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Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~George Washington
Attributed to "The First President of the United States" in "Liberty and Government" by W. M., in The Christian Science Journal, Vol. XX, No. 8 (November 1902) edited by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 465; no earlier or original source for this statement is cited; George Washington - Wikiquote
It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government. ~Alexander Hamilton
Cannot find source. In addition, contractions (it's) are an indication of modern writing style.
Funny you should quote Reagan, who was the first to come to mind: "Government is the problem."
I've never been a big Reagan fan (mostly sour grapes, I became worse off under Reagan), but this guy makes Reagan look really good and really right.
I remember the debate against Carter when Reagan used that line against Carter and I wished I was debating Reagan instead. I would have said, tell the mother that is shopping for meat and vegetables in the supermarket that the government meat and food inspectors are "the problem;" tell the businessman that is sitting on an airliner that the government air traffic controllers, that keep the plane from hitting other planes, are "the problem;" tell the federal firefighters keeping forest fires from burning down your neighborhood that they are "the problem;" tell the Social Security workers sending out your checks that they are "the problem."
I remember the debate against Carter when Reagan used that line against Carter and I wished I was debating Reagan instead. I would have said, tell the mother that is shopping for meat and vegetables in the supermarket that the government meat and food inspectors are "the problem;" tell the businessman that is sitting on an airliner that the government air traffic controllers, that keep the plane from hitting other planes, are "the problem;" tell the federal firefighters keeping forest fires from burning down your neighborhood that they are "the problem;" tell the Social Security workers sending out your checks that they are "the problem."
Wow, that would have been an embarrasing fail.
There is no reason that meat and vegetables have to be inspected by the government. A private service would do a better job at cheaper cost. Sort of like Underwriters Laboratories for foods. Air traffic controllers do not have to be public employees. The airlines could and should pay private personnel to handle this. They would do a better job. Social Security "workers"? There should be no Social Security workers, or Social Security. Retirement income is a personal individual problem. That leaves firefighters. That is a legitimate public expense, and I am sure Ronald Reagan would agree. So we can keep them.
But this, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem. We have gotten too comfortable with the notion of making everything a public problem that has to be solved with expropriation of private property and private wealth. And the collectivist institutions rarely do a good job, and are almost always wasteful, inefficient, and self-propagating. And often unionized, with all the sloth, laziness, waste and criminal behavior that follows.
You want "limited goverment". Close that voracious beast called The Pentagon. And since you've pulled all the teeth of the FDA,close it too since it gives the fallacious impression that it does anything to insure safe food. Truly today if you don't personally know who raised and slaughtered your meat, you don't have any basis to consider it safe. Limited government advocates just hate all the impediments to raping of the people.
You want "limited goverment". Close that voracious beast called The Pentagon. And since you've pulled all the teeth of the FDA,close it too since it gives the fallacious impression that it does anything to insure safe food. Truly today if you don't personally know who raised and slaughtered your meat, you don't have any basis to consider it safe. Limited government advocates just hate all the impediments to raping of the people.
Underwriters Laboratories for food. The private market can take care of its own quality. And I agree, the Pentagon needs trimming. We should be investing in state-of-the-art weapons of ultra-mass annihlation. We need to feared enough to be left alone. Our military should be the best in the world, but purely defensive. I do not need my fellow Americans dying in battles between the primitive savage Islamic theocracies of the Middle East, or the various backward tribal mobs in Africa. Let them kill each other. And let all populations who do not have the good sense to emulate what we offer (Reason, Individualism, Freedom, and Capitalism) suffer the consequences of their poor decisions. We need to lead by example. Look at China, abandoning Marxist principles and adopting small bits and pieces of a semi-free market system. And look at how far that has taken them in a very short time. Freedom has that effect on people. And America has that effect on people. We need to lead by example, not by sticking our noses in the byzantine insanity of neanderthal cultures. And that also means drilling our own oil and investing in further fracking technology. We need to be 100% energy independent.
Republicans are full of **** when it comes to limited government. It sounds great to say to a crowd of people, but when it comes to practicing it, they fall well short. Where is the limited government being practiced at the state level? Where are the laws being passed by the republican controlled house, to raise the medicare eligibility age, means test medicare, raise the age for social security, move to chain CPI. The biggest driver of our debt is medicare, yet you blasted Obama for taking 716 billion out of Medicare (it was payments to doctors, not benefits) and you have a republican senator bashing obama for offering chained CPI. We spend more money than the next 15-17 countries in defense, yet you try to give tanks to the army that they don't want, but will go on a jihad to cut food stamps and other discretionary programs for low-income people. Will do everything in your power to protect corporate tax breaks from people who don't need it, but have no problem passing an internet tax bill.
I would prefer to have a Republic that is not owned and operated by corporate businessmen for their own benefit. Conservatives continously call for SMALL GOVERNEMNT UNLESS THEY ARE SELLING THEIR PRODUCT TO THE GOVERNMENT. THEN THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT BE BIG ENOUGH. So long as the government serves their interests no one else should get anything.
There is no reason that meat and vegetables have to be inspected by the government. A private service would do a better job at cheaper cost. Sort of like Underwriters Laboratories for foods. Air traffic controllers do not have to be public employees. The airlines could and should pay private personnel to handle this. They would do a better job. Social Security "workers"? There should be no Social Security workers, or Social Security. Retirement income is a personal individual problem. That leaves firefighters. That is a legitimate public expense, and I am sure Ronald Reagan would agree. So we can keep them.
What I read is a lot of theoretical 'the private sector cudda, wudda, shudda.'
What that view fails to recognize is that there was a time when drugs weren't tested by the government; the USDA didn't inspect food; and there wasn't Social Security, etc., and the private sector didn't jump in. The result was that seniors starved in poverty; food was tainted and harmful drugs made it to the market.
Government didn't just wake up and decide to regulate an industry. Regulation is a reaction to market failures in the real world. In the early 1900s, tainted food was common. In the mid-20th century drugs were causing birth defects. Lake Erie used to catch fire from the chemicals industry dumped into her. Americans demanded that the government do something about it and it did.
Now, 100 years later after the government has been successfully protecting the public against tainted food, harmful drugs, pollution, etc., the reactionaries come out of the woodwork and question the need for regulations that we all have been benefiting. Why? Because of right-wing ideology and nothing more. That ideology believes like a religion that the government cannot do anything good, in clear denial that the government already has been doing much good.
If protecting the environment, protecting the quality of food, drugs and keeping airplanes from hitting each other is tyranny, give me oppression.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Paolella
But this, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem. We have gotten too comfortable with the notion of making everything a public problem that has to be solved with expropriation of private property and private wealth. And the collectivist institutions rarely do a good job, and are almost always wasteful, inefficient, and self-propagating. And often unionized, with all the sloth, laziness, waste and criminal behavior that follows.
Where are you facts backing up that belief? Social Security runs on a 1% overhead rate -- lower than any financial institution that pays its executives tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses. Medicare operates less expensively than private insurance.
We've gotten lazy because we don't have to worry that our food and drugs are safe? To me, that sounds like a good thing. I've got other things to worry about.
What you call "expropriation [of] private property and private wealth" I call necessary taxes. Even Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, believed that it was legitimate to tax the wealthy in greater proportion for the common good. The idea that taxes, as an instrument to raise government money, is somehow illegitimate is irrational -- and I think there are a lot more important moral issues in the world than defending the right of the rich to avoid contributing to the common good.
Last edited by MTAtech; 05-07-2013 at 09:36 AM..
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