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Who Is "the Government" Anyway?

by: morgancarroll

Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 22:13:35 PM MST


(This ought to bake some "Tea Party" noodles - promoted by Colorado Pols)

It has been fashionable of late to see campaigns and people that run on an "anti-government" platform and then seek to be a part of "the government" they so disdain. But who is "the government" anyway? It is not an "it" or a "they".

It is YOU.

The Founders of this nation took great pains to create this government. We fought a Revolution, a Civil War, and to this day ask our men and women in uniform to risk their lives defending this historic and unique form of government.

In the famous Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln said, "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

In our Declaration of Independence it states, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

When you live in a police state, in a dictatorship, or in a monarchy then "the Government" is decidedly not of the people and is most predictably their greatest oppressor.

But in a democratic republic, the government IS the people. And if we say we don't like government what are we saying? We don't like or trust ourselves?

YOU choose your candidates, YOU can run for office, YOU can vote, YOU have the right to contact each and every one of your elected officials and tell them how you would like them to vote and why. No one will get their way every time, but this surely beats the alternatives.

I believe it was Winston Churchill who said, "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried."

Perhaps we are asking the wrong question.
morgancarroll :: Who Is "the Government" Anyway?

There is plenty to criticize and much room to improve in every level of our government but perhaps what we really mean is that there are different policies we would like our government to enact or follow. Then let's just say so and work to make those changes. Let's talk about what what our priorities should be, good laws, bad laws, and what kind of society we want to be.

But attacking "the government" that our founders created as some kind of evil abstraction is merely an exercise in nihilism, which promotes a disaffected public, and when the public disengages, we are no longer a government of the people, by the people, for the people. In fact at that juncture, all that is left is special interest groups who are paid to influence the system, which can give us plenty to be disaffected about.

In other words, when people don't participate the whole premise of our American system fails. When people participate and take ownership of their government then we are living the promise of the American Dream -- a process of becoming a "more perfect union."

As contemplated in the preamble to our U.S. Constitution, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
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Who Is "the Government" Anyway? | 107 comments
Excellent!
Now, how do I get the tea party folks to read this?

Buck Stops Here.
I'm one. And whoever wrote this is decidedly...
...ignorant.  We don't rail against "the government" that our Forefathers created.  Oh no.  We rail against what it has become.  They were a smart bunch of people.  Somewhere along the way (I'm looking mostly at you Roosevelt #1, Wilson, and Roosevelt #2), it was transformed into something horrible.  The Founders knew that government was a necessary evil, and put in place every reasonable limit and protection to prevent the growth in the size, scope, and power of the government we see today.  They would have laughed you off the stage if you had told them that, after creating a number of government run health programs that serve 83 million people, for which an additional 15 or 20 million people are eligible for, are still trying to push through yet another government run health plan supposedly to help "the poor," paid for by more money that doesn't exist.

James Madison, the man considered the "Father of the Constitution," wrote this in Federalist Paper #44:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.

The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.

If one of you could look me in the eye (figuratively speaking, I suppose, as this is the internet) and tell me that the Federal government, as it exists today, operates on "few and defined" powers, I've got some pink, fluffy unicorns in my back yard to sell ya...

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

[ Parent ]
Correction, that's FP #45.
n/t

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.
[ Parent ]
History happens.
We discovered, through historical experience, that tyranny does not discriminate on the basis of whether government is proximate or remote, and acted on that discovery by complementing our empowerment of states to check the federal government with a concommitant power of the federal government to check the states. Those modifications were enshrined in the U.S. Constitutions in Amendmenst XIII, XIV, and XV, which committed such horrible sins against the original blueprint as 1) making slavery unconstitutional, and 2) guaranteeing equal protection of all people under the constitution.

Also, changes in technologies, challenges, and opportunities can shift efficiencies from one locus to another. More use of federal government has been, in many ways, driven by economic and social reality, and has had a very noticable positive affect on the material quality of our lives.

Is there room for debate over the precise balance? Of course. Is the commerce clause overused? Probably. Can we do better? Always. None of which argue what you are arguing.

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...

[ Parent ]
The Federalist papers are not government
They are the 18th (or early 19th) Century version of op-eds. The fact is that the founders, including Madison, were reacting to a monarachy in which the people had no say in government, exactly Morgan's point. But they were also wise enough to put many mechanisms into the document that would allow it to breathe and grow over the centuries. They all lived in a slave-holding, white-male-holding-property-voting world, revelling in the Enlightenment but knowing that the very fact of that intellectual movement made the future unknowable. Therefore, they decided that future savers of the Union, like the Roosevelts, ought to have the ability to be creative in solving problems instead of having to work with 18th Century tools.

But the bigger question I like to ask of you silly pseudo-libertarians (real libertarians represent an old and respected philosophy that I disagree with but respect ... I suspect you aren't one) is: How exactly has the federal government in its expanded role oppressed you? Did the moon landing somehow limit your opportunities? Did winning World War II or building the economy after the Depression destroy your dreams? How about all those roads that Eisenhower built? Or the National Parks the Teddy Roosevelt set into motion? None of this was envisioned by the original Constitution, at least not explicitly.

And no, Social Security is not broke, and neither is Medicare (read something other than right wing blogs if you care to follow up on that). The federal government HAS screwed up big time lately, but nearly ALL instances occurred when conservative government was in place and most were of variety of government not doing enough (as in Katrina), as opposed to vice-versa. And  don't try to say it's only the FEDERAL government you hate. If you disavow TABOR I'll listen to you. Otherwise that's a self-evidently inconsistent argument.

As I said above, REAL libertarianism recognizes that the philosophy's comforting consistencies come with real hardships: Who's going to build roads or parks? Provide a safety net? To hold that philosophy you have to deal with those ugly realities. Pseudo-armchair libertarianism just creates a boogie-man out of peoples' ignorance, creating victims out of hard working and often sacrificing public servants, and is virtually entirely based in something quite a bit older and more basic: selfishness. It's like a bunch of children pushing their parents as far as they can to find the boundaries, but knowing that Mommy and Daddy will always be there if they really need them.

[ Parent ]
Try, try again...
Quickie review of the FACTS:

1. The American revolution formally began in 1776; Battle of Yorktown, the British acknowledgment of defeat, was in 1781. The Articles of Confederation were drafted in 1777 to organize a common effort against Britain during the revolutionary war.

2. In 1787 the Constitutional Convention organized in order to address specific, perceived shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation. It was a political event no less than any session of Congress or political convention today. The overriding issue was the relative powers and roles of the central government versus the states. Among the specific issues in this realm was slavery--often misrepresented in standardized American history textbooks as "big states versus small states," by which is meant the desire of southern states to avoid having northern states outlaw the slave trade, which was already by that time becoming highly controversial in the English-speaking world in the person of William Wilberforce (and make no mistake, the ex-Colonies were still very much part of the English political society). That is explicit in the Constitution (Article 2, Section 9) barring the federal government from barring the slave trade for 20 years.

3. The potential power of the new federal government to challenge the slave trade, first, and afterwords slavery itself wasis sometiomes presented in an abstract form: the relative powers of the central government versus state governments. But politicians do not argue over abstracts; they tend to throw the mantle of an abstract principle to clothe and disguise their fight over specific financial interests. (We are seeing this process today in the health care reform debate.)

4. There was another, distinctly important clause: Article V: the power to amend the Constitution, either by passing an amendment in Congress and subsequently in state legislatures; OR by convening a new constitutional convention. The point conveniently missed and ignored by so-called Libertarians is that the Constitution in 1789 derived its powers from the consent of the governed, AND provided for changes so that the institution would continue to derive its powers from the consent of the governed.

5. And finally, the United States in 1789 was a rather different place than in, say, 2009. The cotton gin was still four years away, making slavery all the more important to a cotton-based economy in the South. The Industrial Revolution was at its very beginning, depending initially on the illegal export of technology from Britain. The U.S. in 1789 was overwhelmingly agrarian; today, less than 10% of the population is rural.

One key difference between those two societies is the subsequent development of privately-owned enterprises that exert enormous influence over the lives of citizens. There was simply no equivalent in 1789 to GM...or Goldman Sachs.

Fortunately--and usually, in the wake of grotesque abuses by private Capital--the Constitution has been modified, and the role of democratic government changed, to counter the power of private capital.

To the right-wing Libertarians I would suggest that without those changes, we would long ago have seen a popular uprising--an informal constitutional convention brought about by violence in the streets--that would dwarf the modest controls now in place on untrammeled greed.

 

[ Parent ]
Well said JO


"I can tolerate chaos, I'm just not sure chaos can tolerate me" Dylan
[ Parent ]
concur


"Why do Republicans get to be stupid and win while whenever we're stupid, we're just stupid?"  sufimarie Feb 2010
[ Parent ]
Yup,
nicely done.

And the men who hold high places, must be the ones to start, to mold a new reality, closer to the heart. Rush/ 1977
[ Parent ]
Grow and breathe? The Constitution is not a "living"...
...document.  If you want to change its meaning, you amend it.  End of story.  And as Madison clearly stated at so many points, the only powers the Federal government is granted not expressly enumerated in the Constitution are the ones "necessary & proper" to enforce the aforementioned.

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.
[ Parent ]
Thank goodness Chief Justice John Marshall
didn't hold your same opinion, otherwise we'd have an impotent Supreme Court unable to function as a check or balance to anything.

"If someone just sticks to shutting the fuck up, can they still go outside and play a game of hide and go fuck yourself?" -- Fidel's Dirt Nap


[ Parent ]
That's not true at all.
The Constitution grants the Supreme Court plenty of power to check and balance...well, almost everything.  The 11th amendment is one of the only limits.  It actually uses the words "In all cases," "to all cases," "in all the other cases," etc...  The point was that their reach was unlimited except as limited by the Constitution.  And those limitations were few.

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.
[ Parent ]
Yeah, you're right, BR
So where in the Constitution does it say that the U.S. Supreme Court can overturn a State Supreme Court decision and declare a winner in a Presidential election?

Best to kill them early instead of letting them possibly need food stamps.
--marilou, 2010
[ Parent ]
Article #3, Section #2.
Do me a favor and look up the term "appellate jurisdiction."

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.
[ Parent ]
I'm looking at Article 2, Section 1
That says the manner of choosing electors is left to the States.

Best to kill them early instead of letting them possibly need food stamps.
--marilou, 2010
[ Parent ]
How did the Supreme Court choose Florida's electors?
They simply stated that the state of Florida had violated that same section (A2/S1) of the constitution and vacated the Florida Supreme Court's decision.  They didn't "declare a winner."  They declared the actions of the state of Florida that would've prevented Bush from being declared the winner unconstitutional.  End of story.

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.
[ Parent ]
Right
While the heavily scrutinized touch-screen voting machines seemed to produce results in which the registered Democrat/Republican ratios largely matched the Kerry/Bush vote, in Florida's counties using results from optically scanned paper ballots - fed into a central tabulator PC and thus vulnerable to hacking - the results seem to contain substantial anomalies.

In Baker County, for example, with 12,887 registered voters, 69.3% of them Democrats and 24.3% of them Republicans, the vote was only 2,180 for Kerry and 7,738 for Bush, the opposite of what is seen everywhere else in the country where registered Democrats largely voted for Kerry.

In Dixie County, with 9,676 registered voters, 77.5% of them Democrats and a mere 15% registered as Republicans, only 1,959 people voted for Kerry, but 4,433 voted for Bush.

The pattern repeats over and over again - but only in the counties where optical scanners were used. Franklin County, 77.3% registered Democrats, went 58.5% for Bush. Holmes County, 72.7% registered Democrats, went 77.25% for Bush.

Yet in the touch-screen counties, where investigators may have been more vigorously looking for such anomalies, high percentages of registered Democrats generally equaled high percentages of votes for Kerry. (I had earlier reported that county size was a variable - this turns out not to be the case. Just the use of touch-screens versus optical scanners.)

More visual analysis of the results can be seen at: http://www.appliedresearch.us/...

The election was stolen in a state with a Bush for Governor. End of story.

"I can tolerate chaos, I'm just not sure chaos can tolerate me" Dylan

[ Parent ]
Ummm...dude?
Bush v. Kerry was 2004.  Bush won by over 3 million votes.

And btw, Jeb had nothing to do with it.  The Florida Supreme Court, and to a far lesser extent Katherine Harris, had all the power.  And in the end, the actions taken by the state of Florida were the ones deemed unconstitutional.  Unless Jeb Bush has some weird behind the scenes relationship with Sandra Day O'Connor and has some pull with her, he played no real role whatsoever.

But I digress.  2000 and 2004 are different stories entirely.

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

[ Parent ]
hey- no fair arguing with subtle facts and implications


"Why do Republicans get to be stupid and win while whenever we're stupid, we're just stupid?"  sufimarie Feb 2010
[ Parent ]
Federalist Papers
Wiki has a good writeup of the Federalist papers .  Basically they were written by Hamilton, Madison and Jay to influence the writing of the Constitution.

This movie has been rated PG-13 for sci-fi violence and destruction
@pambennettauror
[ Parent ]
Sorry, no
The federalist papers were written after the constitution and to try to get said document passed in the states.

Tom Tancredo Interview
[ Parent ]
True - Phrasing incorrect n/t


This movie has been rated PG-13 for sci-fi violence and destruction
@pambennettauror
[ Parent ]
"phrasing" incorrect?
your entire point was incorrect
[ Parent ]
Good job Morgan!

You don't get it, Morgan
You can dismiss me as one of the "nihilists" who just can't rah-rah your Mr. Smith Goes to Washington soliloquy.

Government is not evil. I don't know any rational person who thinks it is. But thanks anyway for throwing that strawman into the debate.

Here's where I disagree with Liberals: Government is not the answer. Government has yet to solve any real problem in this country.

Let me just talk about one issue that you might not expect me to care about: equal rights for gays and lesbians.

You Liberals have the nerve to say gays and lesbians would have equal rights, including equal marriage rights, if it weren't for the evil Republicans and right-wing bigots. Sorry, that's a line of bull. Don't-ask-don't-tell Clinton and Marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman Obama have been happy to throw gays under the bus.

Has Government made society more accepting of gays? No, but popular culture has, and eventually Government will catch up.

Government has never been our salvation and it won't ever be, no matter how much you urge people to care, participate and believe, believe, believe.

Can anyone look at the United States Congress and say, hey, that's a cross section of America? When the majority of elected officials are millionaires. And males. And white. Is this really a reflection of We the People?

Can anyone seriously believe that the President has the best interests of ordinary people at heart when he orders the Government to cut checks to Goldman Sachs, orders drones to do our killing by remote control in the Middle East, and kicks abortion rights and reproductive coverage to the curb to get his health care package passed?

People are in their right minds to criticize the Government at all levels -- the individuals who work in Government, the policies these individuals advocate, and the special interests (such as big labor lobbyists, Morgan) whose money and influence speak louder than mine or my neighbors'.

If some people are not disaffected by the current state of Government, they're not paying attention.

And, Morgan, if you're saying that disaffection with Government is merely the result of nihilistic failure to believe in American Democracy, you've demonstrated yourself to be part of the problem of Government.

5280 is the local lifestyle magazine of racist patriarchy. I'm a subscriber.

With a few small exceptions, I couldn't agree more.
Unfortunately, this kind of thinking is what we're stuck with, not only in Colorado, but on a national level.  Morgan thinks she can tell a feel good story about American "democracy," and shame us into believing government is the answer to our problems simply because "we" are the government.  So obviously we'd have to be self loathing idiots to disagree with her...

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.
[ Parent ]
Speaking of straw men,
rational opponents to your point of view do not argue that "government is the answer," but rather that it is one important tool in our tool kit, and the one that gives us corporate intentional access to our social institutional framework through our legal apparatus.

You say, "Government has yet to solve any real problem...." That's a fallacy of reductionism. I can point to any corporate board of directors, and make the same claim, because what they do is to manage an organization that then addresses challenges and opportunities. Government does provide vital services, including the definition and enforcement of property rights, the provision of government backed currency, the defense of personal safety against the predatory behavior of others, the provision of a regulatory archetecture without which a complex modern economy and technological regime cannot function, the reduction of transaction costs in order to promote the production of wealth and the provision of public goods, the internalization of externalities, and on and on and on.

We live in a complex world that requires the application of precise analyses to complex challenges, not a caricature of life that is reducible to your shallow platitudes.

You say government will eventually catch up to social changes that occur organically. Okay. So we should not pass legislation in favor of gay rights because government is useless, and gay marriage will just magically become legalized due to those organic changes? Or we should wait for those organic changes to convince everyone before letting government "catch up?" We shouldn't, for instance, have abolished slavery until the southern slave-holding states were ready, because government doesn't solve problems, you know? We shouldn't have enacted Civil Rights legislation and ended Jim Crow. We shouldn't create regulatory regimes which address the complexities of energy production and distribution and the externalities that they produce. We should allow the economy to continue in a tailspin in order to punish financial institutions, in the most classic example of cutting off our nose to spite our face imaginable.

You know, that kind of thinking is what causes rational people to be very worried about the influence you blind ideologues are having on the country on which our children, and their children, will depend.

It's a complex world, that requires a full tool-kit. Government is one tool in the box, and a very important one at that. Engage in the analysis of how to use it, rather than repeat the absurd and terribly destructive argument that we shouldn't.

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...

[ Parent ]
Actually, Steve
I think you can point to many instances where government is the answer. It's not that hard to do. Start with the Army, go on to roads and schools, and so forth.

Skip also doesn't seem to recognize that we do, in fact, live in a democracy that is still remarkably diverse. If Obama and the Democrats truly controlled government, we'd see a lot of different things than we currently do. Instead, we forge agreement through compromise. In our system, that means it all comes out looking like sausage and nobody is completely happy. But, anybody with an interest in politics already knows that, right?

 

Never assume "shill" when "idiot" is available as an explanation. [h/t Ralphie]

[ Parent ]
Good point.
I meant "the answer for all things." it is the answer for some things, and not for others, and it is a part of the answer for many more, if not most, "things" (social institutional challenges).

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...
[ Parent ]
#1--We don't live in a democracy
#2--Schools?  Really?  You're going to point to that as an example of government success?

#3--Democrats do control the government.  "They" only have to "compromise" with each other in order to get things done.  They don't need a single Republican's vote.

#4--I see a lot of people making the lame ass argument that 2009 is "different" from 1789.  Wow, no shit?  That's why the Constitution granted the power to AMEND the Constitution.  You can't just assume the government has powers over things that didn't exist at the time.

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

[ Parent ]
#2--Public schools are a success
compared to the alternative. I went to public school. Just about everybody I know went to public school. We're all intelligent members of a functioning society. Could schools be better? Sure. Name something that couldn't be.

#1 - Democracy. Give it a rest. It's a representative democracy. You want to quibble on the sematics? Go for it.

#3 - Dems control government. For better or worse, Dems haven't "purified" their party the way republicans have and kicked out the moderates.

#4-I didn't have a #4.



Never assume "shill" when "idiot" is available as an explanation. [h/t Ralphie]

[ Parent ]
Oh boy...
National Geographic (I know, a bastion of conservative political thought) polled students that were a product of the public education system and determined that...

--63% of 18-24 year olds could not locate Iraq on a map
--70% didn't know where Iran and Israel were
--90% couldn't point to Afghanistan
--50% couldn't locate the state of New York

That's pathetic.  Not to mention, according to the Department of Education, New York and Utah have virtually identical test scores for students.  The difference?  New York spends the most $$ per student of any state, while Utah spends  the least.

The DOE also said recently that students who use vouchers are reading 1/2 a grade level ahead of those who attend public schools.

I don't need to say anything about No Child Left Behind--you know what it is and why it's awful.  It should just be one more reminder why Federal oversight over education is a joke.  Before Jimmy Carter created the DOE in the 70s, education was handled--as it should be--at the local and state level.  Since its implementation, we have seen no increase in average test scores among American students.  That's one expensive program for which there are no results.

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

[ Parent ]
So, no public schools? Close them all?
n/t

Never assume "shill" when "idiot" is available as an explanation. [h/t Ralphie]
[ Parent ]
That's ridiculous.
There definitely needs to be a public education system.  But it can be a public education system managed partially at the state level, but most significantly at the local level.  And as a supplement, we need to support and encourage private and charter schools, and offer vouchers so that even the poorest among us can choose where their children are educated.  You know, like these people, or these people.

But maybe Obama is just a racist.  After all, blacks and Hispanics stand to benefit the most...

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

[ Parent ]
When did President Obama say
that he wasn't open to school vouchers?

My position, for the record, is that it is a decision that should be made by local school boards; that the research is ambiguous as to its effects; that, as currently designed, it will create a permanent underclass of low performing students in underfunded schools, since private-school voucher participants can refuse to take students; that it has some potential to improve educational services but also a more concerning potential to undermine our investment in community schools, which perform a vital community function; and that it is, mostly, a distraction from the real challenge of inspiring and nurturing young minds (which can better be accomplished by increasing community involvement and volunteerism in community schools).

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...

[ Parent ]
Well, see, this is a time when it helps to...
...watch what he does, not what he says.  Washington DC had a voucher program, and he signed the bill that killed it.  The DOE even did the study (as I noted) that proves it made a measurable difference.  And that's what he wanted, based on the article you linked.  Just proof.  And it was there.

Not to mention, the bigger part of my point was that education needs to be a virtual non-issue at the Federal level.  Mostly a local issue, and a state issue where necessary.

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

[ Parent ]
Are you referring to
this DOE study, which found that voucher programs make no statistically significant difference in test performance? Or the more recent that showed mixed results, and no improvement on math and science scores?

As I said, the research is ambiguous on the effects of vouchers on those who benefit from them. The research, to the best of my knowledge, has not yet addressed the more relevant question of all of the effects of vouchers on student performance, including the performance of those who are refused access to voucher- (and public-education-money-) accepting schools.

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...

[ Parent ]
Ronald Reagan would disagree with you
RR said that government is the problem in his first inaugural address.  You can argue about evil or not, but his view was pretty damning of government and it still holds sway today, especially in the Republican Party.  Trying to deny the obvious while holding tea parties at the same time ... if the silliness of that cannot be seen it certainly doesn't recommend one for public office.

Also, if I read it correctly, you're saying government has never solved any problem.  For one, how about - health care for returning veterans?  I would say government has a responsibility there and should carry it through.  And I think it does a good job.  Not perfect, but then the effects of war can never be completely removed for those who have suffered greatly in one.

[ Parent ]
I'll bite....
I'd don't necessarily disagree and so far, I agree more with BoulderRepublican's comments than with the original diary or with the responses to BR.  But two places in my world where gov is very obviously the answer is:

1) funding basic science and some applied R&D; and

2) policing the commons

You have two major market failures in both places.  #1 is never going to be solved by the marketplace, and the private-sector innovation that government funding of basic science and R&D allows is astounding.  On point #2, the economics do not work to get clean air and water, or hording of natural resources, without government intervention.  The economic power of corps to pollute will always be greater than the organizing ability of a disparate public body to stop the pollution.  Without real government intervention, we'd look far worse than China does right now, if you haven't looked under the covers lately, photos of surface water and air pollution in China would make you gag.

In fact, I just registered
www.veryliberalagitatedpissedoffpeoplewithnoorganization.com
-Laughing Boy

[ Parent ]
Government never solved any real problems?
How about defeating totalitarianism and facism in WW II ? I'd say there was a real problem , and we the people solved that problem by defeating Nazi Germany and then Japan. Don't tell my mother and father who both served in the armed forces in that war (last time I checked, our armed forces were part of the government) that they didn't help solve that  problem, or the 14 million other Americans in uniform in that war, or the entire population of our country collectively mobilized through our government to make the world safe for freedom and democracy.

My mother was buried five years ago with full military honors, as will my father when he passes. Don't ever tell me that they and their government never solved a real problem. I know better, and so did they.  


"Religion is for people who don't want to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who've been there, and don't want to go back"


[ Parent ]
That's rich
So you claim war is a problem-solving function of Democracy? Hasn't worked too well in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam....

War is war. Our founding fathers considered it an emergency, not the norm of democratic Government. It's a last resort, or should be. Wartime brings with it governmental powers that are not present at other times. Ahem...at least that's how it used to be.

If military action is your best example of Government fixing real problems...maybe Obama should call on the military to fix health care.

5280 is the local lifestyle magazine of racist patriarchy. I'm a subscriber.

[ Parent ]
Government solves many problems
If lack of government was superior then Somalia would be the most productive country on the planet. If you look at the first world countries, they are without exception countries that take a significant role in the economy.

This doesn't mean that governments are perfect. Nor does it mean that everything they do is good. It merely means an active involved democratic government is a necessary part of any first world government.

If you can show a counter-example, I'm all ears...

Tom Tancredo Interview

[ Parent ]
No kidding
Who's arguing for no government? I'm not. So-called teabaggers aren't. Perhaps leftist anarchists (or rightist anarchists) are, but I don't see them involved in this discussion.

Liberals think Government is the answer to all problems. The more Government, the better.

But Government is not the answer. Free enterprise is. I'm not opposed to some regulation of free enterprise. It would've been nice if the SEC had been doing its job for the past few years. But regulation can also become restrictive -- as in the case of Colorado consumers not being able to buy health care coverage from insurers in other states.

So I'm curious. Why do you think Government is the answer? Or, to Morgan's assertion, why do you think believing in the omnipotence of Government is in any way helpful to Democracy?


5280 is the local lifestyle magazine of racist patriarchy. I'm a subscriber.

[ Parent ]
Wow.
"Liberals think government is the answer to all problems?" And we "believ[e] in the omnipotence of government"?

You mean the 80% of American economists who are liberals? You mean the overwhelming majority of people who study the various technological, social, and natural systems that are implicated in the challenges and opportunities we face who are liberals? You mean the overwhelming majority of journalists who spend all of their time examing the facts that comprise our lives who are liberals? You mean the three Nobel Prize winning economists over the past two years who have written treatises on how we can articulate government, markets, and informal social institutions to improve the quality of our lives, who are all liberals?

Are you trying to prove that you can move your lips while the dummy on your lap drinks a glass of water, or what?

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...

[ Parent ]
I was replying to your comment
Government is not the answer. Government has yet to solve any real problem in this country.

Sounds to me like that was a call for no government.

Tom Tancredo Interview

[ Parent ]
Telling.
To you, "Government is not the answer" is the same as saying, "No government."

This demonstrates my point. Liberals are incapable of conceiving of Government as anything other than the Omnipotent Answer To Everything. Anyone who challenges this fantasy is a dangerous anarchist.

So I'll ask you again. Why do you think Government is the answer?

5280 is the local lifestyle magazine of racist patriarchy. I'm a subscriber.

[ Parent ]
Still enjoying the smell of your own farts I see


"I'll take incompetence over a business model incentivised to kill me any day." -- DtR(H)
[ Parent ]
Here's the only reasonable answer to your question:
Many American liberals (not all), a group which overlaps, as I said, with the vast majority of the most informed and analytical people in this country (because, as we all know, scientists, researchers, teachers, authors, journalists, and artists, members of all the groups that most involve the use of the human mind, are overwhelmingly liberal), are constitutionally incapable of thinking in the shallow little platitudes and oversimplifications upon which you rely, and don't think that anything is or isn't "the answer" (or claim to know precisely what the question is, for that matter). Instead, we identify challenges and opportunities, gather relevant information by reliable means, analyze it from all possible angles and with all available tools, consider the systems with which we are dealing, contemplate how the various social institutional materials at our disposal might be most effectively and efficiently mobilized to address, and then strive to implement the most intelligent policies we are capable of implementing. The extent to which that does or does not involve the use of government agencies is always an open question, whose answer is dependent on the processes I described above. We understand that reducing the challenges of ordering our collective existance to anything more simplistic than that diminishes our ability to act intelligently.

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...
[ Parent ]
How do you equate the two
If you say government is not the answer, then why do you want it to exist? I don't see how you can have that both ways.

As to saying government is the answer, look at every first world country on the planet - all have a very involved government. Now look at every basket case - little or no government.

Based on our real-world examples, how can you claim that government is not the answer?

Tom Tancredo Interview

[ Parent ]
Thanks Morgan.
You've made a point we all need to continue to emphasize: Tyranny is not a function of how and to what degree a people choose to utilize their democratically controlled agent, but rather of the degree to which the people fail to control their agent. Since "people" is actually plural rather than singular, the challenge of creating a system which reflects a majority view while protecting minority rights is a daunting one, but one which we have admirably addressed in the form of our constitutional democracy.

Some posters have responded that they "don't rail against the government their forefathers created," but against the one that exists today. In other words, they rail against the will of the majority when it does not correspond to their own. Sorry, folks, but democracy doesn't mean that society stops developing: It means that we collectively are sovereign, and have equal votes in how it develops.

Keep up the good work, Morgan!

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...

We have the EXACT government we deserve
Our current government is a perfect reflection of our country.  It is bloated, un-responsive, beholding to special interests and does whatever it wants because we are not vigilant.

We are not vigilant because we, as a society, are bloated, un-responsive to problems and therefore kick them down the road, and beholding to our own, personal, special interests...

I ask again, where are the profile in courage?  What are you, the elected official, willing to protect even it it means losing your elected seat?

Where is OUR courage?  We, the electorate.  Where is OUR courage?

"...Somewhere between left and right is the middle..."

That's it. Unfortunately...
Our society is all of those things, and until a majority of our elected representatives have courage, integrity, honor, and testicular fortitude, we wont get anywhere.

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.
[ Parent ]
Then you should be pleased
that your interests are very well represented.

To paraphrase the late Sen. Roman Hruska (R-NE)
"People without courage, integrity, honor and testicular fortitude deserve representation also."

There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't.

[ Parent ]
There's a crack, a crack in everything....that's how light gets in
I post this song by Leanard Cohen to introduce my take on this post:

Obvious to any honest observer, the "government" is both a source of pride and a source of shame. Same with the people who inhabit America.

Reasonable and well intentioned people should have the common good uppermost in mind, because any level of enlightened introspection will demonstrate our interconnectiveness.

There is a real sickness on the land of our forefathers. Political debate has seldom been so divided, when the stakes are so high. I'll spare the reader a litany of the issues we face, any one of which could have very serious and negative consequences.....current debt, joblessness, a shaken housing market, energy shortages, global geopolitical tensions, and more.

These are real challenges we can never address as individuals, but MUST address as citizens who face common problems and who share a government.

We have faced many problems in our short past, and made many improvements by coming together and recognizing that clean water, clean air, equality and a healthy economy benefits all. We need to come together again, and soon.

We will do this when science is recognized as providing facts that guide our actions, and with the faith that, regardless of our religious beliefs, we have a noble calling to achieve peace and prosperity for all. We are called to greatness, and we as individuals should recognize that.

We need to agree on the problems first, and then work together to solve them. Without a doubt, government has a role to play! More importantly, every individual has a very important role to play as well.

Like the alcoholic that cannot address the disease until admitting it exists, we will be powerless to address the coming serious challenges unless we admit that they are real, and that we will have to work together to succeed.

"I can tolerate chaos, I'm just not sure chaos can tolerate me" Dylan

The U.S. needs a much stronger economic/manufacturing policy
that only our national and local governments can produce.

NEW CHINA REFINERY CONTRASTS WITH U.S. SLOWDOWN

By Brett Clanton
Houston Chronicle
Nov. 11, 2009, 5:58AM

Exxon Mobil Corp. and partners were expected to announce early today the completion of a $5 billion refining and chemical complex in China's Fujian province, a sprawling project that arrives as U.S. refineries and chemical plants are closing. The complex in the city of Quanzhou, which Exxon Mobil developed with Saudi Aramco, China's Sinopec and the Fujian government, will expand production of transportation fuels like diesel and widely used building block chemicals, demand for both of which is projected to grow rapidly in China in coming years. As such, it is a show of confidence by one of the world's biggest economies about the country's continued momentum and its belief in the future growth of petroleum products. In the U.S., however, refineries and chemical plants have been shutting down amid a steep drop in demand for motor fuels and chemical-based products. And some analysts predict the trend could continue even as the economy recovers.

China is 5000 years old, and has always had a strong central government.  

"I can tolerate chaos, I'm just not sure chaos can tolerate me" Dylan

Your government at work
Recently, Secy. of DHS, Napolitano listed a series of initiatives that DHS has undertaken that have drastically changed the "immigration landscape." To begin with, DHS has made significant progress in securing the nation's borders and met the benchmarks set by conservative lawmakers who voted down immigration reform in 2007. The government has "dedicated unprecedented resources to the Mexican border in terms of manpower, technology and infrastructure," which has allowed DHS to increase the border patrol to more than 20,000 officers, build 600 miles of border fencing, and effectively target drug cartels through the Southwest Border Initiative. According to Napolitano, DHS has audited thousands of employers who hired undocumented workers, improved its technology for screening undocumented immigrants, and revised its agreements with state and local police to effectively prioritize the apprehension of "dangerous criminal aliens." Napolitano believes DHS's crackdown, together with an unfortunate economic downturn, has contributed to a sharp decline in illegal immigration and an increase in seizures in all categories -- drugs, smuggled cash, and illegal weapons. Meanwhile, the year-long backlog for background checks on applicants for green cards and naturalization has also been eliminated, and DHS is already preparing for the possibility of requiring millions of undocumented immigrants to register with the government. (h/t TheProgressReport)



"I can tolerate chaos, I'm just not sure chaos can tolerate me" Dylan

That's all your average citizen wants
While its true the economic downturn probably helped getting illegal immigration under control, this story contrasts the incompetence and cronyism prevalent in the Bush administration.

One need only recall Katrina to underscore that. Bush's attitude seemed to be that government is bad anyway and therefore won't work, so let's just pack these agencies with incompetent cronies, like they did at FEMA and EPA, and therefore it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy that government can't do anything right.

Let's face it, they couldn't even run a war correctly with that incompetent Nixon retread Rumsfeld as Sect. of Defense.  

"Religion is for people who don't want to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who've been there, and don't want to go back"


[ Parent ]
The Point
The point is that we need a discussion and debate about what the people's government should or shouldn't do.  

Telling us you just don't like "it" or even that "it" is "too big" doesn't tell us anything about public policy decisions.

If you want to eliminate certain public functions, just say which ones and we can have that discussion.  

If you want different laws, say which ones you would change and why.

Like everyone else, I have specific policies that I think need to be changed but those changes don't occur by reiterating generic anti-government talking points.  They occur by getting specific about what you want changed and why.

hear hear


"I'll take incompetence over a business model incentivised to kill me any day." -- DtR(H)
[ Parent ]
AND, may I add...
The needs change. One contemporary example: medical care today is quite different than it was 50 years ago, particularly in new-found techniques and pharmaceuticals to treat conditions that previously simply were beyond treatment.

Simultaneously the dominant economic model of the '50s--one lifetime employer who provided for both wages and medical insurance--has changed entirely. (And, it must be noted, some people have always been outside that model.)

But, the financing of health care has not changed...with the result that it fails ever-greater numbers of people, even while benefiting some deliverers, e.g. insurance companies and Big Pharma. An organized approach is required to align the social need with the delivery system. It's called legislation.

One could go on. BUT: government is needed as a counter-force to privately-owned power. Arguments about the "principle" of less government are at best a thin disguise for "leave private economic power to its own devices."  

[ Parent ]
nicely said


"Why do Republicans get to be stupid and win while whenever we're stupid, we're just stupid?"  sufimarie Feb 2010
[ Parent ]
We do.
For example, Obama and Pelosi's puppets are trying to push through a massive government run healthcare plan.  And guess what?  We don't want it.  I feel like we've been saying that for months.  Oh yeah, and we didn't want the stimulus package either.  Or TARP.  Luckily cap & trade died (thank god for a bicameral legislature...).  So we didn't want them, and they were unconstitutional, but we got the rest of them anyway.

That's "the government" we have a problem with.

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

[ Parent ]
I assume by "we"
...you're referring to the <25% of so of Americans who identify themselves as Republicans, rather than the >65% who want health care reform, including a public option. YOU may not be living in a democracy, but the rest of us are.

Sorry, Charlie, but the Republicans lost in 2006, again in 2008, and will lose again in '12, '14, ad infinitum. Time marches on, even if Republicans don't.

[ Parent ]
Keep touting that number.
And remember, there are so few Republicans left that you don't even need to go vote anymore.

Here are a couple of polls for you.

About that 'ad infinitum' thing...



"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

P.J. O'Rourke

[ Parent ]
No, Laughing Boy, you're not supposed to poke big...
...giant holes in their stories.  It's more fun when you use your imagination to make shit up.

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.
[ Parent ]
TARP...
I didn't want TARP either. It was handed to us by a conservative Republican president, George W. Bush. And I seem to recall the economy totally collapsing on his watch, just as he skated out of town.

I guess there are those with selective amnesia. Let's hope that's covered under the new "massive government run health care plan".  

"Religion is for people who don't want to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who've been there, and don't want to go back"


[ Parent ]
Conservative socially, yes. Fiscally? You've got to be joking.
I didn't want it when Bush gave it to us.  That was a really bad move.  And the economy collapsed for several reasons, almost all of which were the result of government intervention.

And by "we," I did mean Americans in general.  If the health care bill were politically popular, it would've passed already.  End of story.  And btw, we don't live in a democracy.  Our Constitution guarantees a "Republican form of government" to the United States and each individual state thereof.

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

[ Parent ]
I'm curious...
What do you think GDP growth would have been the past year without TARP and the Stimulus?  

Never assume "shill" when "idiot" is available as an explanation. [h/t Ralphie]
[ Parent ]
Do I look like Greg Mankiw to you?
I don't know what GDP growth would have been.  Certainly it would've been worse than it was, but it's just like a liberal to look only at the face of something, and only in the short run.  You have to look at all the primary and secondary effects an action has, and what effect it will have on the economy in the long run.

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.
[ Parent ]
I had a dollar
For every time you used the phrase "typical liberal" or "just like a liberal" or some iteration of that...

...it would be a lot more than the GDP would have grown last year without your boy Bush and Paulsen's TARP and Obama's stimulus.

BTW, it's an atypically conservative thing for you to say that the GDP isn't important. Typically, it's liberals saying that the GDP isn't a good market indicator, and Republicans saying the opposite of what you did.

"I'll take incompetence over a business model incentivised to kill me any day." -- DtR(H)

[ Parent ]
GDP is extremely important. But is it more important...
...in the long run or the short run?  And shouldn't we look at every other effect of TARP and the stimulus, not just GDP?

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.
[ Parent ]
Well, you don't look like anything to me.
We're just anonymous posters living in the same town.

But as to the substance...
I wouldn't say it's a short term view to have supported policies that saved our economy from near-certain collapse.
Depressions can last a generation.

Normally, I don't have any sympathy for bankers, but if all the major banks fail simultaneously? (That would have happened).

It's easy enough to follow the dominoes at that point. Housing, manufacturing, then services.

And if govt had cut its expenditures to match its revenues, it would have just added to the problem.



Never assume "shill" when "idiot" is available as an explanation. [h/t Ralphie]

[ Parent ]
You don't know
But you'll criticize others, including the pointless epithet "just like a liberal."

Get a clue.  Then you'll know.  Then you can respond coherently to an actual argument.

Best to kill them early instead of letting them possibly need food stamps.
--marilou, 2010

[ Parent ]
I have to call 'BS' there
The main cause of the collapse was market over-reach, as explained ably by JO below.

The secondary cause of the collapse was a lack of market oversight and deregulation - namely in the forms of CDO idiocy and repeal of Glass-Steagall.  Packaging high-risk mortgages into seemingly safe securities is something a sound government regulatory structure should have detected and prevented.  Everything else pretty much flowed from the existence of those "investments", including the excessive lenient lending practices which conservatives like to blame (falsely) on the CRA.

"I have come to the conclusion that the making of laws is like the making of sausages-the less you know about the process the more you respect the result."  -- Anonymous IL State Rep. circa 1878

[ Parent ]
Welcome to The Minority...
If you find things getting passed in your representative democracy that you don't like (say, healthcare) then you can at least acknowledge that you had a voice in the debate and lost that debate.

If you find that the government has stepped over its Constitutional bounds, then there's this thing called the court system where you can challenge the law.

And I'm sorry to say you got TARP with your own party's help - it was bi-partisan and enjoyed the support of Sen. Minority leader Mitch McConnell among others.

"The Government" is us - at our best and worst.  When Bush 43 was in office, liberals weren't complaining about "the Government" - they were complaining about Bush, cronyism, incompetence, and specific overreaching programs.  In contrast, the Tea Party crowd, following in Zombie Reagan's footsteps, complains about "the Government" itself.  Sure, there's griping about programs like health care reform, but over all of this, there's this misplaced "Liberty or Death" rallying cry that equates the government itself with tyrannies of the past.

"I have come to the conclusion that the making of laws is like the making of sausages-the less you know about the process the more you respect the result."  -- Anonymous IL State Rep. circa 1878

[ Parent ]
Morgan, NO, NO, NO
The energized right is not going to "have a conversation."  They are going to take control of the "government,"  in 2010. It is not really the "government" which they are against.  It is the Democratic party  control of said government.

This screaming yelling relentless verbal attack on "government" is a political strategy.  Do NOT patronize the repubs or the right or me for that matter. Understand that this is democracy...which is an instiutional political campaign, 24/7.

Your fine essay is appropriate for an 8th grade civics class, and would that we had more of them.  However, it is simply not relevant to what is going on today.  You want a reasoned debate; they want power.  In a democracy, power wins.  Get over it.

Voting Republican is legal, but it is morally wrong - David Thi808

[ Parent ]
Long-term v. Short-term.
Cynical political strategizing wins in the short-run, but reasoned debate wins in the long-run. The Inquisition broke Galileo, but not the eventual success of the belief that we live in a heliocentric solar system.

Two quotes: "The Arc of History is long, but it bends toward justice" (MLK), and "(People) will do the rational thing, but only after exploring all other alternatives" (John Maynard Keynes). You are referring to the short-term success of "all other alternatives," which is a relevant and legitimate consideration. But there is still room to promote "the rational thing."

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...

[ Parent ]
i can't argue with Sen Carroll on this blog
It makes sense to me.

My question becomes why do people vote against their economic class interests?

I have my own thoughts, but would seek inut from others.

Ken Buck: a man of Mr. Rove and Dick Cheney. The road forward does not use reverse.

Because they drink the Kool Aid.......


"Religion is for people who don't want to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who've been there, and don't want to go back"


[ Parent ]
I suppose
Public opinion is shaped by the media, and the media is an oligarchy.

Ken Buck: a man of Mr. Rove and Dick Cheney. The road forward does not use reverse.
[ Parent ]
A fundamental desire for fairness and
acceptance that had work is compensated in it's way.

And then there's the radical misunderstanding of what out own economic interests really are.

"Why do Republicans get to be stupid and win while whenever we're stupid, we're just stupid?"  sufimarie Feb 2010

[ Parent ]
If you don't take ownership of YOUR government, somebody else will
The Constitution of the United States is an amazing document in its establishment of a government run "by the People", a document that has withstood all that could have destroyed the fabric of our Nation, including a terrible civil war in which over 600,000 Americans died to preserve that "more perfect Union".

The inclusion of that term "more perfect Union" by the Founders in the preamble implies that as good as it was establishing this revolutionary concept of self government, by necessity it would need to be amended from time to time, albeit a process the Founders made somewhat difficult to ensure there was a deliberate and purposeful reason for doing so. Of course the most illustrative example of this was the amendment outlawing slavery, to correct an abhorrent practice that had actually been codified in the original document. And in doing so, we as a Nation moved closer to that "more perfect Union".

I take issue with those who look at the increased role of the government in social and economic spheres as an abrogation of the Constitution. The regulation of commerce and finance is well established in the constitution, and government did just that in the New Deal programs of the Great Depression, programs that contrary to the claims of many, actually saved capitalism from it's own excesses. And we've witnessed this again in the Great Recession of the past two years, where government had to step in and once again save our economic system from collapse. And for those right wingers with short memories, this was done under a  conservative Republican administration bailing out the financial industry to the tune of $ 700 billion.

Senator Carroll is right, WE THE PEOPLE are the government, and we the people had better start "showing up" and getting involved. My bet is that 90% of the "people" don't understand what happened in the financial meltdown and why their money was used to bail out the rich and self appointed privileged.

The current debate on health care reform is illustrative of what happens when the "people" don't show up. You can rest assured the health insurance industry "showed up" and put their imprint on what's coming out of Congress, and they showed up spending over a million dollars a day to get their point across. The Constitution clearly states "to provide for the general welfare", and to me having a health care policy that provides affordable health care to every American and controls or reduces  unsustainable health care costs (now at 16 % of GDP) clearly provides for the "general welfare" as explicitly defined in our Constitution and continues to move us towards a "more perfect Union".

I know Senator Carroll makes every effort to get people involved in issues and government, through her monthly town hall meetings and coffees with citizens. I have attended her town hall meetings on a variety of subjects, and she makes sure all viewpoints are represented on the panels. There are usually 30 to 50 people there, but the population in her Senate district is approx. 138,000, so there's alot of people who aren't "showing up", including young people who are the ones who are going to have to pay for the screwups of the past several years.

It's time for "we the People" to start "showing up" and getting involved, because that's exactly how the Founders envisioned this experiment in democracy to work, and in fact it's the only way it can work. Otherwise we will only get the best government money can buy by the special interests who show up and have their way with YOUR government.



"Religion is for people who don't want to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who've been there, and don't want to go back"


"My bet is that 90% of the "people" don't understand what happened in the financial meltdown"
I'd like to hear copolsters comment on what happened.

"I can tolerate chaos, I'm just not sure chaos can tolerate me" Dylan
[ Parent ]
Simplistic answer(s)
The meltdown was in two parts:

Overall, the economy in general and consumers in particular became over-extended--too much debt incurred for consumption, instead of for production. One result of artificial over-demand: the housing bubble.

When the housing bubble burst, there was no way of stopping it. The dynamic that drove the bubble--ever-greater demand, in part generated by widening the swath of the population that had not previously generated demand--was ended. Simultaneously, people lost faith in the inevitable rise in housing values, and bad loans disguised as securities cascaded to incorporate much of the financial sector, which itself had grown to, what? 25%?, of the economy. One damn thing after another, and with consumer demand still depressed, there still is no engine for job growth at home, nor is there unmet demand for capital that might generate new jobs (green energy, anyone?). If and when such an engine starts operating, there will be competitors in China ready to fulfill the demand.

Ergo, our current choice: Live through prolonged high unemployment (loss of productivity by up to 17% of the population that is either unemployed or discouraged or working part-time), tantamount to lower living standards; OR accept the role of government to generate demand, particularly in the form of building new infrastructure (energy, transport, schools, environmental cleanup). IF private enterprise were doing this, it would be called capital investment and widely praised. But when government fills this role, in the absence of private investors, it's called "growing the deficit" and rejected out of hand by certain principled right-wingers from rural districts that we could name.

[ Parent ]
Accurate analysis
As one who went through the previous financial debacle, the S & L crisis of the 1980's, for me this was deja vue all over again. I can show you documents from that period of millions of dollars worth of loans made for buildings that were never even built (and the lending institutions that were in criminal conspiracy with the developers all went belly up with the taxpayers getting stuck with the bill).  Total S & L bailout cost $ 500 billion.

Same story today, just a different set of players. Risky and even fraudulent loans made which never should have been made. We don't produce anything in this country anymore that produces real wealth, so the economy was propped up by the financial sector (like you say grown to 25% of the economy) fed by inflated, unsustainable real estate values. When the financial sector collapsed, everything went south, and as usual the taxpayers got handed the bill.

And just like in the S & L scandal, few are getting prosecuted.  

"Religion is for people who don't want to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who've been there, and don't want to go back"


[ Parent ]
Correct me if I'm wrong...
My impression of S&L crisis was that it affected specific S&L institutions, which were saved by established federal institutions at significant cost.

The housing bubble, while sharing some of the same characteristics, was different in that it did--and does--affect everyone who owns a home! Whether or not you want to sell your house right now, the impact of the bubble is such that it is difficult and the price you can get on the market is much lower than it was, say, 2-3 years ago. And this applies to the whole spectrum of houses, not just those in neighborhoods blighted by foreclosure.

For that reason, the housing bubble strikes me as striking a far bigger, broader blow than the S&L crisis, since it affects roughly 65% of Americans who own a house, not just those with accounts in, or loans from, afflicted institutions. Moreover, the outcome of the S&L crisis was to make most people whole; there's no visible prospect of that in the case of the housing bubble and related downturns.

AND, the nature of bubbles is that they don't soon reinflate. One example: The DJII reached a pre-Depression high of about 380 in Sep. 1929; it didn't return to that level until June 1954.

This a rather long way of suggesting that the current crisis, and the limited response so far, could portend big changes in the future, nature of which remain unknown. Opinions on this thread suggesting that nothing should have been done--anti-TARP--strike me as naive in the extreme.  

[ Parent ]
S & L Crisis
You are correct in saying the S & L crisis affected specific institutions. The most specific example of that was the local failure of Silverado costing the taxpayers about a billion dollars, which garnered notoriety because Neil Bush was on the board of directors approving loans to developer Kenneth Good (who subsequently defaulted on the loans), while Good was giving Bush money for his business ventures. (Bush failed to disclose this, was fined $50,000, and was banned from the banking industry for life)

Deposits in S & L's were insured up to $ 100,000 by the FSLIC (Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, long since gone), but this fund was quickly depleted due to the number and extent of failures. The taxpayers got stuck for making good on the depositors money (again, the deposits were backed by the "full faith and credit of the US government"). Most estimates put the direct loss to the taxpayers at 400 to 500 billion dollars, although not even the government really seems to know.

The S & L's were deregulated in the early 80's under Reagan ( but the Dems went along with it too), and the deposit insurance was raised from $ 25,000 to the $ 100,000. This caused a huge amount of deposits to flow into the S & L's, and with all that cash looking for a place to go and the industry deregulated, the S & L's made risky and even illegal loans to developers on real estate projects that could never pencil out. Locally this plunged the Denver real estate market into a depression for at least five years.

I read Boulder Republican's assertion that the current financial collapse resulted almost entirely from over regulation. Anyone who believes that must be living in an alternate universe totally ignorant of the lessons of history and the reality of our current situation.    

"Religion is for people who don't want to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who've been there, and don't want to go back"


[ Parent ]
Yawn. Facile argument, Morgan
I expect better from the vaunted brain of Morgan Carroll.
On Facebook this morning, I posted this: "'Who's the government anyway?' Just us neighbors, right? Wrong. It's more than neighborly when government mandates behavior, prohibits choices, regulates voluntary cooperation, takes your money, and uses police power, fines, and jail to force your obedience. Neighbors with that kind of power can be problematic. They bear CLOSE watching"

A liberal friend posted this: "Shawn, for a change we agree. The fascist Patriot Act, illegally spying on American citizens, extraordinary rendition, suspension of habeas corpus, suspension of the Posse Comitatus act, war profiteering, "enhanced interrogation," "free speech zones," the gutting of the Fourth Amendment, stovepiped intelligence to justify wars of convenience...why, it's enough to make a fellow vote for Democrats!"

I answered with this: "Will, we agree about the necessary but fearsome power. That being the case, we can agree no one should dismiss concerns about overreach with the infantile 'Oh, it's just We the People.'"

So, Morgan, instead of dismissing concerns about government power, acknowledge that what government does is profoundly different from what neighbors can do, and join in the eternal vigilance of government required for liberty. Eternal vigilance of neighbors...not so much.

That's a gross distortion of what Sen. Carroll said, Shawn Mitchell
Perhaps you're too busy imagining her in her underwear to pay attention, you fucking cretin.

Repeat after me: "I have never supported Dan Maes.  I have always supported [Dick Wadhams to fill in the blank]." --ClubTwitty
[ Parent ]
Don't worry.
Getting cussed out for not being a lock-step liberal is nothing new here.  Don't take it too hard on yourself.

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.
[ Parent ]
Interesting how you show up to comment after 9 months
of lurking. Morgan really trips your trigger, doesn't she? I wonder why that is...

"The only way you could be worse is if you were Wade Norris." Ralphie
[ Parent ]
I have this vision......
(and no it's not that folks, the last time I took hallucinatory drugs was the night Jimmy Carter was elected)

I have this vision of Morgan in a Catwoman suit, and Shawn dressed as the Joker. Star crossed foes in a constant Marxian dialectic of good and evil. You're right Middle, there is something going on here......  

"Religion is for people who don't want to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who've been there, and don't want to go back"


[ Parent ]
Hehehe.
An interesting analogy...

"The only way you could be worse is if you were Wade Norris." Ralphie
[ Parent ]
Our government is what we want it to be
Here's the thing about a democracy, it's not what you mandate, it's not what I mandate, it's what we manage to come up with between all of us. And that means by definition that everyone is unhappy with parts. That's called compromise.

A lot of you on the right (and also on the far left - nice to see agreement there) seem to think that the only proper government is the one you envision. Who died and made you dictator? It doesn't work that way in a democratic system.

You also complain that "if only everyone really knew what was going on." The thing is, most people do have a good feel for what is going on. But each person has their own priorities and viewpoints and that shapes how they vote, or if they even care enough to vote.

Finally you will go back to original intent to say we must operate as the founding fathers did. First keep in mind that our founding fathers strongly disagreed with each other. Travel back in time, bring up some point you want them to support you on, and you'll be lucky to get a third of them.

Second, the constitution was cleverly set to be a very general document. No it doesn't speak to national health-care or climate control. But look at the first federal bank created by Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson claimed that it was both illegal and wrong. Then when he became president, he kept it because it was a strong asset for the country.

What does this show? First, that the founding fathers themselves evolved their views. Second, that they created institutions like a central bank at our very start. From the beginning we have brought in new federal institutions as needed.

Tom Tancredo Interview

[ Parent ]
Impressive Replies.
With substance and logic like that, how can anyone withstand?
Oh now, don't beat yourself up, Shawn.
We really didn't expect you to contribute anything of substance and you didn't disappoint.

Maybe next time you can just leave Morgan a nasty note in her chair instead of envisioning her in her panties.

"The only way you could be worse is if you were Wade Norris." Ralphie

[ Parent ]
well
More impressive substance, MOTR! JeffcoBlue, or anyone else, you want to show, rather than assert, the distortion, I'm all ears. Otherwise, I'll go back to surfing Realclearpolitics. For the record, I learned about this thread from a Brandon Shaffer post on Facebook. Hence the response there, early this morning. The exchange with Will H got me thinking about the childishness of the the "We are the government" argument.
childishness?
You think Abraham Lincoln was childish?

Maroon.

There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't.

[ Parent ]
You claim you're willing to discuss
yet no answer to my reply at http://www.coloradopols.com/sh... - which I think was a straight forward discussion of the issues you brought up.

Seems to me that if someone does refute your arguments, you disappear.

Tom Tancredo Interview

[ Parent ]
Fair point, David
I've been busy and away from this thread, and I thought Morgan had sort of concluded the discussion with her "benediction." But you make several thoughtful points, which certainly merit response. Can't at the moment. I'll try to get back soon, but I'm chronically procrastinating and behind. Is there a private message function on Pols so I can let you know when I respond?
SM
[ Parent ]
Oh and
Thanks, BoulderRepublican
No problem. I get beat up in here all the time.
I always hope there will be at least one other person not predisposed to argue with me.  Usually I'm let down, but you were a nice surprise.

Health care "reform" will die in the Senate, and for their efforts, Democrats will be widely thrown out of office in 2010.  Don't say I didn't warn you.
[ Parent ]
Give me a break
You dish it out just as good as we give it to you. It's the nature of this blog. Hell, it's the nature of politics. But you obviously can handle it because you continue to come back.

Seriously. You can't really complain about it if you keep coming back for more. I like the back and forth personally, even when I think you're completely full of crap.   :)

"I'll take incompetence over a business model incentivised to kill me any day." -- DtR(H)

[ Parent ]
Too many people have gone off
on too many tangents here, and the main point is being lost.

Morgan is absolutely correct in what she has stated here, and she has stated it with the balance, reserve, and lucidity that the point merits. We have posters on all sides here busy stripping bark from the trees, wondering where the forest has gone. It's easy to see if you just look up:

The Constitution, drafted in recognition of the failure of the Articles of Confederation and sold to the public through newspaper editorials such as those that were later compiled as "The Federalist Papers," was designed to create a Federal government with teeth, to overcome the impotence of the Articles. The Constitution was not drafted to enumerate individual righs, but to empower a federal government: The enumeration of rights was part of a balancing act to get the Constitution ratified.

Many at the Convention did not expect the Constitution to last more than a generation or two, before it would have to be rewritten. But, rather than rewrite it to adapt to changing circumstances, we have embued it with enough flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances. The ratification process could never have accomplished this alone, as any student of law understands: Legal interpretation isn't optional. It is indispensible. There is no law, of any kind, without it.

We live in a world that has dramatically changed over the past two centuries, and are guided by a document that creates a vehicle for our genius, while granting to us the best distillation of the genius of the generation that drafted it. That's exactly as it should be.

There are many imperfections in our laws that need to be addressed, many defects in our government that need to be refined, many opportunities for doing good that government can at best facilitate and at worst obstruct. But the devil is in the details. We can engage in constructive debate on what improvements are needed, in how to implement them, in what the costs and benefits of each are, and in which ones are worth the risks involved in order to obtain the benefits that are sought. The challenges demand abundant knowledge and precise analyses rather than doctrinal certainties and disregard for all other arguments.

Government is, always has been, and always will be, the one and only corporate agent of the body politic, through which we can act as a people. It is our public forum, our arena, our place to come together and make decisions about how best to arrange our affairs. That is what our Founding Fathers intended, that is what they so brilliantly designed, and that is what we are fortunate enough to have at our disposal.

It is not left to us to rewrite history, but rather to continue to live it as intelligently and intentionally as we can. Some believe that our federal and state governments have become overbearing, and get in the way of our pursuit of happiness and prosperity. Personally, I think they are ill-informed on a multitude of levels, about economics, about the challenges of managing a modern society, about the need for a well-designed and fairly extensive administrative architecture to preserve all of the things that they themselves most treasure. But, by all means, make your best arguments, mobilize your data, present your case in the court of public opinion as cooly and rationally as you can, and those of us who believe you are ill-informed will do the same. May the best arguments prevail.

And then, in the light of those arguments, let's get back to the task at hand: Governing ourselves as wisely as we can.

We're all in this story together: Let's make sure that we write it well.
http://www.steveharveyforcolor...

Participation
I respect those who participated with intellectual analysis about the proper role and function of government.  Thank you.  

The point is a simple and straightforward one that the government is not an "it" or a "they" but it is all of us.

The health of our democracy depends on citizen participation in our government -- and is greatly improved if we skip the name-calling or slogans and just focus on our public policy choices.

I have seen Ds, Rs, Libs make and change laws in this state when they engage and I have seen absurdity sail through in absentia of the people.

One addition that makes a differrence
The term "government" covers a variety of sins. Legislators naturally think of themselves as the government--they make the laws. The governor (or president) thinks of him/herself as the only figure who was elected by all the voters, which is to say the Great Father, Great Mother figure of the city/state/nation.

But there is another body of folks in government called the bureaucracy, whose role is to translate the laws into specific rules and regulations, and then to enforce those rules and regulations which, in and of themselves, were never voted by any elected representative. Nor were the vast majority of regs ever challenged in any court.

Many of us, while we chew our daily bread, encounter "government" in the form of this bureaucracy. Famously--and I'm not sure why this should be, but I've seen so many references to it, and not just in Colorado, that it must be so--the Department of Motor Vehicles seems to go out of its way to select rude, imperious personalities able to alienate citizens while scowling behind the counter with the power to decide: can this person get a license to drive a car to work? Is every t crossed and i dotted to my satisfaction on a form designed not by elected representatives but by other bureaucrats? The idea of "customer service," or "customers voters come first" clearly hasn't made it beyond the sign that advises GO HERE FIRST, SUPPLICANTS! Part of the problem, of course, is civil service protection designed to insulate the bureaucracy from political influence!

Add to the motley crew at DMV members of The Police and Sheriff's deputies assigned to raise revenue under the guise of traffic enforcement (see: Unmarked Cars), tax collectors ... indeed, many if not most government employees who interact with "the public," and you end up generating a good deal of hostility among people who hardly feel they are in charge of the government. Put another way: if government were a retailer, it would go the way of K-Mart: down and out!

[ Parent ]
Who Is "the Government" Anyway? | 107 comments
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