Comments Elsewhere

One more note. The following:

Again, not to be too picky, but actually, you didn’t say this earlier. Your post simply says that the work that the federal government does is not beneficial without actually specifying whether or not you thought that none of it was beneficial or that it was on balance not beneficial. That’s why I prefaced the claim you quote with ‘if’. It was an invitation to, you know, clarify your position.

is disingenuous. Firstly, because putting an “if” in front of an uncharitable reading of an interlocutor’s position is still setting up a strawman if you at no point mention obvious and more charitable alternative readings of the claim. But secondly, and more directly, because you flatly stated, shortly thereafter: “Your claim was that none of the work of the federal government is morally legitimate,” asserting a reading of my claim which was not only uncharitable but in fact incorrect.