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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, November 18 2012 @ 12:28 PM EST |
Yes, in theory, the government is just us folks. In practice, however, it is
not that simple. For example, say the majority of folks in a town wanted to put
up a Nativity scene in front of the court house. Well, they could vote that in
and the minority populations of Jews, Muslims, Atheists, whatever have that
forced on them. Or maybe the local government wants everyone's house to look
nice and pretty. So they pass a regulation that say everyone will paint their
house a pastel color and a little white picket fence around their property. Now
the difference between just us folks saying let’s do something and the
government is that the government has the power to force you to comply and
ultimately that power is backed up by their monopoly on sanctioned force, i.e.,
at the point of a gun if necessary. You don't comply, you get fined. You don't
pay the fine; you get hauled in front of a judge. You tell the judge you don't
like little white picket fences; he fines you in contempt of court. You don't
want to sit in jail; those nice gentlemen with the shiny badges on their chest
and guns on their hips will make you. Government has a lot of power. It can
take your life, liberty, and property. So government is just a bit more than
"just us folks”. Luckily our founding fathers recognized the danger of
government. They wrote a Constitution that limits exactly what federal
government can do and to a lesser extent limits what state & local
governments can do. They did this by enumerating the government’s powers. Fast
forward to today and what do we have--people using government for all sorts of
"good" things. Seems like I hear it every day--"there oughta be
a law", and "we need to regulate that." So our elected officials
and appointed judges have slowly be surely twisted the plain meaning of the
Constitution and have grown our government to the point where it is 25% of our
GDP with no end in sight.
As for protecting citizens being a government function. "Provide for a
common defense" is a government function. Providing the court system to
prevent fraud, unjust violence between citizens, and for having a peaceful way
for citizens to handle disputes is also a government function. Many have argued
that the federal government has no limits to what it can do to "promote the
general Welfare." But we know that that is a description of the overall
goal of the Constitution, not an enumerated power. For why would the framers
have otherwise so carefully crafted all the checks and balances? They could
have just left off after the introductory paragraph containing that phrase.
In addition to the fact that our Constitution doesn't state that protecting
citizens is the first role of government, you run head on into the simple fact
that it is impossible to accomplish without creating a totally pervasive
government dictating everything you do. You see it to start happening now.
Large sugary drinks are out. Government mandates you buy health insurance.
What's next? Mandatory exercise? You bet; the government bus will come soon to
pick you up soon. Want more than one child, sorry government says no because
that's bad for everyone else in society. Skydiving, pluuleese, you know the
government can't allow that. What? You'd like to write a blog about the law?
You're too old; it will be too stressful you. “Us folks" of the government
say you can't. It is for your own good. As Benjamin Franklin put it so well,
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." How did this "the
government is going to protect me from all things and provide for my every
need" mentality start? It started very slowly--one law, one regulation,
one good intention at a time over many years. Each step didn't seem to erode
our liberty any more than any one straw seemed to burden the camel unduly. But
slowly but surely we are at or near breaking the camel’s back. I grant you that
what you propose is just a mere straw, but those straws add up as sure as the
sun rises.
I propose to you that anything that the private sector can provide people is
almost always a better choice than having government do or mandate it be done.
So many of the wonderful and lifesaving things we have today came not from
government doing or mandating but from the free market seeing a need and
providing it. Let me remind you that some of those power companies that had the
lights out for so many days are government run monopolies. I think it is fairer
to lay the lack of cell phone service at the feet of the power providers than
the cell phone service companies.
And this idea that people can't do it themselves bothers me a bit too. You'd be
surprised what people can do for themselves when the free market is allowed to
operate. I see an erosion in this country of the old American self-reliant
spirit. The government may have started the internet, but it was the free market
that took it way beyond anything the government would have done and that is to
our betterment. I cringe to think of the sort of cell service we'd have today
if government had had a monopoly on it. But luckily we had competing companies
(the Apples, the HTCs, the Samsungs) making it the awesome, cheap tool we have
today.
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 19 2012 @ 10:05 AM EST |
"Alternatively, how about the government, which is
just us folks, provide regulations that will compel
telephone companies to provide reliability within
the range of reasonable expectations?"
Expecting cell phone networks to be fully operational in a situation like the
immediate aftermath of Sandy is NOT within the range of reasonable expectations.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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