Monday, September 27, 2010

Damn That Government

I think it’s ironic that the same people who want to get government out of the boardroom want to place it squarely in your bedroom.  They just want to shrink it enough to fit in such a confined space.

We don’t need Social Security, Medicare, SSI, public roads, public schools, fire departments, the police, armies for national defense, nor spies and intelligence analysts, nor should we support minimum wage and child labor laws, nor workplace safety regulations, nor consumer protection laws that say kids’ toys shouldn’t burst into flame if light touches them.  Corporations should be able to say anything they want and spend any amount of money to make commercials that use clever psychological tricks to confuse the issues and manipulate peoples’ emotions to produce specifically calculated results.  Why should government insist that restaurants and bars not discriminate against whole groups of people?  Why should anyone expect government to make businesses accessible to the disabled?

Yes, government is the problem.  They’re so bad at taking care of us.

Well, okay.  Certainly true when you add Republicans into the mix.  They’re only interested in one thing—taking care of their rich cronies.  Is it any wonder they continually vote against the interest of the ‘little guy?’  Maybe because they’re all millionaires.  Or hope to be soon.  Nearly every one of them can expect to walk out of government into a cushy private sector job that will more than pay them back for their years of whoring.  Must be nice, eh?

See, humanity tried that laissez faire stuff at the beginning of the industrial revolution.  It resulted in terrible working conditions, massive environmental destruction, and the realization that entities that only care for profit can’t be trusted to act in the public interest without specific guidelines.   Liberalism, which embraced laissez faire in the beginning, slowly adapted its viewpoints due to the evidence.  Conservativism, which fought to maintain feudalism, finally came to realize the advantages of capitalism long after the liberals realized that capitalism wouldn’t work without restrictions.  Conservatives embrace our leavings and claim them for their own.

I find it ironic that someone would quote that definition of insanity while embracing the ideology that embodies it.

In general, one finds that nearly everyone who’s ever actually experienced first-hand the social democracies of Europe vastly prefer it to the “free market” capitalism of the United States.  There may be fewer billionaires, but there are also a lot fewer people who are destitute.  And I can’t see that as a bad thing.  If our current administration has a failing, it’s allowing the clearly deficient ‘logic’ of the right to control the discussion even now.

And that’s the fault of everyone smart enough but too disinclined to follow the conversation to its inevitable conclusion.  The Republicans keep lying because the people keep buying.

And before someone chimes in with the inevitable “they’re all the same,” nonsense, how about you consider this.  When has ANY prominent Republican—or conservative of any stripe—said anything remotely favorable to paganism or any other minority religion?  Hell, you’d be hard pressed to find one that doesn’t think any religion but Christianity should be banned.  People like Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell are fighting a religious war.  And we’re the enemy.  But, by all means, any caribou has a right to vote for the Wolf Party.  Just don’t be surprised when they show up at your door with knife and fork in hand and a napkin tucked into their shirt.

Sure, there’s corruption on both sides.  But at least the Democrats don’t despise everything you are.


Okay... and I know there are a few people who will inevitably respond (we don't know what the other person said--how do we know you're being fair?).  I don't have permission to post his words on my blog, but the gist was that "if you don't believe government should try to take care of us--something they're not good at anyway... blah blah blah..."
Paraphrasing, of course.  This is what I'm responding to.  Make of it what you will.