What gov't should be for:
Feb. 1st, 2008 11:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unusualmusic_lj_archiveGonna make a post tomorrow, and this one from Greta Christina is really helping me top clarify my thoughts.
http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2006/08/katrina_and_wha.html
Here's what I think government is. Or rather, here's what I think government should be, and what it actually is at least some of the time. I think government is/should be the structure with which a society pools some of its resources for projects and services that benefit that society, but are too big to be handled privately by individuals or small groups. And it is/should be the structure a society uses to decide how those pooled resources should be used.
Think roads. Sewers. Parks. Fire departments. Public health services. Law enforcement, even. God knows I have mixed feelings about law enforcement as it actually exists in our society -- but as Ingrid pointed out recently, when there's a Ted Bundy on the streets, you want there to be people whose job it is to catch them. It's pretty much spelled out in the Preamble to the Constitution, actually: "...to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..."
And think emergency services. For fuck's sweet sake, think emergency services.
Except we have a government -- a federal government, anyway -- that's run by people who think government is a bad idea. We have a government run by people who think government should always be as small as possible, that taxes should always be as low as possible, that government is at best a necessary evil. (Or who say that's what they think, anyway. I think they're big fuckin' hypocrites, but that's a different rant.)
And when you see what happened a year ago in New Orleans, you see why government run by people who think government is a bad idea is a criminally bad idea.
Because when you think about what government is -- or what it should be -- you realize that people who think government is a bad idea are essentially opposed to the idea of pooling resources. To oppose the very idea of government, to think of it as at best a necessary evil, is to believe in the philosophy of "Every man for himself." It is to believe in the philosophy of "Screw you, Jack, I've got mine." It is to believe that sharing is bad. It is to believe in the atomization of society, the breakdown of social responsibility into smaller and smaller units. To believe that government is a bad idea is to believe that society itself is a bad idea.
Read rest : http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2006/08/katrina_and_wha.html
http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2006/08/katrina_and_wha.html
Here's what I think government is. Or rather, here's what I think government should be, and what it actually is at least some of the time. I think government is/should be the structure with which a society pools some of its resources for projects and services that benefit that society, but are too big to be handled privately by individuals or small groups. And it is/should be the structure a society uses to decide how those pooled resources should be used.
Think roads. Sewers. Parks. Fire departments. Public health services. Law enforcement, even. God knows I have mixed feelings about law enforcement as it actually exists in our society -- but as Ingrid pointed out recently, when there's a Ted Bundy on the streets, you want there to be people whose job it is to catch them. It's pretty much spelled out in the Preamble to the Constitution, actually: "...to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..."
And think emergency services. For fuck's sweet sake, think emergency services.
Except we have a government -- a federal government, anyway -- that's run by people who think government is a bad idea. We have a government run by people who think government should always be as small as possible, that taxes should always be as low as possible, that government is at best a necessary evil. (Or who say that's what they think, anyway. I think they're big fuckin' hypocrites, but that's a different rant.)
And when you see what happened a year ago in New Orleans, you see why government run by people who think government is a bad idea is a criminally bad idea.
Because when you think about what government is -- or what it should be -- you realize that people who think government is a bad idea are essentially opposed to the idea of pooling resources. To oppose the very idea of government, to think of it as at best a necessary evil, is to believe in the philosophy of "Every man for himself." It is to believe in the philosophy of "Screw you, Jack, I've got mine." It is to believe that sharing is bad. It is to believe in the atomization of society, the breakdown of social responsibility into smaller and smaller units. To believe that government is a bad idea is to believe that society itself is a bad idea.Read rest : http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2006/08/katrina_and_wha.html
