Slashdot: Ron Paul Suggests Axing 5 U.S. Federal Departments (and Budgets)

[harikaried]

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/10/20/1541224/ron-paul-suggests-axing-5-us-federal-departments-and-budgets

Might need some help highlighting the purpose of the plan: reduce government spending.

In particular to the highlighting of ~$15 billion of science funding cuts, Ron Paul specifically does not cut NSF funding because it's not a high priority to cut science funding. The research money from those departments can be well funded by the industries themselves with over $500 billion in tax cuts.

[lx43]

Isn't the NSF apart of the Department of Commerce? If so, it should be eliminated when the department is closed down.

[Czolgosz]

Wow, those nerds are big government people.


If government stops doing it everybody dies.

[harikaried]

Isn't the NSF apart of the Department of Commerce?NSF is its own Agency at the same level as Commerce.

[lx43]

NSF is its own Agency at the same level as Commerce.

Regardless it should be eliminated; I don't like welfare for dictators, the American people, or scientist.

[wowrevolution]

We need to get some free-market Scientists & Industrialists on board to explain how these Government Agencies have hurt scientific development and local businesses. Yesterday the front page item on reddit in /r/politics was how Dr. Paul was anti-Science. This is going to turn off a lot of people and many who had previously been pro-Paul are starting to have misgivings on this issue. We need a strong counter to these attacks. The perception of Paul as being anti-Science is going to be very costly.

This needs to be our response:

SPACE - INTERNATIONAL POLICY
Ron Paul Presidential Campaign
Position Paper
(1988)
Our government is not only shortsighted in it's negotiations on space issues, it's downright anti-american. Sometimes it's hard to decide whose principles the State Department is defending. They certainly aren't those of our Founding Fathers.
About the only anti-property treaty this country hasn't ratified is the odious "Moon Treaty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_treaty)", written by our own State Department. If not for an alert group of citizens (L5 Society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L5_Society)), the United States would have ratified this treaty under President Carter and embraced control of all the rest of creation by a World Government. Under "the common heritage of all mankind" space would be the heritage of no one. The vast wealth of resources and energy in our solar system would remain untapped instead of being explored by entrepreneurs who would improve the condition of all humanity. It's time this sick treaty is repudiated once and for all.
We must also demand a revision or understanding to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/ost/text/space1.htm) so individual property rights are recognized. If there are no implimenting protocols for property rights within a specified time limit we should withdraw from the treaty entirely. In any case, we should immediately open a land office and accept claims of Americans to specific pieces of land, subject to occupancy within 15 years.
Back in the late 1950's a project called Orion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29)seriously considered using small nuclear explosions to power a spacecraft. The lifting capacity would have been vast, measured in thousands of tons instead of the miniscule abilities of today's mightiest rockets. This brute-force approach was simple enough to be considered feasible 30 years ago. Unfortuneately, the idea was shelved by the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Test_Ban_Treaty).
We need to integrate our message with Space Privatization efforts and put out spokesmen to advocate free market solutions. We'll need advocates to emphasize how Government regulations impede scientific progress. We are going to need to make relations with companies like Virgin Galactic (http://www.virgingalactic.com/), Scaled Composites (http://www.scaled.com/), Bigelow Aerospace (http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/), and we might want to start up talks with Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (http://www.lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/). If we want to go with all cylinders firing we need to PUSH U.S. Withdrawal from the Outer Space Treaty (http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/ost/text/space1.htm) as mentioned by Dr. Paul. We might also be able to find significant support in the National Space Society (http://nss.org/) and the Mars Society (http://www.marssociety.org/). If we want to put forward a solid scientific program then we should explore capitalistic efforts similar to those outlined at Permanent (http://www.permanent.com/)

Remind them how poor management by the Department of Energy (http://www.doe.gov/) resulted in the cancellation of the Superconducting Supercollider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider) and how the Sandia Z-Machine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_machine) and NASA (http://www.nasa.gov/)are unable to benefit from private citizen donations due to current federal regulations which could have saved programs like JIMO (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Icy_Moons_Orbiter). Also, advocate Enterprising solutions for organizations like the Artemis Project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Project).

In addition, we must also convince them that issues like Stem Cell Research (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXO_ApjKPaI) and even Cloning would be left to the States and so Scientific Research would be protected from Federal Bans (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11207876) and States would be able to increase funding for projects like Growing New Organs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIVquEQsAZ0) if not for excessive Red Tape.

Also, who profits from the developments of Government research when major bankers are able to monopolize the resources, and patent government research for profit? This goes back to our typical Conflict of Interests that has seized all government agencies.

http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/3690/bannerpaulspace3.png

[freejack]

Don't bother with them. Most of the people there think they are smarter than you and will not change their views based on the arguments from an inferior. We need to target our efforts on the public at large.

[redmod79]

I'm an engineer in the private sector. Beuracracy and in inefficiency are the name of the game here. If that's true in the private sector, I'm afraid to think of how bad it is in the government sector.

[harikaried]

I've been in graduate school and worked on a PhD, and there are plenty of industry-backed research. I studied Computer Science (computer architecture), and there were plenty of research/papers funded by companies who provided money and employees, e.g., Intel, AMD, IBM, Nvidia, Microsoft, etc.

Ron Paul's plan cuts almost $500 billion in taxes, and I'm sure these companies would be able to fund research more effectively than some federal government bureaucracy.

[One Last Battle!]

We need to get some free-market Scientists & Industrialists on board to explain how these Government Agencies have hurt scientific development and local businesses. Yesterday the front page item on reddit in /r/politics was how Dr. Paul was anti-Science. This is going to turn off a lot of people and many who had previously been pro-Paul are starting to have misgivings on this issue. We need a strong counter to these attacks. The perception of Paul as being anti-Science is going to be very costly.

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/9808/bannerspace.png

More important, we need BIG NAME scientists with free market ideology.

Unfortunately, many older scientists see it as a conservative vs liberal thing, and they view conservatives as being ignorant bible thumpers and thus become liberals instead. I know of many fairly young people in scientific fields who support free markets (On my last count, many many IT specialists/programmers/etc, two physicists, a nuclear engineer, some biologists, a mathematician and a chemist), but they have no stature unfortunately.

Actually, we should make a poll here to see the professions of RPF people, or maybe take a sort of census.

[Aldanga]

I gave up on Digg a year ago, and I have no hope for Reddit. I'm about to give up on Slashdot because of this crap. I blame the education system.

[wowrevolution]

I gave up on Digg a year ago, and I have no hope for Reddit. I'm about to give up on Slashdot because of this crap. I blame the education system.
America has been mind-fucked by the single-minded obsessiveness of the American people following 9/11. Their intellectual capacity has taken a huge hit because the environment of discussion in America has seriously contracted and bumper sticker slogans have invaded the memesphere with disastrous effect. We really need to get everyone to read up on free market solutions because the public has simply forgotten and there is an entire generation that has grown up with limited material for intellectual growth. Free market ideas for space exploration, energy, etc, have pretty much been shut out completely from the national dialog for over 10 years now. We must remedy this immediately.

bah, no one is fucking listening.

http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/3690/bannerpaulspace3.png

[lx43]

http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/we-would-all-die-without-government-science-funding/


Or so we casually assume. This piece, linked today on the LRC blog, argues otherwise. The book it cites numerous times, Terence Kealey’s The Economic Laws of Scientific Research, is a stunning revisionist work on the effects (and necessity, or otherwise) of government science funding, one of those things everyone knows we need.


Book
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312173067?ie=UTF8&tag=thomacom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0312173067


Video
http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/the-myth-of-science-as-a-public-good

Here are some of the comments from the video:


He makes some good points. Market competition is an incentive, not disincentive, to innovate. People don't choose to forego innovation because competitors may copy them. It is in part because competitors may copy them that they innovate, to stay ahead of the competition. In contrast to this incentive to continually innovate, monopoly privilege is an incentive to innovate once, then spend the rest of your energies litigating.


i loved the example of the aviation business being patent free from 1913-1975 in the US.that has to be the single best evidence for the lack of need for patents to foster innovation.
all this makes me wonder why no libertarian is yet praising the chinese for the their disregard for patents and IP rights. their "piracy" should be encouraged instead of looking at it as a problem



Article
http://www.cobdencentre.org/2011/01/science-by-the-free-market/

[wowrevolution]

More important, we need BIG NAME scientists with free market ideology.

Unfortunately, many older scientists see it as a conservative vs liberal thing, and they view conservatives as being ignorant bible thumpers and thus become liberals instead. I know of many fairly young people in scientific fields who support free markets (On my last count, many many IT specialists/programmers/etc, two physicists, a nuclear engineer, some biologists, a mathematician and a chemist), but they have no stature unfortunately.

Actually, we should make a poll here to see the professions of RPF people, or maybe take a sort of census.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmB5SpgWIEA

That is the thing, we need to draw them back here by being a haven for these free-market ideas. They've been mind-fucked by the NeoCons same as everyone else. We've got most of the country in a disoriented daze of ranting & raving frustrations. We need to show them that Dr. Paul is in touch with that free-market enterprising spirit. This will allow them to finally shake off the Neo-Con mindfuck and be welcomed back into the Light of Liberty. If I were to make one recommendation, it is that every Ron Paul supporter go in and do a crash course in free-market space economics because that will be a gateway into free market Nano-tech, biotech, and a vast collection of other scientific programs. We then need to double down on community outreach and show people that free-market scientific efforts are being over-regulated and threatened by too much interference from government agencies. The National Effort is being undermined by the Government Effort.

http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/3690/bannerpaulspace3.png

[lx43]

Free-Market Science vs. Government Science

http://blog.mises.org/5439/free-market-science-vs-government-science/


State control of science is the attempt to combine opposites. In essence, science is mind; the state is physical force. Science makes its way by means of the voluntary assent of the individual human mind to its recognition of truth. In contrast, the state and what the state sponsors makes its way by means of the use of physical force and the threat of physical force.


Any financial support the state may provide to science is by means of taxes collected at the point of a gun, from people who know that they will be imprisoned if they do not pay the taxes and injured or killed if they resist being imprisoned. This is a remarkable foundation for the progress of science, much like a purported construction of a laboratory by gorillas.


There is another important difference in starting point. Science begins in the mind of the individual scientist seeking important truth not previously identified. State-sponsored science in contrast typically begins with an already established consensus concerning the subject to be pursued. This is because the existence of a consensus increases the likelihood of being able to obtain political support for the project.


Whether state-sponsored science rests on an existing consensus or on the initiative of an individual politician, it differs radically from genuine science in yet another respect. This concerns the relationship between science and money. In a free market, it is the truth and importance of the science that drives the raising of money. Money is raised in order to facilitate the development and dissemination of the science. Money is the means; science is the end. With state-sponsored science, this relationship is largely reversed.

The state, in effect, offers pots of money in the form of “grants” for the study of matters selected by politicians and their appointees, and then scientists must choose areas of investigation that are most likely to secure them some of that money. The “scientists” gather around the pots of money, like bees around pots of honey, eagerly seeking as best they can to slurp up some of the money by means of writing whatever kind of grant proposals they think will promote the agenda of whichever officials have the power to determine the award of the grants.



State-sponsored science is the destroyer of science. If science is to live, government funding of science must end.