Jan 11 2009
The Purpose of Government
What is goverment? What purpose does it serve? Why should I have to pay a hefty percentage of my income to support it? These are all valid questions that our founding fathers considered heavily as they drafted the United States of America’s Constitution that was intended to direct the growth and progression of the governement.
Government is mainly necessary for two reasons: We need protection from those who wish to conquer or destroy us, and we need protection from ourselves as there are always those who would disrupt the lives of their neighbors for malicous resons.
The U.S. military currentlly performs a fantastic job of protecting Americans from outside harm or malicious influence, and has maintained superiority throughout the world for a very long time. The downside to this, which has glaringly become apparent in the media and throughout a number of peace organizations, is that many Americans can no longer see a reason for war, and will go to great lengths to make their opinions known, even to the extreme of inflicting harm on the U.S. military. Sadly, if these efforts were to prove themselves to be extremely effective, those same people who inflicted harm on their protectors would very quickly discover the kinds of things they were being sheltered from.
Protection from ourselves is derived mainly through the enforcement and passage of laws that require us to act in ways that, for the most part, respect our fellow Americans as well as the outside world. While these laws are never perfect, nor the systems that create and enforce them, they are our most effective tool with which we can fight the corruption and anarchy that sometimes topples entire infrastructures in less regulated countries.
So here’s the question: Why does the government require us to pay so much more of our incomes toward every little program they can think up? There are multitudes of charities, not-for-profit aid organizations, and plain old decent people to help reduce things like poverty and addiction as it runs rife through the population. Why is it that government must try it’s ever-failing hand at these things as well?
There are things that the government is very good at, and things that it should simply leave to the citizens. Protection is absolutely essential, and must always be at the highest of priority levels. Nearly every other pursuit, however, has been proven time and again to be handled 10 times more efficiently by private organizations.
The bottom line here is that we the people are watching as trillions of our dollars are squandered away in perhaps the most inefficient manner possible, and we are doing nothing about it. It’s time to wake up, America. It’s time to reform the system before it collapses from decay and falls to crush us all.
Hey hey - good morning to you.
There’s a blog award on my site waiting for you. Keep up the good work.
http://newsday.today.com/2009/01/18/catching-up-on-my-props/
(Also Posted on http://newsday.today.com/2009/01/18/catching-up-on-my-props/)Thanks for the props, and right back at ya. To borrow a popular catchphrase that applies, you?re a great American skw. Keep up the great work.
Lots of good points here kevin. I would be all in favor of a government that does “what it is supposed to.” Namely, protect life, liberty, and property. Unfortunately power always centralizes, expands, and becomes destructive of these ends. I think “good government” is a myth but it would be nice if it was possible.
How are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a hundred other interventions on foreign soil, defending those aforementioned goals of life, liberty, and property?
I definitely am in agreement with your comments about the social engineering and wasted money there.
Thanks for the comments Dan. I agree that good government is a myth, however there are a number of unused methods for keeping the rust from eating too deep that I can only hope and pray will be utilized at some point.
To answer your question, the wars we fight on foreign soil are aimed at locating and eliminating the terrorist organizations who have sworn to see America and her people destroyed. Of course, there are numerous opinions regarding conflicting interests with these wars, as well as the quality of intelligence that our actions are based on, but in the end, we can only do the things we have the ability to do based on the best information we can get. To err is human, but I would say that the lack of successful attacks, in addition to the number of foiled attempts, since 9-11 shows that at least some of our efforts have been successful in protecting our citizens.