*** The Official MAGAposting thread ***

[oskar]

What amount of money greater than what people would freely choose to give to those they think need it should the government tax and give to people the government thinks need it? My guess is that when people think upon this question, the answer is inevitably zero. If it is greater than zero then that means that somebody thinks the government that is supposed to represent the people should technically NOT represent the people. So, we can move past this, because we know the government should tax and spend zero percent more on welfare than the people think the government should.

That leaves us with an x amount of money that people think should go to welfare. So then the question is are we better off in aggregate if the government spends that as the government sees fit or if the individuals spend it as the individuals see fit. A superficial view says no we are not better off because that implies that each individual thinks that the government knows better than the individual does about the individual's preferences. A more in depth view looks to economic theory IMO, which says that results will be better if competitive rather than if non-competitive.

The potential problem I see with this is that you essentially have a majority decide over the minority and while it's not impossible, it's definitely not self-evident that the majority will act with the best interests of the minority in mind.

I appreciate you typing all of this out. I might respond to more of it later. I take great issue with that teaching in africa anecdote but it would take an equal or greater wall of text for me to respond to that.

[wufwugy]

The potential problem I see with this is that you essentially have a majority decide over the minority and while it's not impossible, it's definitely not self-evident that the majority will act with the best interests of the minority in mind.

Are you saying that letting individuals and families and communities decide is disempowering minorities while having government decide is empowering minorities? I'm confused since the former is technically about minorities deciding while the latter is technically about the majority deciding (assuming democracy, which we do assume).