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My personal opinion will never vary from the answer of 'Yes' primarily due to my extremely negative experiences with dealing with all levels of government (County, State and Federal).
I believe that using the Non-Agression Principle as the core fundamental principle of living along with the elimination of religious beliefs that we could easily succeed in becoming the first Anarcho-Capitalistic country, what do you guys think or believe?
I agree....less government, more self-sufficiency....got to get rid of handouts from tax dollars to able bodied folks. Got to get rid of most of the "regulations" and red-tape, and taxes for anything but the military....got to get rid of "career" politicians....serving our country was never intended to be a career....cut their pay and have NO benefits, except for the pride of serving your country. Term limits, for sure. The states can take care of roads, and schools via state taxes. And, we need to educate our kids about this great country...right now, most of them know nothing about what we're about. Their heads have been filled with crap! Have you seen the supposedly "educated" college kids answer questions about current events? They know NOTHING....it's an embarrassment !
My personal opinion will never vary from the answer of 'Yes' primarily due to my extremely negative experiences with dealing with all levels of government (County, State and Federal).
I believe that using the Non-Agression Principle as the core fundamental principle of living along with the elimination of religious beliefs that we could easily succeed in becoming the first Anarcho-Capitalistic country, what do you guys think or believe?
Without government you wouldn't have a country. You put too much faith in people. Combined with the enormous amount of organization that is essential to keep things going.
You'd need a much smaller population for what you suggest.
Though that's not to say we could use a decrease in government. But people are lazy voters.
I don't know about the State governments, but the Fed definately is in need of an attitude adjustment.
Any in depth study of our founding documents clearly reveals that the Federal Gov't was never supposed to be what it is today, and it is only through mangling certain clauses in the Constitution, such as the commerce clause, that is has become what it is today. The powers of the Fed Gov are clearly outlined in the Constitution. The Fed Gov was meant only to provide for the states and protect their interests on a national level and on an extremely limited basis, and the states were to be sovereign.
I don't know about the State governments, but the Fed definately is in need of an attitude adjustment.
Any in depth study of our founding documents clearly reveals that the Federal Gov't was never supposed to be what it is today, and it is only through mangling certain clauses in the Constitution, such as the commerce clause, that is has become what it is today. The powers of the Fed Gov are clearly outlined in the Constitution. The Fed Gov was meant only to provide for the states and protect their interests on a national level and on an extremely limited basis, and the states were to be sovereign.
Even local governments need to be curtailed. The spending on public schools is outrageous everywhere I've lived.
I'm not against public education, I'm against waste. When you have more non-teaching personal than teachers, you're not longer funding education but a bloated bureaucracy. In the 1950s nationally the ratio was around 250 teachers per 100 non-teachers. My state in 2008 was 140 non-teachers for 100 teachers. One would think it'd go the other way with the computer age.
Yes, we need to pare down government, ALL government, considerably and place it back into the parameters it was originally intended to be in. Of course the statists, the socialists and the "government is God" crowd would not approve but as far as I am concerned government has gotten far too big and powerful.
If we want this nation to survive and avoid economic devastation and total collapse of the fiat currency (inevitable if we don't address the existing federal debt, the Social Security needs of the Baby Boom, AND all the unfunded commitments of all 3 levels of government), we would have to slash the size of ALL levels of government--but most of all the federal level.
No nation can do anything but continue to decline if it continues losing 40% of its economy every year to government, instead of keeping the money in the productive economy. And by productive economy, I don't mean the bloated financials sector, or things like lawyers, or Big Businesses like Big Insurance or Big Health--none of which do anything productive or helpful for the economy. I mean manufacturing, and small and medium sized businesses that provide services--the activities and firms absolutely destroyed by our current power structure of Big Business buying the votes of Big Government politicians.
On the topic of government, we absolutely MUST bring the Federal Government back to the size and scope that the Constitution intended--doing absolutely NOTHING except the 3 things it is supposed to do: (1) national defense (and that means DEFENDING the borders, not supporting the Military Industrial Complex with unwinnable foreign wars), (2) stopping the endless immigration that has wiped out the wealth and power of the working class, and (3) regulating trade in a way to protect small and medium American businesses from foreign competition based on near-nothing wages.
And idiotic Ponzi Scams like Social Security are already doomed; with seniors and early Baby Boomers already far richer than their children will ever be, how can we ask the low-paid kid's generation to continue sending 15% of their pay to their far-wealthier parents, when those kids can expect a negative return on their SS contributions, even if they make it to the ridiculous new retirement age of 67 without the cuts that must inevitably happen. The faster we transition out of failed Ponzi Scams, the less overall harm will be done, but the harm will nevertheless be significant--as it always is when Big Government takes your money.
There is only ONE way to stop the federal government from ruling the nation on behalf of the ultra-wealthy: the federal income tax MUST be abandoned. The working class should NEVER have been stuck paying for Big Government, let alone one that loses no chance to keep them poor and powerless (because that's what Big Business wants, and that's how politicians stay in power and in luxury). The Federal Government must be forced to rely ONLY on trade tariffs and levies for funding (as the Founding Fathers set it up). No more endless growth because THEY decide how much to steal from your paycheck before you see it. Remove the federal income tax, or Washington remains omnipotent and ever-growing, and totally blind to the suffering of the working class as we are reduced to starving in the streets.
The States are supposed to hold all the power, and you should be able to move to a state that does things the way you want (like one that doesn't confiscate ANOTHER 10% of your income, on top of your federal losses). Currently, all states are near-identical in their need to do whatever Washington tells them, groveling for the return of some of the money their citizens send to Washington. They couldn't change Washington's mandate to "tax and spend as much as possible" if they wanted to. We are already far past the point that overtaxation has made suckers out of those working for a living; after they pay for Big Government, plus transfers to the poor and the rich via Big Government, there's nothing left to improve your quality of life.
Progressives like Obama think the stupid masses will work for the fun of it, because he's never "worked" a day in his life, and doesn't even KNOW anyone who has. Money always flowed to him without him lifting a finger--and he's not smart enough to know that it doesn't work that way for the working class. He doesn't have a clue that after the rest of the workaholic Baby Boomers are retired, there will be virtually NOBODY willing to work--with after-tax pay reduced to nothing, and all these wonderful "safety net" programs that offer the same quality of life as a salary can buy, PLUS 7-day-a-week leisure time.
Back to government: most services are provided regionally or locally (schools, roads, etc.)--therefore your state and local taxes should take the biggest tax bite.
As you can see, fixing this nation would have been possible BEFORE the Civil War (when federalism triumphed and State's rights died). Today, we've allowed the monster of Big Government to grow so overlarge that it won't fall until we see a Russia-style overthrow of the ruling class (the movers and shakers of Big Government/Big Business). Very sad, but we didn't protect the once-in-human history gift of a new nation unencumbered by an oppressive ruling class, and we let centralized power grow unhindered. Of course it was going to enslave us. That's what it DOES.
Silly arguments that can only be made because we have an ordered government.
Look back at history. We had the absence of government once and look what happened. People wanted and needed government.
No government? Wait until your children who are playing on your front lawn get run over because some texting, drunk fool is driving 90+ mph down your residential street.
Without government you wouldn't have a country. You put too much faith in people. Combined with the enormous amount of organization that is essential to keep things going.
You'd need a much smaller population for what you suggest. Though that's not to say we could use a decrease in government. But people are lazy voters.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO NEED FOR a group or individual to provide "the enormous amount of organization that is essential to keep things going." Hundreds of thousands of termites, working for their own individual good, will create a termite mound of amazing stability and complexity. Ditto bees, and ants, and microscopic coral. Similarly, all the creatures in an ecosystem eventually reach a symbiotic balance of incredible complexity. They have NO government to "manage" things, and the results are both complex, stable and functional (unlike ANY system that government oversees). Try reading books like Self-Organization of Complex Structures: From Individual to Collective Dynamics by Frank Schweitzer--so you can learn this very basic fact of life.
75% of the work done by Big Government goes to maintaining ITSELF and collecting money for ITSELF. The other 25% goes to micromanaging the activities of the average citizen--the "little guy" that doesn't have the money or power to create significant problems of pollution, negative impact on resources, etc. The ultra-wealthy and Big Business are the ones responsible for the problems that we all expect Big Government to solve--but since politicians survive on campaign contributions, they are NEVER going to do anything to those people.
I saw this when I worked at the local level, at the Zoning and Building Department. We constantly cost the average citizen money and aggravation and hassle; our strict standards sent the cost of housing soaring even though plenty of people couldn't afford a house at all because of our excessive standards (bloated with requirements that benefitted wealthy political contributors). Yet one day a gigantic excavation appeared alongside Rt 95, in violation of every major environmental and development regulation we HAD--AND we were all ordered to keep quiet about the fact that the wealthy, influential owner didn't have to waste his money or time getting permits (let alone the hassle of endless inspections), or abiding by all the regulations that the little guys had to. And it only gets worse, the higher up you go. Big Government is nothing more than a corrupt upper class that the working class must pay for, and grovel to, with every move he makes.
The lowly citizen supports (and pays for) Big Government because he thinks it protects the environment and the citizenry, but the only ones who significantly damage the environment and the citizenry (and the economy) are the wealthy--who are totally EXEMPT from Big Government costs and hassles because they own the politicians. Remember the collapse of 2008, caused by the corruption of Big Finance and Big Banking? Both Bush, and later Obama (note that both Dems and Repubs are interchangeable Big Government scum) made sure that the ultra-rich who caused the collapse lost NOTHING--the taxpayer paid for their losses, while suffering huge wealth loss themselves. To add huge insult to incalculable injury, NOTHING was changed in terms of regulation, and we are now assured of ANOTHER, even bigger collapse for the exact same reasons. That's the way it works with Big Government: the lowly worker pays for it, even though it does nothing but hurt the lowly worker.
Democrats think "Government is God" and the sun wouldn't rise without Big Government confiscating 40% of the economy every year. Sorry, government does nothing but drain the economy and HURT the average citizen, and PREVENT beneficial things from happening by making them too expensive and too bureaucratic for the average citizen to get around. I could not help my local economy by putting a cellar under my family home, due to the insane cost (more than the huge construction cost) of proving to government that the cellar had absolutely no effect on the wetland that bordered the property line, but was nowhere near the building.
Our government has forgotten that they are supposed to administer things like public land and resources on behalf of the public--instead they think they OWN the resources and both feed their own bureaucracy by charging us to use what we supposedly own collectively (hunting & fishing licenses and stamps), and funnel wealth to their ultra-rich donors by allowing them to profit from the public land via timber, oil and mineral rights, etc. We're right back to paying the King to hunt "the King's deer," as government uses the excuse of "managing" the resources to fatten itself and increase control over every move the citizenry makes.
Has America's economy gotten better, or resources been protected, now that Big Government is micromanaging every detail of everything that happens on the level of every lowly citizen--while the REAL abuses of Big Business and the ultra-wealthy continue unabated? Why are the actions of American citizens (numbering about 300 million) controlled to the point of telling them how many fish they may catch and what days they can fish, when any nation that has a fishing boat (for 6 BILLION people, or 18 times the entire population of America) can send their ships to the same waters and take AS MANY FISH AS THEY CAN CATCH?
More proof that Big Government offers nothing but extra cost and hassle: when we see a "shutdown" of Government like we had recently, they have to purposely TRY and make citizens notice by shutting down the very few things they do that people can actually see--like National Parks (and consider that the lowly worker would only notice the National Park was shut down once a year, even if all they did for vacation was go to National Parks). There was no REAL reason to shut down Parks during a government shutdown--they MAKE MONEY for government, and private concessionaires provide most of the services. Plus, why shut down parks when you could have shut down 99.9% of government and still had TONS of money for those few miniscule things that we could see? The answer is obvious--we DON'T NEED 99.9% of government, but they want us to THINK we do. We'd be better off with ALL private concessionaires at National Parks, only charging us what they need to cover costs and a small profit--instead of having to pay for costs, profit AND THE PREMIUM PAID TO GOVERNMENT for the privilege of using the public park.
Truth is, the SMALLER the government, the healthier the economy (with limited drain for the "overhead" of government), and the better off the working class (who wouldn't lose half their income to a Big Government that does nothing but undermine them at the request of Big Business).
Government isn't God -- it is Evil Incarnate for the average American.
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