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Seriously who cares what the founding fathers said and thought? That was more than 200 years ago, and right now we are in the 21st century and modern world.
Capitalism basically benefits the wealthy and corporates. Huge inequality between rich and poor in America, and 16% lives below poverty line. Wake up! We need more government regulations and unions to protect the tyranny of corporates and the rich. Americans also live to work, and it kills us.
Globalization is also part of the reason... Americans want western European model of mixed economy and social benefits.
We don't actually have capitalism here. This country is corporatist, which is not even close to the same. And government regulations don't and won't help because these regulations come about to help certain corporations who lobby for them.
One of the most important aspects of the Revolution and the foundng father's beliefs were LIMITED GOVERNMENT. However, I talk to folks today and it seems like they love more laws, more regulations, more creation of federal departments and they want government to have a hand in everythinf possible.
So I have two questions:
1) Why have attitudes changed so vastly in the last 20 to 30 years?
And
2) When you take away everything America stands for in the name of "safety'" then what are we really trying to protect ourselves against? Because we have robbed ourselves of everything we have ever stood for.
- A Libertarian
You need to read up on your history instead of listening to Glen Beck. Limited government was not the main rallying cry of the founding fathers. It was liberty and democracy. And there hasn't been a drastic shift in the last 20 years of people wanting more government. The progressive ideology really took hold in the 30s and and bigger government was supported by most people up until the 80s when Reagan reawakened a conservative movement.
The reason government is bigger is the same reason business are bigger...societal evolution. People don't live on self sustaining farms anymore, they work for large complex corporations that are tied into a massive and complex economy. The bigger the businesses, the bigger the tax revenue, the large populations of people, the bigger economic scale, etc. the bigger government you need. I bet you agree with child labor laws and workers rights, immigration enforcement, the FDA, the FCC and the many other organizations that keep us safe.
I can't tell if post like these are serious, or just sarcastic vitriol. If serious, your ignorance of policy and history is frightening. This is not a left/right issue. The right claim to be for less government in their words but their actions are far from libertarianism. George W. Bush increased the size of government more than any president before him.
Is G.W. Bush your end all/ be all definition of "the right"?
One man and not a conservative.
You think Romney, John McCain or Newt Gingrich are small government? Have you seen their voting records? Conservatives aren't small government, they just claim to be as a rallying point for the masses who never look at voting records.
You think Romney, John McCain or Newt Gingrich are small government? Have you seen their voting records? Conservatives aren't small government, they just claim to be as a rallying point for the masses who never look at voting records.
You think Romney, John McCain or Newt Gingrich are small government? Have you seen their voting records? Conservatives aren't small government, they just claim to be as a rallying point for the masses who never look at voting records.
No, I don't.
Don't consider them conservatives either.
Guess I'm talking conservative but you're speaking Republican.
Someday, I hope to figure out why libertarians have such a feeble grasp of American history.
What were the demands of the abolitionist movement?
What was the purpose of the Freedman's Bureau?
Slavery violated the natural law of freedom of association. Under a true libertarian system there would have never been slavery or Jim Crow laws. Yes, a bit utopian, possibly, to believe in a world where men will enslave men to believe we must have powerful governments to ensure that does not happen. Let me remind everyone that before our little experiment with a constitutional republic almost without exception governments enslaved, slaughtered and otherwise abused their own citizens and these actions still occur in many nations today.
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