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Government is necessary for some things, but should do as little as possible, and should confine itself to important functions that private persons or groups CANNOT DO AT ALL. Examples include National Defense, smoothing the course of interstate commerce with minimal interference in that commerce, conducting foreign relations, setting national standards for money, weights, and measures, dispassionately pursuing and prosecuting criminal behavior, etc.
Occasional events like wars might cause govt departments designed to deal with them, to grow to a size appropriate to do so. But afterward govt must reduce back to its smaller size.
If you feel that government can do something better than private people or groups can do it, that's insufficient reason to grant govt authority to do it. If private people can do it at all, it must be denied to govt unequivocally.
The reason for these restrictions, is that:
(a) Government cannot do anything well, due in part to the fact that no one can compete with it, and will always be rife with sloth and inefficiency;
(b) Government's only ability is to restrict and punish its citizens. This is activity extremely vulnerable to abuse, and capable of damaging and destroying lives by the millions if not carefully watched and restrained.
(c) History grimly shows that when government is allowed more authority than necessary, the imperfect humans it's made of begin to abuse that power, virtually every time. And with time, that abuse only increases, often rising to disastrous levels.
For these reasons, the powers given to government must be carefull spelled out and restricted, with those it restricts retaining full power to change or abolish it.
Last edited by Little-Acorn; 11-16-2013 at 10:31 AM..
Because gov't has demonstrated time and again that when you give them an inch of power they wil take a mile.
Besides, every time gov't takes on a responability it removes that responability from the people and along with it goes the moral requirements of society to help their fellow man on a one to one basis.
The only reason I have found in the constitution that a government should do is keep us safe so we can do for ourselves. Any time our government has ever started doing anything else, it causes the American people trouble and takes away our freedom.
It bothers me that so many in our country do not realize how destructive communism and socialism are to the individual. You may be in hard times now, but in a free country one always has the hope to improve themselves.
There is nothing worse than being frightened of your government. When government gets too much power fear reigns.
I was told in a doctors office this week that I no longer need a pap test every year because I am over 65 years old. I don't know whose idea this was, but I am certainly going to find out. I have lost 3 siblings and a father to cancer. It did not make me feel good to be told that. At least in a free country I can decide to have the test on my own. When will that option cease with what is going on in our country today?
The only reason I have found in the constitution that a government should do is keep us safe so we can do for ourselves.
I agree 90%. One small quibble: Government cannot keep us safe, since it's not a safe world. Giving them authority to do that, gives them unlimited license to control others. What government should do, is keep us unbothered by those who would unjustly bother us.
A slight but important change!
Quote:
I was told in a doctors office this week that I no longer need a pap test every year because I am over 65 years old. I don't know whose idea this was, but I am certainly going to find out. I have lost 3 siblings and a father to cancer. It did not make me feel good to be told that. At least in a free country I can decide to have the test on my own. When will that option cease with what is going on in our country today?
I was told in a doctors office this week that I no longer need a pap test every year because I am over 65 years old. I don't know whose idea this was, but I am certainly going to find out. I have lost 3 siblings and a father to cancer. It did not make me feel good to be told that. At least in a free country I can decide to have the test on my own. When will that option cease with what is going on in our country today?
I think the reasoning behind this is because pap smears are to check for cervical cancer, which is caused by a sexually transmitted disease (HPV). It must be that they assume a woman in her sixties has passed the age of picking up STDs. What they should do is test for ovarian cancer, but I don't even think they require that at any age and insurance won't pay for it.
Technically can be done by individuals and private groups. Conservatives create a double standard for the military, because excepting libertarians, despite what they say "small government" is not an ideological principle but rather a tool to be used and discarded for what they think is right, just like how liberals don't consider "big government" an ideology as much as a tool that sometimes, by our contentions, works better.
I would most certainly disagree with your assessment, since private people actually can and have conducted national defense, but you clearly recognize that a national military is far better at it.
It was never intended for the United States to have a standing army, which is why the 2nd Amendment talks about well-regulated militias. I think the founders were extremely firm on the idea of no standing armies, since that is what the British had.
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