[QUOTE=CRGreathouse;254925]Most of your arguments sound stupid because they're actually of the form "If X says Y, why does Z not do Y?". Perhaps the arguments you're ridiculing are of the same form?[/QUOTE]

This is special pleading. If you follow an ideology, you aren't off the hook for any the tenets of that ideology which you have not initialed, line-by-line, in the presence of a notary.

[QUOTE=CRGreathouse;254925]
I assume you're being facetious (unless you're not an American and don't understand the American legislative system).
[/QUOTE]
No need for me to be facetious. The Republicans are outraged at obstructionist legislative tactics. Seems strange from a party with an unprecedented love of filibusters over matters as trivial as judicial appointments.

[QUOTE]I'd love to. Actually, I'd love to change the system of federal spending that benefits the states dramatically, because it's not only corruptible but currently corrupt -- in the sense that it's used strategically, every year, by politicians to reward their supporters and maximize votes. I'm not sure what the best way to do this is -- I've thought of several methods but none are polished.[/QUOTE]

My point was that rogue had a problem with the hypocrisy of Democrats, yet, whoever is in power, certain things, no matter how repugnant political figures seem to find them, remain in place. The Democrats have nothing near a monopoly on this sort of hypocrisy.

[QUOTE]Political expediency, one assumes.[/QUOTE]
Ye-ess! And from a man like Walker, who decries the foul corruption of public-sector unionization, this is ... is - what's that word? - hypocrisy.

[QUOTE]Not sure what the argument is here. Are you arguing that members of the military are overpaid, or that given a level of benefits they should be redistributed differently? Or are you talking not about benefits as such but merely the retirement, compared to other government jobs with early retirement (e.g., police)?[/QUOTE]

I speak of the general indifference among conservatives to pensions for military members, which rings hypocritical in light of the militant opposition to generous public pensions among conservatives. And these military pensions make schoolteacher pensions look stingy.

I know a retired JAG in her early forties who will get $45K a year until she drops. Outrageous!

[QUOTE]"Do you think the U.S. made the right decision or the wrong decision in using military force in Iraq?" According to [url=http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm]this Aug. 25-Sept. 6, 2010 poll[/url] (the first one I could find that split out Republicans from others), 68% of Republicans gave that response. So with 95% confidence (Clopper-Pearson interval) I can conclude that you know at most 8 such middle-aged conservatives.[/QUOTE]
I speak of Vietnam-eligible men who **didn't** serve in Vietnam, not Republicans/conservatives in general. My evidence is indeed anecdotal, but I also know a few veterans of WWII and Vietnam who thought Bush was out of his mind. I was mystified by the dichotomy among my acquaintances. A couple of local self-described libertarians were red-faced sweatin' in support of that war. Best I could figure was John Wayne syndrome: "My country, right or wrong" is most often heard from conservative men who had an opportunity to serve in the military yet did not, out of fear or family concerns.

Is it that unreasonable that a lawyer should take early retirement on a little under US median household income?

An annuity paying $45k is about a million dollars; so that's suggesting that the JAG salary is about $50k less than an equivalent lawyer could get in private practice, with the rest going into pension. US lawyers are not notably poorly paid (it may well be that the JAG corps doesn't manage as high a salary as an East Coast firm of comparable scope); glassdoor.com suggests an average salary of order of $175k, whilst twenty years service in JAG makes you a lieutenant-colonel on not quite $100k. So that all seems to fit together quite reasonably.

I do find the idea that people with a pension should not also work quite a weird one; would you say the same for someone who had, by careful choice of parents, acquired a trust fund paying out the same amount annually?

[QUOTE=CRGreathouse;254926]I try. :blush:

But my question is just one of practicality. There are surely thousands of people who would be happy for the publicity of an election campaign if it was funded for them. Could we realistically fund them all?[/QUOTE]

In the UK, there are strict limits on what can be spent by political parties, and it's a serious offence (people are sent to jail for a couple of years) to overstep them. You have to send receipts for everything spent to the Electoral Commission.

[url]http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/party-finance/party-finance-analysis/campaign-expenditure/uk-parliamentary-general-election-campaign-expenditure[/url]

Of course we're electing 650 MPs rather than a single President. You have to put up a $800 deposit and get a form signed by (I think) a hundred voters to be allowed to stand, you get one free mailshot to every registered voter in the constituency, you lose the deposit if you get less than 5% of the votes.

If you're electing US Presidents, a half-million dollar deposit sounds the right sort of scale; that'll remove an awful lot of loons.

[QUOTE=fivemack;254910]And so it will proceed, small negative change by small negative change, until our grandchildren are asking if Grandpa really once knew someone who owned his own house, and if there was really a time that you didn't work on Saturdays.[/QUOTE]

Slippery slope argument.

[QUOTE=CRGreathouse;254920]You'd fund [i]my[/i] electoral campaign as much as Obama's?[/QUOTE]

Clearly, national/state level office would provide more funding than
(say) for the local town council.

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254931]This is special pleading. If you follow an ideology, you aren't off the hook for any the tenets of that ideology which you have not initialed, line-by-line, in the presence of a notary.[/QUOTE]

So you take the most extreme, off-the-wall positions from one ideology and castigate anyone who claims membership but doesn't follow those extreme positions? That seems unwise, not to mention applicable to extremist positions in every ideology.

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254931]No need for me to be facetious. The Republicans are outraged at obstructionist legislative tactics. Seems strange from a party with an unprecedented love of filibusters over matters as trivial as judicial appointments.[/QUOTE]

The Democrats were outraged at Republican obstructionism, was that wrong?

I don't see either side's use of filibusters and other maneuvers as anything other than politics-as-usual.

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254931]My point was that rogue had a problem with the hypocrisy of Democrats, yet, whoever is in power, certain things, no matter how repugnant political figures seem to find them, remain in place. The Democrats have nothing near a monopoly on this sort of hypocrisy.[/QUOTE]

Certainly not, it's endemic in DC.

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254931]Ye-ess! And from a man like Walker, who decries the foul corruption of public-sector unionization, this is ... is - what's that word? - hypocrisy.[/QUOTE]

I would disagree!

I have no knowledge of Walker, but saying that he's hypocritical because he wants A and B and introduced legislation for A seems logically baseless. There are many things I might want to do as a politician; two might be to raise the estate tax and lower the income tax. Would you call me a hypocrite if I introduced a bill that raised the estate tax but failed to lower the income tax? There are lots of good reasons why I might do that, including the possibility that there's support (in my hypothetical electoral district) for raising the estate tax but not for lowering the income tax.

And that assumes that Walker even feels the way you describe -- it's possible that he feels that only public-safety officials amongst public-sector workers should be unionized. (I have no idea what he thinks or says.)

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254931]I speak of the general indifference among conservatives to pensions for military members, which rings hypocritical in light of the militant opposition to generous public pensions among conservatives. And these military pensions make schoolteacher pensions look stingy.[/QUOTE]

Possibly -- though to be fair, members of the military make far less, on average, than teachers. Starting salary at the high school where my friend teaches is almost triple the starting pay for active-duty enlisted. It's not obvious who 'should' make more, or by how much -- I'm only pointing out that you need to compare the whole package.

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;254938]Clearly, national/state level office would provide more funding than
(say) for the local town council.[/QUOTE]

Oh no, I'm running for President! Why not, if the government will bankroll my campaign?

[QUOTE=fivemack;254935]In the UK, there are strict limits on what can be spent by political parties, and it's a serious offence (people are sent to jail for a couple of years) to overstep them. You have to send receipts for everything spent to the Electoral Commission.[/QUOTE]

Yes, I like the UK system. It's not clear how to adopt it to the US, as they're very different in many ways (as you point out).

[QUOTE=fivemack;254934]Is it that unreasonable that a lawyer should take early retirement on a little under US median household income?[/QUOTE]

In the sense that she's competing against private-sector lawyering, which is largely of no economic use, there is a disconnect, for me, in paying according to a profession overvalued by civilian society. This is similar to paying all generals according to CEO pay scales.

Private-sector lawyers also work well past 45, although I believe one can make partner by that age. Would it be possible to accumulate $1 million worth of pension in private-sector lawyering? I don't know. Still, I'm not comfortable with tying military pay to the private sector, given the idiocy with which salaries are inflated or depressed in various professions.

[QUOTE]... twenty years service in JAG makes you a lieutenant-colonel on not quite $100k. So that all seems to fit together quite reasonably.[/QUOTE]

Maybe I should not have picked the JAG, but she's a tangible example for me. Should a lieutenant colonel be seeing such government bounty at age 45 forward? I have no problem with a healthy pension kicking in at age 67, if there was service through age 67, or giving the $45K per annum once age 67 rolls around, if the officer was not in the military after age 45.

Will potential JAGs choose to leave that career path if there is no compensation between age 45 and 67? It could happen.

[QUOTE]
I do find the idea that people with a pension should not also work quite a weird one; would you say the same for someone who had, by careful choice of parents, acquired a trust fund paying out the same amount annually?[/QUOTE]

I don't have any antipathy toward working pensioners. The pension should be a reward for services already rendered. It was earned.

A trust-fund child is the product of private wealth, which is not my concern, and about which I have little right to be concerned in this case, other than the pernicious effects of creating a feudal upper class - the dangers of this wax and wane according to the power of the upper classes. As a citizen, by contrast, compensation of public servants concerns me.

Just saw this book listed....
 

[url]http://www.amazon.com/Plunder-Employee-Treasuries-Controlling-Bankrupting/dp/0984275207/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1299877287&sr=1-1[/url]

Plunder: How Public Employee Unions are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives and Bankrupting the Nation

[QUOTE=CRGreathouse;254939]So you take the most extreme, off-the-wall positions from one ideology and castigate anyone who claims membership but doesn't follow those extreme positions?[/QUOTE]

Wow. I'm not with you here. We'll have to agree to disagree.

Most of what you say is to me a differing take on an agreed-upon reality, but I can't see the positions I quoted as being extreme among today's conservatives.

The positions I stated are indeed mainstream within the Republican Party. David Frum was fired from the American Enterprise Institute for agreeing with elements of Obama's health care reform law. Christopher Buckley has been let go from The National Review. Orrin Hatch faces near-certain primary defeat in the next election. Any Republican office holder who disagrees with Rush Limbaugh is forced to apologize or face the end of his career. Few dare state that they believe Obama was actually born in Hawaii.