It's a Civil Offense:
The politics of being offended

by Jmotivator

President Trump has, once again, stepped in it.  He is the living meme:

Nobody:

Trump: We should bring back the Redskins and Indians names.

So Trump has decided to step in to the discussion of -- or resurrect it, as it were --  team mascots, namely the Washington "Redskins" and the Cleveland "Indians".  Many people on both sides have now thrown their hat in the ring to make their old opinions known on the subject, creating a situation that undercuts the meme. 

Trump appears to have opened an old wound that never really healed and, on reflection, after much discussion I realized the truth of it:

This culture's solution to offense is not meant to heal.  It only buries.

Let's talk about this, why it happens, how it persists, how it's fueled, and simple ways to fix the problem that will themselves be heavily resisted.

To start I should point out that there is really nothing new to the current cultural prescription to resolving offense, it is as old as the spoken word.  But I will argue that the system we currently use is anathema to the culture that Americans intend to have and, further, where the civil melting pot works, there is a different method of resolving offense than the one that the country and politicians promote.

The current practice of resolving offense puts the onus on the person speaking to resolve an offense, and places the person taking offense as a wronged party in need of restitution, be it an apology or pistols at dawn.

What this does is escalate a misunderstanding into an argument, rather than a system of more understanding.  A person who meant no offense shouldn't really just accept that they offended unless what they said was a mistake on their part.  Using the wrong word should be corrected, but whether or not the word used was actually wrong is up for debate.

What happens when two people of disparate cultures both use a word in very different ways?  Who should concede ground?  Everyone has an opinion on this and think, vainly, that there is a solution.  It seems clear at this point that the old way of doing things isn't working.

Forcing a one size fits all solution, where the speaker by default is in the wrong, makes a pre-emptive value judgement without the facts and, rather than fixing a misunderstanding, it simply seeks to efficiently quash a disagreement.  This resolves nothing, and simply seeks to invalidate one point of view.  That point of view never really goes away, it just sits in the back of people's minds  as it's own source of offense.

Unfortunately, the solution is probably more complicated than most people have the time for.  The solution is to put the onus for resolution on the shoulders of the offended, not the assumed offender.

The reason a solution won't be easy is that there is too much political cache in demanding cultural change.  Sewing division in groups along easy demographic lines works great in the ever more gerrymandered political landscape.  A member of congress increasingly only answers to one majority political position or demographic, so appealing to that constituency at the expense of all else is good for their political careers.

There is no compromise, no middle ground, no mutual understanding, just perceived offenders and those who demand restitution, and the power always points towards those perceived to need restitution.  Government, for all it's assumed purposes, is centrally the tool for peaceful resolutions... through force.

If everyone got along and treated everyone else amiably then there would really be no need for government... but people suck, in general, so there is no real way to get away from Government power as it will always be needed to bring to bear against the people who suck in order to force them to suck less.

So the general philosophical proof would go like this: 

People suck --> government is needed to make people suck less --> To stop people from sucking less you need power --> Power is put in the hands of people --> The more people that suck, the more power that government needs --> Power corrupts because people Suck --> People in Government need people to suck --> Government finds new ways for people to suck

This is the history of mankind.  It sucks.

And so it brings us back to the original topic:  The politics of taking offense.

When you put the burden on the speaker to provide restitution you create a paradigm that all but demands government intervention.  Trump stepping in on behalf of the various offended Redskins and Indian fans (who take offense to being called racist when there was no racial animus in their fandom) is no more warranted than the political movement that doomed the team names in the first place.

There is another way, though.  People generally won't like it though because, as previously stated, people suck.

The solution:  Take no offense when no offense was intended.  Wherein the perceived offense was due to a mistaken use of language, the speaker can learn and not make the same mistake.  But where the speaker used the proper word in their own  culture or vernacular, and that word in their group is not intended to offend or more specifically, has complimentary connotations for them, then the word should be taken as the compliment it was meant to be.

Choosing to learn from other people their language and culture without forcing them to abide by yours is the essence of civility.

Accept compliments as they are intended, even if your first instinct is to take offense.  It involves communication and learning, but that's how understanding and acceptance are built.

A society where people laugh and remember when "that word" used to be offensive is healthier one than a society where people have to always try and remember what words are now offensive in fear of offending other people.

An Immodest Budget Proposal

..saving the US budget from itself

By Jmotivator

As the US budget deficit approaches $40 trillion, and US debt service becomes the single largest line item in the federal budget, it's clear that something needs to be done to curtail federal spending.  I think the solution if fairly simple, but to understand the solution you must first understand the problem.

Part 1:  More Power, More Problems

To understand the problem with the US budget you must first understand the problem.  The problem, put simply, is $7 trillion.  That amount of money represents an immense amount of power, the kind of power that is, in unequal parts loathed and lusted for.  Lust is winning handily.

Having even a fraction of that money at your disposal grants the decision makers an immense amount of power.  Asking Government to cut a budget is something akin to convincing someone for help in throwing the One Ring into Mount Doom.  They will go along with you so long as being agreeable gets them notoriety and some semblance of power, but when the time comes to actually throw the ring in the volcano, they'll probably bite your finger off.

So the problem, as always, is power.  Some might argue that money is the problem, but money is just a handy way of quantifying power.

Why the Federal Budget system fails is because, since at least the Impoundment Act of 1974, Government spending has been a Congressional monopoly.  While it is true that Congress constitutionally has the power of the purse, the Impoundment Act essentially removed the checks and balances of that power.  A President can't challenge or change a budget item without Congressional approval, and recission of a Federal Budget is like asking Congress to throw the ring into the volcano.

So the problem is Greed, and it's desire for a monopoly, and ultimately the power that monopoly brings.

Luckily, there is a long standing, tried and tested answer to combat Power:  Greed.

Part 2: Problems beget Problems

OK, maybe I was saying that for shock value but, in the end, Greed is the solution to Greed.  In economics that Greed would be called Competition, and you just need to create competition to solve a Monopoly problem.  To understand this we will need to discuss how Congressional Budget monopoly impacts Federal spending.

The current Budget Monopoly has created a Government budgeting system that rewards one thing and one thing only:  Spending 100% of your Budget.  If you spend less than 100% of your budget you are in legal trouble.  It's not really a joke to say the easiest way to get fired from a position of power in the US government is by not spending your whole budget in a fiscal year.

Every July starts the Budget Panic Season in every Federal Agency.  Agencies have a mostly fixed annual budget so it is necessary for every federal agency to be fairly conservative with spending for most of hte FY so that they have a "rainy day" fund if there is some major, unforeseen crisis that needs cash.  Generally that crisis doesn't come very often so every agency is left in July with only 3 months to spend that rainy day fund.

Federal Spending is, at its best, slow and meticulous, but the normally calm and controlled budgeting of every fiscal year suddenly turns crazy in July.  Most agencies don't really care what they spend their money on between July and September, only that it gets spent.

For instance, ask anyone who has worked in Federal IT for a few decades how July-September usually works. Back in the 2000s federal agencies would, like clockwork, buy electronic White Boards to round out their annual budget because at the time these Whiteboards were $10,000 each so the math was easy. They didn't buy PCs to connect the boards to in order to realize the use of the "electronic" part of these whiteboards, though, because that would make the buy too complicated.

The end result that that if you did an audit of Federal properties and checked their conference rooms you will still find those $10,000 White Boards, still not plugged in.

These agencies wouldn't consider those whiteboards a waste, though since they accomplished the only task they were purchased to achieve:  They helped spend 100% of the annual budget.

So how do we fix this?

Part 3: Let's get Wonky

So now we have established both the source of the problem, the problem as it is manifest in the annual budgets, and what perpetuates the problem.  The only problem is how do we fix it?  With an eye firmly set on passing Constitutional Muster, I have a three part plan that will fix the Federal Budget.  I won't make any claim as to a dollar value saved, but if implemented, the biggest problem we would face long term is spending too little.

Reform in three "easy"...

1) Amend the Impoundment Act to make Federal Budgets soft mandates.  Return the checks and balances to the Budget process.  Make recission easier, with a declaration, rather than a request.  Make the deadline for any recission request be June 30th every year, the day before the crazy begins.

When a Recission request is submitted, no further recission can be requested.  The Recission will not itself be a mandate, only a declaration of intent, and a detailed instruction on where the cuts will be applied.

2) Require Congress to institute Goal Oriented achievement tracking, with every Budget and every agency budget there will be established minimum performance standards for that department to go along with the budget that Congress assumes will be needed to achieve those goals.

These goals will be graded on a point system and that point system converted to a final % Achievement score.  An agency that earned all achievable points would get 100%, and so on.

3) By September 30th all agencies that submitted June 30th recission intents will submit an updated Recission final report on how far under budget the department actually ended up.  This final recission request is automatically approved IF the final recission report confirms that the agency making the request met all mandated goals set by Congress in the FY budget.

That final budget recession will then be used as follows:

a) The valuation of the Final Recission valuation for the department will be Money Saved * Achievement %.  So an agency that Saves $100 million but only hits 50% of its goals will have a Final Recission Valuation (FRV .. government loves abbreviations) of $50 million.

b) The FRV will be used for three calculations:

1) 5% of the FRV will be a Bonus set aside that will be awarded evenly to all agency employees at the end of Q1 of the subsequent FY (a "Christmas Bonus")

2) 10% of the FRV will be set aside as a Severance fund for those who lost their jobs due to budget cuts.

3)  5% will be transferred to the SSA

c) The remainder of the Final Recission will be be cancelled

d) The Soft budget that is passed by Congress and signed into Law for each FY will maintain the prior year's budget Cap unless there is an appreciable decrease in the agency Goals from FY to FY.  When Goals of an agency are decreased, the budget to achieve those goals can also be decreased.

This policy will sunset within 7 years of it passing unless ended by an act of Congress, or extended by an act of Congress.

Conclusion:  What's the point?

This system is created in order to tap into the competitive and self interested nature of mankind.  It doesn't really force anyone to focus on cutting budgets, it makes cutting budgets in every government employee's self interest.

It breaks up the Congressional Budget monopoly by putting the real power of Government budgeting in the hands of ALL government employees, while not actually removing the Congressional constitutional mandate.

The only real corrupting incentive in this plan is for Congress to artificially overbudget in order to increase Government Christmas bonuses, but even if that is done, it means that the Government agencies achieved their goals, and only 20% of that Overestimate would actually be funded.  We would still save money in the long run.

The FRV would also prevent truly greedy agencies from spending nothing and just pocketing that 5-10% since shuttering would yield $0 in the FRV account.

Make Government WANT to cut budgets, and make it worth their while, and the Government will happily cut their budgets.