There's something very lazy about arguing about government size. Its just dumb simpleminded platitudes that libertarians pat each other on the back for, but don't really say anything.

While size may not itself be damaging, size does correlate with collateral damage when a losing strategy (such as 'war on drugs') is chosen. The larger the DEA/ATF are, the more people that they can hurt.

Isn't NHS facing bankruptcy?

In practice the hospitals stay open, and patients get their drugs and operations. Reports of impending doom are just politics as usual.

I don't know enough about the NHS to say with any certainty, but I imagine the way the hospitals stay open and patients get their drugs is by the NHS going into more debt (please correct me if I'm wrong).

There's a difference between impending doom not existing and kicking the can down the road. Ultimately, the taxpayers will end up paying the debt. The question is when.

Clearly it will never turn a profit in pounds and pence, only in lives saved. Talking of bankruptcy in that context is a nonsense introduced by politicians intent on doing away with it for ideological reasons.

Bankruptcy has nothing to do with whether an organization is for-profit or not. It has to do with whether it can pay its debts or not.

Trying to figure out how to pay for things you can't afford isn't nonsense. Believing government institutions are exempt from debt is.

No matter how valuable a service is, someone must pay for it. Saving lives is a wonderful thing, but doctors still want to be paid.

The NHS does not have debt in any meaningful sense, the government takes on debt, and chooses to spend some of that on new missile systems, some on wars in foreign countries, some on education, and some on the NHS.

A part of government cannot be bankrupt without the entire government itself being bankrupt, because it is funded as part of government obligations, and the amount given to it is decided almost entirely on the whim of politicians - it varies considerably and depends on all the other expenditures. You might argue that the UK as a whole is borrowing against its future rather than paying down debts (and it is currently as many countries do), but to argue that the NHS is somehow in debt or in danger of bankruptcy simply doesn't make sense when it is part of a variable budget paid for with taxes and borrowing.

You might claim the UK can't afford the NHS, but I'd point to the other parts of the budget which consume considerably more money, and compare it to the spending of other countries - that's a very different discussion, and a valid one to have, but it's not one you can have on the basis of the NHS somehow being bankrupt as compared to an arbitrary budget set by politicians with an agenda.

And that comment is a perfect example why we still have people on HN saying things like "free" healthcare. But at the end of the day it all costs money. It's just this make-believe world that some people want to live in...amazing.

Of course it costs money, and that money comes from taxes and borrowing as does the money for the MOD, MOE, and all other state funded services.

I'm just explaining to you that he quoted you since you were unsure.

I have trouble relating the quote with his arguments, because I said nothing about 'free' healthcare, things which don't cost money, or something make believe. If anything a bankruptcy in a centrally funded department involves make-believe, because it implies that there is no more money; it's a question of priorities and what you want to spend the budget on, and much money has been found for other projects by HMG during this recession alone, for example bank bailouts, wars abroad or tax cuts.

When there is no money to pay its debt. Simple as that.

It depends on the bankruptcy laws, and its possible that a "government funded" org still would be covered by them.

OTOH, in this particular case, its probably the common confusion of "bankruptcy" with "insolvency" playing a major role. Insolvency is usually the reason an entity enters (voluntarily or not) bankruptcy, but the two states are not equivalent.

The libertarian two axis view of politics is still far too simple, but it's a start: plenty of people who rail against "big government" support the drug war, while plenty of people who like redistribution are adamantly against it.*

As long as you don't get that point, you're working with a seriously limited view of politics.

* If you really want to blow your mind, there are people who like redistribution, hate the drug war, and also think the government should significantly decrease its economic regulation.

Edit: slightly nicer phrasing.

Because no one actually cares about "big" or "small" government, they care about using the government to impose their beliefs on other people, whether those beliefs are conservative or liberal in nature. Both liberals and conservatives are actually for "big government", it's just that conservatives also lie about being for "small government". Liberals want the government to take money from the rich and give it to the poor, while conservatives want the government to wage war on drugs (read: ethnic minorities), other countries, women's rights, etc.

But in the end, it's those with connections that are able to skim money off the top of all these transactions and laugh all the way to the bank. Obama allocated $607 billion for defense-related spending last Thursday - $30 billion more than was in the recent budget deal passed by Congress. So actually, the "liberals" are also supporting the military-industrial complex too.

The fact is, when you say you want the government to be small, you are conflating things that there are different. There are different ways to be big or small, and they have different advantages and disadvantages.

You're mistaken - they have much in common. In order to be a successful political party, what you have to do is find issues that (a) a lot of people deeply believe in on an emotional level and (b) can be addressed in such a way that you can redirect large sums of money into the pockets of 3rd parties in the process, who will then support the election campaigns of your politicians.

Whether this happens through providing obscenely overpriced healthcare to Americans or through buying/using drones to extrajudicially murder and terrorize Yemeni wedding-goers is just a detail. We could debate until the end of time how much value either of these initiatives actually provides to the American citizenry, but that's a completely separate issue (and not one that the vast majority of politicians give a rat's ass about).

As soon as governments start abusing their power to help big business and for public officials personal agendas, then you have corruption and it is detrimental to that country and society.

How could you have safety, security, and social justice WITHOUT a large government? There are 300 million people in this country, a good percentage are poor, a large percentage don't have great morals, and a transparent and strong government seems like the only way to combat that.

Yes, a small government MIGHT work in a country that is unified and that has near 100% national loyalty, but the US does not. The US is very diversified, has a huge population, has tons of people who were raised to be greedy, and social conflicts are almost normal. A small government (near anarchy) is not the answer, in my humble opinion.