19 Years Of Twaddle

It are my blogiversary! Hooray! Cake for everyone!

Err, well, except for you. I don't have enough cake, you understand.

Something interesting is happening with my blogging these days. The purpose of this blog has been to learn. I learn best by writing, hence the fruits of the blog have been what I believe to be a better understanding of the world.

A good example is the way I read this essay by Roger Simon. As an aside, I met Roger in person at the very first Blog Expo. I even got a photo with him, planning to photoshop KT into it, but still haven't done that. Roger thought the idea was funny and played along.

Anywho, here's the snippet from that essay where Roger astutely sums up what Elon and his wizards are discovering about Federal spending.

The American taxpayer, it is already clear, has been fleeced for decades by this deliberate financial obscurantism at a level beyond comprehension, a significant part of which fits easily under the old category of featherbedding, especially for loyalists of both parties. When it is finally added up, it will more than justify the title of this article.

Government spending transparency has simply not existed in any of our lifetimes, not even remotely. The legislators themselves have little idea on how money they authorize is ultimately spent. Most apparently don’t care—at least they act as if they don’t—as long as their patrons get their portion of the payout.

I believe that through my blogging, I have come to understand the moral calculus of what has happened to us as a nation with respect to our insane spending.

As I've said many times recently, money has no meaning when it comes to government spending. The ability to print money out of thin air with seemingly no ill effects has made any attempt to rein in the handouts an act of Scroogish heartlessness. Because money simply precipitates out of thin air, it is immoral to deny anyone anything. More to the point of Roger's essay, there is no payoff to any scrutiny of the spending.

This is how you end up with transgender comic books in Honduras or whatever that insane USAID line item was.

The spending, of course, is not without consequence. Those consequences have been building up like flood waters behind a failing dam. As the Argentinians, Weimar Republic and the Confederacy all discovered, printing money is a good idea until it isn't.

Some people can see it coming and understand that uncontrolled government spending is a moral evil. Those who cannot, think any limits on the spending are cruel.

There's a benevolent way to look at both sides. Both are trying to do the compassionate thing. My argument is that the pro-spending side's moral equations have been polluted by decades of seemingly penalty-free profligacy. It's understandable that they cannot see the approaching calamities. They are still wrong, but they're not all driven by sinister motives. Most of them are just mistaken.

I can see that clearly when I read essays like Roger's because I've been writing nonsense here for 19 years.

Here, Cat and I wonder if we've gotten it all wrong. Truth be told, Cat is a good deal more self-assured than I am, but that's natural for Cat.