it will cause losses of jobs DOES help them…much more than handing them largess today and making them come back for it tomorrow.

74

Well, the problem in invoking Jesus as guidance is that not everyone agrees with each other on His reality, His divinity, and the exact words He used, to say nothing of the precise effect application to modern issues that those words have.

I can’t find any particular support Jesus had for government-based charity. So far as I can discern, his exhortations were for His followers to succor the poor in their capacity as individuals, not to form a government and then do so. But I’m not going to debate that point, because in our secular society, there is broad agreement that Jesus’ teachings are not an appropriate method of formulating government policy – and if this is true, then surely no one can be called evil for failing to follow Jesus’ teachings in proposing government policy.

“Significantly?” At a time when you just got through bemoaning the shortage of jobs, that’s a surprising dismissal.

Again, though, you seem to miss the baseline argument. Sure, you can make a case for the benefits of the minimum wage being raised offsetting the cost in loss of jobs. The point is: you cannot possibly make a case that failing to raise minimum wage is therefore evil. You can make a case that short-term jobless benefits are so important it’s worth implementing them even if we increase the deficit…but you can’t say that failure to do so is evil.

You are seriously contending that this is absolutely certain? That along with F=Ma and the quadratic formula, the effect of minimum wage raising is so clearly positive that no reasonable person could ever take the opposite position in good faith?

I think I see the problem here.

75

You are offering as fact a contentious argument. Hard to imagine that someone as well informed as yourself is not aware that the “raising the minimum wage costs jobs!” theme is somewhere between dubious and flat wrong.

That case can be argued, and the opposite case can also be argued. Pretending that the issue is settled is either ignorant or evasive. I don’t think you are ignorant.

76

And while I think this risk exists, I think the number of folks who actually are content to survive on the bare minimum that welfare (and the like) provides is quite low.

Non-zero, sure. Just not that big, in my view.

A few steps, in my view. For example, say there’s a program that provides some genuinely needy families with the difference between life and death – like keeping sick little Billy alive, and making sure his family has enough food. If a politician eliminates this program without this family having another way to survive, then that’s an evil result. The motivation might not be evil (it might be the desire to reduce costs), but the result certainly is. I don’t have much of a problem calling that result evil, though I’d refrain from calling the legislators who voted for it evil.

I don’t find it particularly useful to call things evil, though, from a political perspective. But some outcomes really are evil. Opposition to Civil Rights was evil, even if not all those who opposed it were evil. In my view, opposition to same-sex marriage is evil, as are enacting laws intended to prevent women from being able to make choices regarding their bodies.

In fact, I bet you call supporting abortion rights evil privately, even if you don’t in threads like this.

77

Ah no, no, no. Raising minimum wage is pointless because it only affects kids in the fast-food industry, but at the same time it destroys the jobs of people who make much more than minimum wage.
Somehow.

78

[QUOTE]
Gotta admit I’ve never figured that one out. If it’s the actual people in need who matter to God, the first thing is that they have their needs met, and how and by whom is secondary. This argument only makes sense if the poor aren’t really real in God’s eyes, but exist only as opportunities for the more affluent among us to express our generosity.

Actually, there is no such broad agreement. In fact, it’s a given that we’ll bring our views of good and evil to our public discussions, whether those views are founded in religion or not. But I guess your Pope feels strongly that the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church shouldn’t inform the participation of Catholics living in secular democracies in their voting and political activism, so I’ll stick with secular arguments today.

Dismissal? Expecting results to be significant rather than statistical noise before relying on them is a dismissal?

But I didn’t say that, did I? Counselor, you need to remember your profession and read more carefully.

Nothing in life is absolutely certain. And of course if we were talking about raising the minimum wage to $100/hour, it would become false. But within the general range where minimum wage increases actually happen, it’s about as certain as anything having to do with the behavior of human beings can be.

79

Reading the rest of the thread will reveal that I make exactly this point; it’s not remotely settled.

80

In your view.

Could a reasonable person feel differently without being evil?

Do you make room for the possibility that no matter how well-intentioned a government policy is, it might have individual effects that you’d call “an evil result?”

No. I call the supporters thereof mistaken in their core beliefs.