[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254943]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?[/QUOTE]

Easily.

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254943]Will potential JAGs choose to leave that career path if there is no compensation between age 45 and 67? It could happen.[/QUOTE]

I would think this almost always happens. If they still want to work I'd expect them to retire as soon as they hit the appropriate number of years and then pick up a job at a private firm.

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254943]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.[/QUOTE]

Well said.

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254945]The positions I stated are indeed mainstream within the Republican Party.[/QUOTE]

I don't know of any Republican who has introduced a bill to the Senate or House to reclassify abortion as murder. Most oppose it, but the overwhelming majority would disagree with your stance. (Examples of less-extreme stances: "abortion should be considered manslaughter" and "late-term abortion should be considered a misdemeanor".)

Your claim on Regan is, of course, nonsense if taken literally. A weaker claim: "At most one person sees Regan as non-beatific". But even interpreting it as being pro-Regan I'm not sure how much support you'd get. Of the conservatives I know who are old enough to have voted in 1980, most opposed Regan in favor of (H. W.) Bush.

Favoring low taxes and small government are, indeed, planks of the Republican party -- though not adhered to so much in practice. But I doubt you'd get many registered Republicans, whether voters or politicians, to claim that it is "wicked". (No doubt there would be some, but it would be a fringe.)

I've spoken to filibusters already. Their use in recent times is decidedly up -- for both parties. It would be trivial to locate large numbers of quotes from either side lamenting their use by the other.

Your claims on redistribution and public-sector unions are as vague ("vile", "terrible") as your claim on Regan ("beatific"), so I'll skip over them.

I've discussed your Vietnam anecdote already. It's not clear how to interpret this as "mainstream in the Republican party" especially since you explicitly disclaim it as a general statement about Republicans.

So I don't find much we can agree on here. Your statements can be replaced with statements that are generally true, but then they lose their ability to be applied the way you apply them. For example, if we replace the claim that Regan was "beatific in the eyes of all on heaven and earth" with the claim that (in the view of most Republicans) that he's a swell guy, suddenly there's no problem with those same Republicans opposing Clinton's tax hike (with "opposing" replacing "flagitious in the extreme").

I'd love to have a meaningful discussion on political issues, exploring possible solutions to difficult problems. But your invectives make that difficult.

[QUOTE=CRGreathouse;254951]I don't know of any Republican who has introduced a bill to the Senate or House to reclassify abortion as murder.[/QUOTE]
Hence my point about their hypocrisy. They run on this issue in every election. Ever read the Republican platform?

[QUOTE]Your claim on Regan is, of course, nonsense if taken literally.[/QUOTE]
Too bad it was a figure of speech, used often in communication. Are you actually trying to score points this way?

[QUOTE]Favoring low taxes and small government are, indeed, planks of the Republican party -- though not adhered to so much in practice.[/QUOTE]

By the time you're done reconfiguring my arguments, you have managed to convince yourself that you are the one claiming their hypocrites, and I'm accusing them of something else entirely.

(By your standards, since the platform is written by a committee X, and members Y do not adhere to it, neither are hypocrites, of course.)

[QUOTE]I've spoken to filibusters already. Their use in recent times is decidedly up -- for both parties. It would be trivial to locate large numbers of quotes from either side lamenting their use by the other.[/QUOTE]

Between January of 2009 and March of 2010, there were more cloture motions filed in the Senate than were filed between WWI and the moon landings. The Democrats did abuse the filibuster against Bush, but the current scale of its use is unprecedented.

[QUOTE]Your claims on redistribution and public-sector unions are as vague ("vile", "terrible") as your claim on Regan ("beatific"), so I'll skip over them.
[/QUOTE]

If you are hurt by such indelicate language, you should lose your condescending tone. I can handle being addressed this way. Can you handle hearing figurative language on the topics of public figures?

[QUOTE]I've discussed your Vietnam anecdote already. It's not clear how to interpret this as "mainstream in the Republican party" especially since you explicitly disclaim it as a general statement about Republicans.
[/QUOTE]

Yes. Good point. Though they are hypocrites, they do not speak for all Republicans.

[QUOTE]... suddenly there's no problem with those same Republicans opposing Clinton's tax hike (with "opposing" replacing "flagitious in the extreme").
[/QUOTE]
Google "republican quotations clinton tax hikes" for some fun rhetoric.

[QUOTE]I'd love to have a meaningful discussion on political issues, exploring possible solutions to difficult problems.[/QUOTE]

You would literally love that? Isn't this a bit, well, figurative? Should I therefore dismiss your statement from a position of assumed superiority?

[QUOTE]But your invectives make that difficult.[/QUOTE]

I have no objection to your choosing to ignore my posts.

[QUOTE=CRGreathouse;254926]There are surely thousands of people who would be happy for the publicity of an election campaign if it was funded for them.[/QUOTE]"Running as a Business Ploy

Some candidates use the presidential campaign as just another way to make money."

[url]http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/on-the-trail/running-as-a-business-ploy-20110309[/url]

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254955]Ever read the Republican platform?[/QUOTE]

Yes, though only the 'short form' version (~12 pp.). Ditto the Democratic platform.

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254955]Too bad it was a figure of speech, used often in communication. Are you actually trying to score points this way?[/QUOTE]

"Score points"? What is this, a competition?

Actually, I'm trying to pin down the meaning you intend. Most of your original post was just insults rather than factual claims. I'd like to extract these claims and determine which are true and which false, and of the false which can easily be corrected.

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254955]By your standards, since the platform is written by a committee X, and members Y do not adhere to it, neither are hypocrites, of course.[/QUOTE]

Neither are automatically hypocrites, correct. A Republican who holds and votes in a liberal way on some issues is not being hypocritical by that act alone. "Hypocritical" is not the same as "impure". Similarly, a Democrat who (like Bill Clinton) is economically moderate isn't hypocritical by virtue of that stance.

Either could be a hypocrite, of course. A (Republican) politician who extols the "sanctity of marriage" but is cheating on her husband is a hypocrite. A (Democratic) politician who runs on a platform of "Buy American" but gives stimulus funds to Chinese companies is a hypocrite. A (Labour) politician who blames budget shortfalls on corruption but is found to be taking bribes is a hypocrite. Etc.

Do you really consider a moderate politician a hypocrite if they belong to a major political party?

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254955]By the time you're done reconfiguring my arguments, you have managed to convince yourself that you are the one claiming their hypocrites, and I'm accusing them of something else entirely.[/QUOTE]

If "they" is Republicans, I've already claimed as much (as I have with Democrats). I'm not entirely sure what you're claiming, and I certainly don't know that it's different from what I believe. It's entirely possible that we're saying many of the same things.

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254955]Between January of 2009 and March of 2010, there were more cloture motions filed in the Senate than were filed between WWI and the moon landings. The Democrats did abuse the filibuster against Bush, but the current scale of its use is unprecedented.[/QUOTE]

I guess to truly distinguish between the theories "filibusters are used more now" and "filibusters are used more now, but only by Republicans" we'll need to wait until the Democrats are in a political situation similar to the one the Republicans had been in.

As for whether the use of the filibuster can be considered abuse (whether by Democrats or Republicans), I'm not sure. Similar questions could be asked of other legislative actions.

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254955]If you are hurt by such indelicate language, you should lose your condescending tone. I can handle being addressed this way. Can you handle hearing figurative language on the topics of public figures?[/QUOTE]

I'm sorry if I come off as condescending.

My problem, though, was not with your tone but with your lack of specificity. You contrast someone saying/thinking that "wealth redistribution is vile" with federal subsidy to low-population states. But we can't measure what people think (not well and not yet, at least), and I doubt many people at all literally say that. So I'm forced to come up with your real meaning. In this case I assume you mean a politician opposing increased spending on Medicaid or the EITC. But this brings up problems:[list][*] What if I came up with the wrong meaning? Perhaps you really intended to talk about a politician who campaigned on a promise to cut 'Bridge to Nowhere'-type spending, or who wants to lower the income tax. Now we're talking about entirely different things.[*] By not stating what you actually mean, the differences between the two are obscured. A person (not me!) could reasonably hold the position that the federal government should give [much] more money per capita to some states than others, and yet oppose {choose one: high income tax, increased Medicaid, increased EITC}.[/list]
[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254955]Yes. Good point. Though they are hypocrites, they do not speak for all Republicans.[/QUOTE]

They certainly sound like hypocrites from your description. There is a subtle shift here, though, in that this discusses [i]voters[/i] rather than candidates. But I'll go no further on the matter as it's not really germane.

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254955]Google "republican quotations clinton tax hikes" for some fun rhetoric.[/QUOTE]

I haven't forgotten it. :smile:

The funny thing is that Clinton was, economically, about as conservative as (w.) Bush. Certainly Clinton did more for free trade than Bush ever did.

But electioneering is electioneering, and I don't blame politicians for engaging in it. I wish it were otherwise, but that's life.

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254955]You would literally love that?[/QUOTE]

Well, yes. (The word "literal" is yours, but it happens to be true -- at least in sense 17 in [url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/love]this dictionary[/url].) It's a little embarrassing, perhaps -- you might think that I have better things to care about or do, but honestly... not so much. I derive real enjoyment from intellectual discussions, which now mainly take place online. Most of them are about math but sometimes I can find an intelligent person to discuss politics with.

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254955]I have no objection to your choosing to ignore my posts.[/QUOTE]

I'd prefer to continue the conversation, else I would have done so already. But I can't imagine a situation where literally ignoring you would be sensible -- I do that for cranks and trolls, not with people I simply disagree with. And so far I don't even know that we do disagree at all.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;254960]"Running as a Business Ploy

Some candidates use the presidential campaign as just another way to make money."

[url]http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/on-the-trail/running-as-a-business-ploy-20110309[/url][/QUOTE]

Exactly! That's the sort of thing that a system would need to avoid. And it would need to avoid it in a manner that is not easily corrupted or abused.

[QUOTE=FactorEyes;254943]
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.[/QUOTE]

Yes, and in the higher-end of the private sector you can do it without difficulty; my father managed to do it as partner in a medium-sized provincial firm, admittedly doing commercial law in the VC capital of the UK ... I gave the salary figures, if you live a lieutenant-colonel's lifestyle on a private-sector lawyers' salary, you can stick $50k/year in the pension, which gets it big enough in under two decades.

[QUOTE] 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]

If your military requires lawyers and doctors, its choices are to train its own and then tie them down with the largest bolts available (for example, extremely generous pensions that take twenty years to vest) or to pay like the private sector.

factor_eyes: I just read through every part of the Republican platform concerning abortion. I now feel that I have a good grip on the 'official stance'. I'm still not sure what hypocrisy you're talking about. Are you saying that Republicans run on "abortion will be reclassified as murder" in their campaigns but that, by virtue of that stance not appearing in the party platform, they're hypocrites? Or that they run on "abortion is bad" but then fail to legislate against it? Or that they run on "abortion is bad" but fail to believe/act on the stronger belief "abortion should be classified as murder"?

I'm sure you'll accuse me of playing games, but I really don't know what claim you're making.

[QUOTE=CRGreathouse;254965][QUOTE=cheesehead;254960]"Running as a Business Ploy

Some candidates use the presidential campaign as just another way to make money."

[URL]http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/on-the-trail/running-as-a-business-ploy-20110309[/URL][/QUOTE]
Exactly! That's the sort of thing that a system would need to avoid. And it would need to avoid it in a manner that is not easily corrupted or abused.[/QUOTE]"Exactly!" -- Exactly what?

"the sort of thing" -- [U]What[/U] sort of thing?

"a system would need to avoid" -- To which [U]system[/U] do you refer?

[QUOTE=cheesehead;254972]"Exactly!" -- Exactly what?

"the sort of thing" -- [U]What[/U] sort of thing?

"a system would need to avoid" -- To which [U]system[/U] do you refer?[/QUOTE]

See post #29 ff.

[QUOTE=fivemack;254966]
If your military requires lawyers and doctors, its choices are to train its own and then tie them down with the largest bolts available (for example, extremely generous pensions that take twenty years to vest) or to pay like the private sector.[/QUOTE]
I'd be more likely to believe this to be the calculation, yet this is only a specific case of what all lieutenant colonels are paid, which is in turn a specific case of what applies for all ranks. A sergeant could retire before 40 with a $25K pension and medical for life.

What are the arguments for doing this in all the other cases? Are all lieutenant colonels so valuable?

For JAGs and doctors, I would prefer a high enough compensation to keep them in the service to begin with. I can't say that there's much point in giving people a generous out after 20 years. Why not pay them up front if you need them, and wish them good luck if they choose to leave at 45, as is the case in the private sector?

This reminds me of a similar issue: underpaid federal judges. Both JAGs and judges can make large sums of money by leaving for private law firms which handle the subtleties of lobbying and litigation involving the government. I have a hard time believing that generous pensions for early retirement woud do anything but encourage JAGs to leave the military ASAP.