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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.
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
What happened was that "the people" learned that they could vote themselves a handout from the treasury. We will never recover.
What happened was that "the people" learned that they could vote themselves a handout from the treasury. We will never recover.
That, plus endless propaganda from the media, saying that voting yourself that handout is a GOOD thing. Plus more BS about how it will help the chillun, conservatives are eeevil, and the usual Democrat talking points disguised as "news".
When I hear "small government" from a politician, it means vote for me cause I will use buzz words you like, even though I don't have any interest in reducing the size of government.
When I hear "small government" from a politician, it means vote for me cause I will use buzz words you like, even though I don't have any interest in reducing the size of government.
"Limited government" isn't really defined in a meaningful way. We don't have a frontier anymore, so it's not like people can simply strike off into the wilderness outside the reach of the central authorities. And where "government" is absent, the nature of the modern economy means that big corporations or other powerful lobbies/interests tend to intrude.
If it is impossible for the average person to derive his sustenance from the land (and that is the case in the US), then the economy has to become more abstract. That entails more laws, contracts, regulations, and so on. This all by its nature increases the power of the state, since the state becomes the central overseer of these interactions.
That doesn't mean the state is competent at its job (the financial crisis is a good example of that...), but the institutions engaging in commerce insist upon the state's central role, because the alternative would be some kind of fractious system of localities doing their own thing. That would increase the cost of doing national or international business, which is undesirable by companies.
So in other words, I don't think "small government" is even a choice anymore. You'd have to change the nature of the American economy itself, and I don't see anyone even remotely capable of doing that.
And as the overall number of labor-hours available to the workforce is reduced via automation and robot technology, I would expect a greater and greater demand for state intervention, since when that happens, it means the wage system becomes decreasingly capable of distributing capital into the masses of citizens. The government is naturally expected to assume that role.
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.
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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The founding fathers weren't particularly in favor of limited govt. They drafted and signed the Constitution, and then rather forcefully raised taxes. There were people on both sides of increasing and decreasing govt control since the beginning, but only in the last few decades has much come of it. Libertarianism as we know it, as a significant part of the political process, is quite modern.
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