BoatShoes;1511212 wrote:What do you consider "productive work". It is silly to me that there's this broad assumption that work done out of public purpose is always unproductive make-work while all private sector work is "productive".
Water Sommeliers, Massage Therapists who give HJ's, Porno Fluffers, Stock Photo Models, Porn Stars, Bartenders, Personal assistants and on and on....these are all paid by the private sector and seems to me would fail to meet this standard of "productive work" that people use when they apply it to public sector employees IMHO.
Perhaps this is true, but I'd submit that, at some point, even if the two entities (public and private sectors) were equal in the number of unproductive work, there would still exist more leniency on the side of the private sector, because the money to fund such uselessness is mostly both personal and voluntary.
BoatShoes;1511212 wrote:Any work that makes somebody better off in their own subjective minds is productive.
Well that seems like nonsense. If a man gets paid to squeeze the heads off mice that were purchased at the pet store, I daresay that, while that activity might bring him some level of satisfaction, it would be neither meaningful nor productive.
BoatShoes;1511212 wrote:If a corporation feels that a certain seemingly benign personal service will make its shareholders better off, that work is productive. If Congress and our agents in the executive branch feel a seemingly benign personal service will make the public better off, that work is productive on the same standard.
In the event that such is a true one-to-one parallel, then Congress ought to pool their own private funds to sustain this benign service.
BoatShoes;1511228 wrote:This is not a symposium on boolean logic.
I hardly think that's necessary to avoid speaking in exaggerations and extremes. Simply being engaged in a discussion about serious matters ought to be enough to compel a person to choose his words carefully.
BoatShoes;1511212 wrote:If you didn't understand the connotation in the context of menial banter on a message board then I am sorry for your lack of familiarity with modern social conventions and the like. People speak in generalities in casual speech and I am sorry that this concept is foreign to you.
Personally, I would strive to eclipse the social convention of idle banter if the discussion at hand is more important than idle banter.
BoatShoes;1511212 wrote:BTW my sympthathies for not getting to be able to watch your beloved socialist football team representing the Naval Academy battle the socialist football team from the Air Force Academy due to Republicans being upset over losing last fall.
He doesn't need sympathy. USAFA would have wiped the floor with them anyway.
queencitybuckeye;1511237 wrote:BTW. a really good bartender is worth his/her weight in gold, and easily meets the definition of productive.
This is a somewhat subjective notion, unless a company has actually compared having a bartender to having no bartender.
However, valuable or valueless, so long as the company owners are using their own money to fund the bartender, then it is irrelevant, and the bartender is allowed to be unproductive.
BoatShoes;1511238 wrote:No Child Left Behind creates federal socialist intervention into local public schools, Medicare Part D creates massive unfunded expansion of largest socialist program in America, Creation of Department of Homeland Security massive expands federal, socialist control over citizens to the point of groping them at the airport.
What do the Constitutionalist, So-Called "Fiscal Conservatives" do??? "Well...you know Boat those things I didn't really support by Bush either...." Lip Service with nevertheless unquestioned support. No filibusters, No shut downs, no chicken with the so-called "debt ceiling".
I know I'm probably not quite who you're referring to with this, but I would have been absolutely in support of this kind of behavior in light of those.
As our system is in what I'd call a rut of stupid spending, I think a little disruption is a good thing. Not only does it contribute to the evolution of political strategy, but it ideally disrupts the rut in the way at least some people think about doing politics.
I'm not advocating total anarchy, as I'm no voluntaryist or even anarcho-capitalist, but I do think that the disruption of the nonsense politics we've had for awhile now is a good thing.
BoatShoes;1511212 wrote:Obama enacts RomneyCare/HeritageCare/NewtCare and provides tax credits for people to get individualized health insurance....partly moving health insurance away from being employer-based for workers who don't have access to group plans...a goal of conservatives for years and what do they do???
"Shut Down teh Gubmint!!! Socialism!!! End of Health Care as we know it!!!"
Well, this is where partisan politics make people stupid, so I certainly concede your point here.
BoatShoes;1511248 wrote:He changed his points. First he said there was too much unproductive work...then he switched to talking about efficiency. And obviously he never made that specific point about lawyers either Con_Alma but apparently you don't understand that I was using a more specific example lol.
Perhaps your specific example was not one he would consider to fit his point.
Maybe a more apt example would be something like the number of people seen standing around a road construction site, perhaps. I think this would demonstrate unproductive work (or a lack of work at all, at that point) with overall decline in efficiency. I daresay, seeing any road construction site used to be a running joke when I landscaped. We would turn it into a game and count the number of people standing, doing nothing. Rarely was the answer zero.
Well that was emotional and reactionary.
Granted, the arrests are stupid, but I don't think the equivalent to "Burn the Government down!" is an appropriate response. It's like someone with a malfunctioning laptop then throwing the laptop against the wall. Sure, it might feel good in the moment, but now, your laptop is in even worse shape.
queencitybuckeye;1511312 wrote:Has the subject come up of the Democrats putting something other than Obamacare on the table? Otherwise, aren't they currently the "party of no" they rail against?
I can't complain about that. I voted for Dr. No.
