Politics: Yikes, UK. Wtf?

[Peter Korsten]

Op 3-1-2011 23:30, The Dong schreef:

> On 03/01/2011 16:10, K9 Kai Niggemann wrote:
>> if we are being bombarded by ads for unhealthy food that are said to influence our unconscious buying decisions, we might as well use the same tools to remind everyone to live a more sustainable lifestyle. is that really so bad?
>> of course it sounds manipulative when a government does this. but....
>
> But government is not meant to be there to tell us how to live our
> lives. It is there to make sure we CAN live our lives, free from
> tyranny, slavery and deprivation. We can make up our own minds, duh.

That doesn't make sense. The whole point of a government is to tell 
people what to do. It sets rules, regulations, that sort of thing, but 
in the end, the government tells us what to do.

For me, that is not a necessarily negative thing, as long as we can vote 
out that government come next elections, even if its out of pure 
capriciousness.

(If you wonder if I trust the government: I live in Malta. Enough said.)

> How can we have a smaller government AND a bigger society, yet get taxed
> MORE for the privilege of doing MORE work for it? (voluntary as well as
> charity, in the form of charity creation. We all know most charity
> workers get paid a lot less than 'real' wages, or nothing at all)

The taxes and cuts have nothing to do with the smaller government or 
bigger society, but it's due to the fact that the UK has one whopping 
big budget deficit. The major difference between the UK and Greece is 
the size of the national debt, and that the UK instils more confidence 
than Greece, which main export products appear to be sunshine and dodgy 
ferries.

> Having had first and second hand experience of how government steers
> companies and charities and delivers terrible default advice for startup
> businesses for the naive (so they, or society *cough* effectively own or
> have unhealthy leverage on the business) I have no faith what-so-ever
> that there are any good intentions behind this, other than to secure
> lots of much cheaper solutions for the work of government, yet still not
> reduce the tax burden on the population. These middle-management who
> have gotten their grubby paws on the purse strings to funding for
> charities, both from direct gov. coffers and the big lottery (note BIG
> Lottery, BIG society) really do pledge money to charities, then refuse
> to pay it when they have the job done, or ask for great chunks of work
> to get the funds in the first place to be repeated, ad. infinitum till
> it's not worth the time and effort any more. I have seen this, and more
> despicable treatment, like refusing funding unless X is done which will
> incur losses to the charity etc.)

Yeah, but, um, isn't this going off on a tangent a bit? I know there's 
some history between you, the charity and the big, faceless giant called 
Loki, I mean the UK government. But now you're essentially hijacking the 
thread because of your own peeve.

- Peter