> If so, just visit the inside of any government agency.
How is this still a retort? OF COURSE MANY GOVERNMENT AGENCIES SUCK. That is the direct result of fifty-plus years of "government is terrible, elect us and we'll prove it." Even some of our more popular agencies are so underfunded they can barely do their original mission, much less the aspirational stuff we want of them. NASA says it'll take--pulling numbers out of thin air--$10 billion to reliably go to the moon. Our electeds' response is "you can have $3 billion" and then we complain that NASA hasn't sent anybody to the moon yet.
Never mind this patchwork of responsibility where virtually everything is no one's actual fault or job. The much-complained-about Department of Motor Vehicles is, in various states, operated as an independent entity, part of the department of transportation, part of an agency that handles licenses for everything that needs a license, or simply just kind of happens. There's no one whose job it is to say "this thing needs to work well" and since everyone doesn't like it, it doesn't command any kind of respect for being paid properly.
And then speaking of paid properly, why on Flying Spaghetti Monster's Earth would someone go to work for a state or local government and get paid, especially in tech, on average about two thirds of what he or she could be making in the so-called "private sector," or go to work for the Federal government and not only have the same wage penalty but ALSO be subjected to random "well, we couldn't get our heads out of our ass so you're not getting paid for anywhere from one to one hundred days, sorry" instances.
"Just visit the inside of any government agency" my shiny metal ass; we MADE this problem and now we kick dirt at it as though decades of voters bitching about government haven't gotten us exactly the front-line government services we deserve as a consequence of those votes.
So which parts of the government should we give more power? The CIA? The FBI? Any part of the justice system? Those government agencies have plenty of power and funding especially with the “War on Terror” and the “War on Crime/Drugs”. Private corporations don’t have the power to take away my life/liberty/property. The government does. Given a choice between corporate power and government power, I would rather see less government power.
Even the military is a wasteful mess because of government power. The military has told the civilian government that they don’t need some of the weapons or military bases that they are getting but the government - because of corporate meddling -keeps funding things that the military has said they don’t want.
Why would you trust these same government officials not to be persuaded by corporate officials. This is the same government that got rid of Net neutrality, bans cities from creating municipal broadband, extended copyrighted repeatedly and protects draconian DRM.
techsupporter|6 years ago
How is this still a retort? OF COURSE MANY GOVERNMENT AGENCIES SUCK. That is the direct result of fifty-plus years of "government is terrible, elect us and we'll prove it." Even some of our more popular agencies are so underfunded they can barely do their original mission, much less the aspirational stuff we want of them. NASA says it'll take--pulling numbers out of thin air--$10 billion to reliably go to the moon. Our electeds' response is "you can have $3 billion" and then we complain that NASA hasn't sent anybody to the moon yet.
Never mind this patchwork of responsibility where virtually everything is no one's actual fault or job. The much-complained-about Department of Motor Vehicles is, in various states, operated as an independent entity, part of the department of transportation, part of an agency that handles licenses for everything that needs a license, or simply just kind of happens. There's no one whose job it is to say "this thing needs to work well" and since everyone doesn't like it, it doesn't command any kind of respect for being paid properly.
And then speaking of paid properly, why on Flying Spaghetti Monster's Earth would someone go to work for a state or local government and get paid, especially in tech, on average about two thirds of what he or she could be making in the so-called "private sector," or go to work for the Federal government and not only have the same wage penalty but ALSO be subjected to random "well, we couldn't get our heads out of our ass so you're not getting paid for anywhere from one to one hundred days, sorry" instances.
"Just visit the inside of any government agency" my shiny metal ass; we MADE this problem and now we kick dirt at it as though decades of voters bitching about government haven't gotten us exactly the front-line government services we deserve as a consequence of those votes.
scarface74|6 years ago
Even the military is a wasteful mess because of government power. The military has told the civilian government that they don’t need some of the weapons or military bases that they are getting but the government - because of corporate meddling -keeps funding things that the military has said they don’t want.
Why would you trust these same government officials not to be persuaded by corporate officials. This is the same government that got rid of Net neutrality, bans cities from creating municipal broadband, extended copyrighted repeatedly and protects draconian DRM.
ianstallings|6 years ago
mcphage|6 years ago