mysteryman wrote:TEll me,
What "problems" can the federal govt solve here in the US?
Have they solved poverty yet?
Have they solved the drug problem yet?
Have they solved the crime problem yet?
Have they solved the problem with racism yet?
Exactly what problems has the fed govt solved or totally eliminated here at home, and why do you imagine they can?
But you didnt answer my original questions.
Oh, looky a trick question!
Yours is typical "libertarian speak" where such political philosophy disregards objective reality and where most libertarians look at government as a destroyer of liberty. However, the fact is that government is essential to create liberty.
But, in reply to your questions, no to each, the US Federal Government hasn't, "solved" the social problems listed. But likely that isn't enough for you. You want them solved, i.e., wiped out?
Is that actually your contention? That government should "solve" social problems? How liberal an outlook.
I do too, but I recognize that it will take a long time to do so, that's called being
realistic. You? Typically, you want fast-food, adolescent, instant gratification. But, has any government on Earth ever "solved" poverty, crime, and racial problems?
No, none have in the history of humanity. So your question was really meaningless other than to illustrate your true attitude towards collective action, i.e., government itself.
So what are you actually complaining about is how the United States government has been unable to do what no government in human history has been able to do?
Hello, MacFly? Am I answering an intelligent man here?
So, since it hasn't done so, it's a bad government in your eyes or are all its programs to solve social problems useless? Is that your claim?
Government actions, even of the United States certainly have ameliorated the aforementioned social problems and in doing so reduced the pain and suffering of their citizens.
Classical political thought says that the purpose of government is to
do justice for its citizens. Part of this obligation is to foster conditions in which wealth is produced. The obligation is not met by substituting the wealth-producer for the government. But that is the intellectual foundation of the Right-Wing Libertarian/Conservative today.
In order to have a properly functioning democratic government you must believe in the inherent underpinnings of liberty and justice and to work toward the greater goal of equal and even-handed application of the law.
Individuals don't prosper all by themselves, and the myth of American "rugged individualism" is just that, a myth. They owe their success to the other people that help them, and to the government that provides them with opportunities, reduces risks, and provides public goods.
This is not socialism; it is called self-governing by the people, i.e., collective democracy.
The thing which both the GOP and the Democrats agree on in part, and at times in full measure is that they concur with the classical description of what should be the relationship between private enterprise and government, derived more from John Locke and Adam Smith than Thomas Hobbes, or even the gods of libertarianism such as Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick, and even F.A Huyek, viz., that the normal and proper aim of the corporate community is to make money for its managers and for the owners of business and the better if its members also contribute to the general prosperity, and that the very purpose of government is to
do justice for its citizens.
On most issues, Republicans want the market to rule, while Democrats think the market should be tempered -- by regulation, by lawsuit and by social insurance and modest economic redistribution.
Fortunately, we are a democracy, and the voters usually rebel against pure market outcomes when they think such outcomes are shortchanging their interests or things they value
Below is a list of the things that both political parties tend to agree with in general, if not in the particulars, and which most average citizens and even those bogeymen of media control also tend to think are important functions of government. These are not socialist, except to those out there where the buses (or your delivery trucks) don't run.
Infrastructure, viz., roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, seaports.
Public safety and defense, viz., police, fire depts. armed forces.
Courts
Education.
Protection from abuses of the market.
Environmental regulation.
Welfare
Social Security.
Economic stabilization:
National health.
Disaster recovery.
I reject comments that a belief in government having a roll in these things is a feature of socialist or leftist thought.
The claim by some conservatives of interpreting all state action as mere "interference," as if a popularly elected government was merely a protections racket, is intellectually fraudulent. I see from such people little rational discussion on where to draw the lines between government and everything else that arises from a society and its fundamental belief systems.
The term
"limited government" is a baseless canard, as if anyone defends
"unlimited government," and as repugnant is the use of the term
"government" that does not recognize differences between the popular will of the people via democracy and other less legitimate forms of government.
Thus, by refusing to see the distinction or blatantly blurring it as conservatives often do it renders democracy null and void and legitimizes a mindset that rejects social contracts between people for the common benefit.
What surely follows is the law of the jungle.
I can only assume that is the plan of most of the Right-Wingers who believe that they are the strong and will rule the jungle. It is not in any sense a political philosophy, rather one of a method of achieving power.
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