Pity for the Impotent Dick

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Bababooyee

Well, I'd argue the exact opposite. That we are woefully uneducated. When we're taught by the government, why should we not expect our history to be whitewashed and ignored? Why shouldn't it be expected that we are taught everything has been mostly great and be lucky, if at best, many transgressions are given a footnote, and often outirght lied to? You think this perspective starts with Watergate? C'mon now...that's just silly - how much of the writings and debates from the Founders have you read? That's the whole point of the Constitution - limit government because of distrust of government. I mean, that isn't the best place to start, we could start with many things much earlier (because the Founders did not just pull the Constitution out of their asses - it was a result of a lot of education, research and debate). But Watergate?? C'mon now.

To put trust in government, to the extreme extent liberals do, is, in part, to outright ignore history (talk about a short attention span!) and/or be woefully uneducated. I mean, it is a blue print outlined by Plato a long time ago...people are to be but a cog in the machine, so you have to have the machine teach them - the machine is good, making the machine bigger is will make it all better.



Not to mention collecting a racial minority into concentration camps, and all that...(the same thing socialists were doing across the pond, btw).



Like take measures which prolonged the Depression?



SS is an example of a governmental success???? Really!??!?! You mean the pool money the government couldn't keep their hands off, said pool now being full of IOUs?? Eek.

Hell, one of the few things that government does OK is deliver the mail; however, that has a lot to do with the government being kind enough to let us have competition in that arena, so the USPS is forced to be efficient, etc. otherwise we'll take our business to UPS, FedEx, etc.



And socialism/collectivism was seen by many as the solution in Nazi Germany, USSR, China, Cambodia, etc. Internment camps, concentration camps, gulags, etc. Socialism has a great track record...and body count to boot.

I know what you're thinking at this point, but continue to the next part where I further explain...



Hardly. Let's say there is no government at all...what would type of economy would we have? Free market capitalism! People trading goods and services in return for goods and services. So, how can you say that he, by government, saved what would exist without government in the first place!?!? He didn't. His programs WERE socialist.




Wanting results right away is the path of liberals, and hating complexity is ignoring history, simple economics, and human nature. Wanting government to do so much is hardly complex - it is the simplest thing to suggest - pass the buck, let them handle it. Other solutions will take too long, so let's have the government do it!

"But government can handle it if goverment is set up complex enough (enough central planners, putting enough brain power into it)"...yeah, well that's what they thought in the USSR, too. Worked out wonderfully - about the only thing they did efficiently was trample on basic human rights (freedom of speech, religion) and murder.

Also, distrusting goverment is very healthy and is rooted in our history and tradition. It comes from a proper historical perspective whereby we understand and appreciate what happens to the individual as goverment grows - our Founders knew it way back when and tried to limit what the government could do and their concerns/distrust/fears have been proven warranted around the world over and over again: the individual becomes the servant to the government instead of the opposite (which was the whole point of America in the first place - which is another reason I questioned your take on the Founders).

B, here is where I think you misunderstand liberals- most liberals aren't advocating more government- they're advocating BETTER government. I see no reason why subsidies to the oil and coal industries should continue, for example. End 'em. And gas will cost close to $13 a gallon, but that's true free market- if the gas companies really had to pay what it cost to produce their product (including cleaning up the environmental damage from creating it, which your and my tax dollars pay for), I'd be cool with it. Think that's likely to happen? People will scream bloody murder if they had to pay the actual cost of things like gas and oil. Though honestly, I'd be willing to do so if it meant an end to the energy subsidies.

Government size has been swelling, no question (and more under Republicans lately than under Democrats). But not swelling in any way to address the rising inequality in the US- it's rising as government gets even deeper in bed with Big Business. And it doesn't make economic sense. For all that the media has us running scared from the idea of national health care, for example, we still pay more per person than any other industrialized nation and we have higher infant mortality and lower life span than any other industrialized nation. France is rated #1 in health care; we're #37. AND IT COSTS OUR NATION MORE. Whaaaaa?

Social Security is a brilliant program- the government stealing the surplus is wrong. But again, that's where I'd say better government, not less.

I also don't see what the internment camps (which were wrong, duh) have to do with anything currently- I don't think I was nominating FDR for sainthood. To look at the other Roosevelt, there's a man that helped found the National Park system (another example of government doing the right thing- setting aside public lands so we can all have an opportunity to be in the great outdoors), and also was such a racist he said white women had an obligation to bear at least four children. Does the fact that Yellowstone is not owned by some rich corporation; that I can go there, suddenly become a bad thing because of TR's feelings on racial dominance? No, of course not. We're all complex human beings. I can separate the two.

B, the truly free market is a lovely idea if people all behaved honestly. But they don't- they're going to band together and lie and cheat and monopolize (another thing TR took on). It's why I favor regulated capitalism. Don't keep a close watch on something and you get the junk bond scandal of the late '80s-- which a whole lot of our tax dollars went to bail out.

Explain to me how wanting results right away is the path of liberals. If you're going to make a huge generalized statement like that, you need to back it up for me. Women had the first suffrage meeting in 1849. We got the vote in 1920. If that's not patience, what is? And don't try telling me THAT was a conservative movement.

My point on socialism is that it wasn't seen in the 1930's as the great evil it now is, and it took men in gov't not to cave into it. I think maybe you didn't get what I was saying.

And of course, I'm well aware corruption in gov't is as old as gov't itself (like anything else). My point was, Watergate marked a shift in how Americans in the 20th Century viewed gov't- I think that's when the cynicism REALLY set in. I'm well aware the Founders distrusted even their own ability to maintain a fair governing system- it's why the 2nd Amendment's right to bear arms is for the purpose of forming a militia, not just 'cause people want to have a gun, right? So really, David Koresh and co. were being strict Constructionists. Huh. I just thought of that. How far we've come. They were ready for the revolution Jefferson thought would happen every few generations or so (or so I was once told; I'll have to look that up).