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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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You realize that your argument would still apply if we, for example, gave 99.9% of FEMA budget to migrants and basically nothing to actual disaster relief? It is an extremely pedantic argument because you are obscuring that the basic problem is that these federal agencies should be serving the American people facing actual disasters but they are giving money to other people instead. This is so obvious that trying to handwave it with accounting pedantry is ridiculous.

You realize that your argument would still apply if we, for example, gave 99.9% of FEMA budget to migrants and basically nothing to actual disaster relief?

And the argument would still be correct. If you want to spend X amount of money for a purpose, you must appropriate X amount of money for the purpose. If you only appropriated a lesser amount of Y, then you must appropriate the difference to meet the target of X.

If an institution with the power of the purse chooses not to fund something, the money was never in the possession of the non-recipient in the first place. If the power of the purse funds something else, that money was not deceitfully deprived from the alternative recipient- it was never there for them to claim or use in the first place.

It is an extremely pedantic argument because you are obscuring that the basic problem is that these federal agencies should be serving the American people facing actual disasters but they are giving money to other people instead. This is so obvious that trying to handwave it with accounting pedantry is ridiculous.

I am pleased you are retreating from your latest jewish conspiracy theory to petulantly complain about pedantry after and while making embarrassingly basic mistakes on government budgetary practices.

And the argument would still be correct. If you want to spend X amount of money for a purpose, you must appropriate X amount of money for the purpose. If you only appropriated a lesser amount of Y, then you must appropriate the difference to meet the target of X.

Yes, your argument would still be "correct", proving its worthlessness in face of the problem people have with the institution. If a charitable organization had a budget allocation that failed to serve its objective and instead slushed money into third parties, anyone would have the right to criticize it. And "well ackchually"-ing the process of budget allocation in the face of the failure of the organization to serve its purpose is totally unresponsive to the criticism of the institution.

Maybe next year FEMA will give $300 billion to Jewish synagogues and Jewish NGOs, for literally no reason, instead of just the $300 million they get today- while Americans facing real disaster suffer enormously. You would be there to "well ackchually" in the face of criticism of that, wouldn't you?

Yes, your argument would still be "correct", proving its worthlessness in face of the problem people have with the institution.

Oh, heavens no. Different people have different problems, and truth is only worthless to those uninterested in acting in good faith.

For example, some people's current problems are that they believe there is a lack of funds for FEMA to use for hurricane relief. This is an error, because that hasn't been what's happened over the last week in the first place. Understanding how government appropriations work in the first place- which includes that some agencies like FEMA are normally given more money over a year, and that a lack of money for a hurricane season is not the same as a lack of money for the immediate hurricane response- addresses a misunderstanding of believing there is a crisis of funding when there is none.

Other people's problems are that they believe there is a lack funding because it was redirected to other forms of spending. This is also an error, because not only is this not how budgets work, the agencies involved are legally obligated to spend on what Congress directs them to. The truth is relevant here because criticizing an Agency for not feloniously defrauding the American taxpayer would be a rather embarrassing mistake demonstrating a lack of credibility for any good-faith actor to continue with.

For people whose problems with the institution have to do with the performance, the nature of funding streams or other forms of government funding is largely irrelevant to problems. The truth, however, still has worth to helping focus on actual problems rather than fictional framings that, if engaged, would get in the way of actually addressing relevant questions of airspace management or civil-government interaction that could improve performance.

Other people's problems is that they hate any spending that goes to people they irrationally hate. They will have interests in falsely blaming others of culpability in any disaster regardless of how much that detracts from improving response because the only improvement they care about is the one that validates their bigotries. The truth is an obstacle to them, which is why it will retain value.

Maybe next year FEMA will give $300 billion to Jewish synagogues and Jewish NGOs, for literally no reason, instead of just the $300 million they get today- while Americans facing real disaster suffer enormously. You would be there to "well ackchually" in the face of criticism of that, wouldn't you?

No matter how ridiculous you make your hypotheticals, your lies would still be lies, no matter how many more you add to the original.

No, FEMA wasn't swindled out of $300 million by da joos. No, the non-Jewish and Jewish organizations did not receive $300 million for literally no reason. No, the spending on migrants is not causing FEMA to have a hurricane response budget shortfall. And no, the American budget spending on other things in addition to hurricane relief is not the cause of FEMA getting into airspace control / charity pushback / other issues.

The point is that if you're going to be mad at someone it should be congress for allocating money in a dumb way. It makes no sense to get mad at FEMA for not exercising discretion they don't have.