Why are Atheists afraid to insult Islam and Jews?

[nihilistcat]

While I agree with much of your sentiment, there is a certain degree of ideological arrogance implied by these words. Basically, you've narrowed it down to saying (without saying) everyone besides progressive democrats are stupid and have a substandard ideology. 

In my mind, it's not all that unreasonable to think that the existence of federal regulatory agencies makes corruption of our political system inevitable, and so the idea of simply getting rid of them, isn't so outlandish or stupid. Indeed, maybe it is better to simply regulate via case law, instead of limiting the right of citizens to sue tortfeasors (as federal regulation does under the supremacy clause), why not abolish these agencies, which would have the effect of making every lawyer, every judge in the country, a potential regulator (much more difficult to bribe millions of attorneys, particularly when the payout for winning a lawsuit against a huge company can be so big). 

As a veteran (who has used the VA on numerous occasions), I think rather than funding the giant mind numbing, psychologically assaulting bureaucracy that is the VA, vets would be far better off if we simply gave them private medical insurance. And why should the post office be allowed to retain a monopoly on first class mail anyway? 

I'm not saying I agree with any of this (for the most part, I don't, I actually think there's better ways to deal with corruption at both the agency and political level), but none of this is unreasonable or stupid. Indeed, the only thing that's stupid, is tribalistic partisanship!

Pick any single claim as an example you think is the height of the worst "arrogance" you think I am committing and I will demonstrate that bluntness does not mean "arrogance". You will NEVER hear me claim I know everything. I don't. That list above is not my "arrogance" . It is simple a list of stupid things humans blindly swallow that in reality are merely things they like believing. 

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Oh and don't blame dems for the VA, you can thank republicans for budget cuts so they can give tax breaks for the rich. You can blame the GOP for protecting right wing religious nuts and plutocrats.

I don't blame dems or repubs for the VA. I blame the simple fact that large, centralized bureaucracies are almost always inefficient, because bureaucracy seems to beget more bureaucracy, it piles on over time, and ultimately it becomes a monstrosity.

Similarly, we see the same dynamic in large centralized companies (unfortunately, libertarian types never want to admit that private companies can become overcentralized and run into an economic calculation problem just as government bureaucracies can). But the fact is, companies have been able to co-opt federal regulatory power, and use the coercive power of state to its advantage. We're all familiar with how this manifested in our banking industry, but it permeates throughout our economy and government. 

Command and control bureaucracies (whether public or private) suck (this has been thoroughly demonstrated over the last century or so). There's exceptions to this rule. For instance, if the function we're asking a bureaucracy to perform is relatively simple, then it can be effective e.g. the only job the social security administration has to do is parse through claims, but otherwise, money in money out (simple). But when the function is complex (like say operating a nationwide healthcare system) ... that's when it becomes disastrous. Medicare is another example of a manageable bureaucracy. It's role is to simply cut checks to doctors and hospitals, and collect tax revenue (but actually it doesn't even do that ... the IRS collects the taxes, and the treasury sends HHS the money). And of course we can distinguish the 'payer' function from the healthcare provider function.

But libertarian types make a fair point. Agencies like the EPA are no longer doing things like cleaning up superfund sites, they've become clearinghouses for crony capitalism. And to make it worse, because federal regulation dominates the field, state tort suits are unavailable to would be plaintiffs. So this has created a situation where companies have convenient one stop shopping for cronyism. Same is true of the FDA, SEC, DHS, etc. etc. Now we could fix the lawsuit problem through simple legislation (without eliminating these agencies), but at the same time, I don't think it's necessarily unreasonable to endorse cutting these agencies. And oh btw, there's a reason why dems aren't calling for the type of legislation that would fix this problem. They like the power these agencies give them (they get to shake down companies and basically extort political patronage). So IMO dems are no better than repubs as far as economic issues go. Yeah, they are more socially liberal, but what good will social liberalism be when we're all living in squalor because of crooked trade deals, cronyism, and all the rest? So I no longer call myself a democrat & frankly, with only one or two exceptions, I could care less if dems win. I'd even say that America's best days are behind her if we do not figure out a way to fix this mess.