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2026-03-16 08:42:46 UTC
in reply to

Chris Liss on Nostr: They are taking your money anyway. They have taken your money since before you were ...

They are taking your money anyway. They have taken your money since before you were born. They are not going to demonstrate to your satisfaction the plausible value, and any reason they do give is probably bullshit. Those are the table stakes. You may wish it were otherwise, but wishing will not make it so.

When we criticize or support a *particular* policy, we are saying, given that they are spending this money they got either via taxation (largely theft) or printing (inflationary theft), is this a good use of it compared to something else they'd spend it on, say welfare for Somalis, infrastructure, conventional medical care for seniors, etc. Whether you think the federal government should be abolished is a different discussion.

My point is maybe this will redound to our benefit. Maybe it won't. I don't know. If Trump's primary motivation is to go down in history as George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, maybe some of these ideas will align with what's good for America. If he's compromised and narrowly craven (rather they broadly ambitious), then it won't.

I know for sure I did not want the Harris-Biden-Walz race-communism, so I voted to give Trump a shot and plan to hold him accountable for the results. But he's the one with access to the information, the man in the arena right now. I am a regular person watching from the sidelines with very incomplete information. So rather than gnashing my teeth based on second-hand reporting about every blow by blow decision, I'm agnostic, withholding judgment until the results are in.

And doing so is a big relief. I don't give a shit about what it makes me look like. I'm not sufficiently libertarian or anti-war or I'm "statist" or whatever. Just don't care. Or maybe I'm not patriotic enough since I'm not sufficiently cheering for this, the defeat of our enemy for the last half-century. I'm only for a successful resolution that aligns with my broad interests and against a failed policy that does not.