Roger, Two points: 1) Being a third party kind of guy, with no particular loyalty for or against Obama (though keeping a healthy fear of Romney), I share Owen's frustration at Obama's inability/unwillingness to clearly articulate his successes. His overall record includes a surprising number of major successes that few seem to know about.
2) I don't think anyone has a problem with the government scaling in needed ways to the population. Yes, as cities get bigger, they need more police officers, firemen, etc. When people complain about "the growth in government", I think what they are really complaining about is the proliferation of new laws, especially when they involve "mission creep", in which the government starts to regulate newer and less necessary parts of their lives. When there are too many rules for people (i.e., legislators) to keep track of, you start to get schizophrenic sounding contradictions, which are necessarily enforced arbitrarily. Much of our problems could be solved if, at least for a short period, we convinced legislators to brag about how many laws they repealed, rather than them feeling they had to justify their existence by proposing and passing new laws. To make matters worse, when the per capita size of government remains the same, and the number of new laws continues to grow at staggering rates, it must be the case that enforcement of the old laws and regulations starts slipping. This means even more arbitrary enforcement and uncertainty. Eric P.S. Not a Federal issue, but: I have a friend who does some fun looking pistol competitions, and have been considering getting the licenses to participate. The PA gun law is 126 pages thick. When getting the quick summary from my friend, I was surprised to learn, for example: 1) There is no license required to own and carry a non-concealed, loaded firearm. 2) The license to carry a concealed weapon is easy to get, and will even let you drive with a concealed loaded pistol on your person! 3) If you are hunting with have a rifle (or any long-barrel gun), and accidentally lay it in plain sight in the passenger seat of your car, that is a big crime, even if you have said permit. If anyone could explain how that combination of laws makes sense..... On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 04:28 AM, Roger Critchlow <[email protected]> wrote: > > >I asked how 300 million people settled on 0.0725 government employees/capita for 30 years and continued arguing the whole time about whether the government was getting too big. Did they not know that the size of the government/capita had stabilized? Did they not understand that the number of teachers, policemen, firemen, tax collectors, and inspectors scaled with the size of the population? Are our elected officials too stupid to understand or explain this? Are you all laughing at me because this is something that every school girl knows? >> > > > > >>Owen, the glass is half full. I swear by 1+1=2, the glass is half full. And it's all going to turn out just the way it does, no matter how you feel about it. >> > >>And not to further contribute to your self-centered hijacking of this thread, but, Obama took the hardest job in the world, hardly anything turned out as anyone expected or might have wished, but he did the job. If you're disappointed, then that's between you and your expectations. If you want a braggart for president, vote for Romney, he's clearly the sort who can confidently take credit for anything that happens, with only a few mis-steps on the way to victory. > >> > >>But start your own thread and stop projecting your personal depressions over every question raised on this mailing list. >> > >>-- rec -- ============================================================ >FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > ------------ Eric Charles Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
