Government's Just A Word For Things We Choose To Do Together
One of the memes I've come across from liberals I read support for big government in its own right. So, they say, government's just a word for things we choose to do together. I like thinking about this phrase when I look at some of the asinine things we choose to do together, such as:
Fine 11-year-old girls $535 for saving a baby woodpecker.
Other things we've chosen to do together?
Fine a Minnesota man $275 for volunteering without a license.
Arrest people for feeding the homeless.
Fine people $90K for letting their kid sell more than $500 in bunnies.
Charge people with misdemeanors for growing vegetable gardens.
Force a 95-year-old woman in a wheelchair to remove her adult diaper.
Shut down kids' lemonade stands.
Fine churches $100 per branch for unauthorized tree pruning.
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Comments:
Sep '10
Re: Government's Just A Word For Things We Choose To Do Together
The analogy isn't right at all. Government is the word for things we want done, but don't want to do ourselves and don't really care how they get done so long as someone else pays for them. What private charity would build public housing and after seeing the residents completely trash the place, continue to build more and maintain the existing ones?
May '11
Re: Government's Just A Word For Things We Choose To Do Together
Excellent examples of efficient government spending. Meanwhile the lefties tell us the poor will suffer from this budget deal. The government won't have the money to take care of the poor. Let's see:
Total government spending for 2012, excluding defense, education, transportation, police, interest payments on the debt, and general spending for government operations, is estimated at $3.3 trillion.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/budget_gs.php
This budget deal will reduce that by – oh, sorry, it's a rounding error. Still $3.3 trillion.
The number of families below the poverty level, according to the most recent statistics I could find, is about 7.3 million.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/tables/11s0708.pdf
For those who went to public school in California, that comes to about $450,000 per poor family. So sorry, poor families! Only $450,000 available for you. Unless, of course, it gets spent on programs like those in this post.
Oct '10
Re: Government's Just A Word For Things We Choose To Do Together
So, then, I guess "business" and "corporation" are just words for things a subset of us choose to do together, for a profit? One big difference is that businesses don't compel anyone to do anything against their will, or at least, can't use the force of law to do so (unless, of course, you've merged with government, a la GE and Goldman Sachs).
The other big difference is that businesses provide much more value, because if they can't, they go away.
Jun '10
Re: Government's Just A Word For Things We Choose To Do Together
"There oughta be a law" against ever encroaching government interference in our daily lives.
Oh wait, the "there oughta be a law" mentality might be what's gotten us into this over-regulated mess in the first place.
Oct '10
Re: Government's Just A Word For Things We Choose To Do Together
You and Anne Coulter got it right: government has become the things we do together as a liberal mob!
Jan '11
Re: Government's Just A Word For Things We Choose To Do Together
No. That’s a classic obfuscation. It has just enough truth within it to make it persuasive, but it deliberately leaves off a crucial distinction. The truth is that while government certainly is something we do together, that’s not all that it is. It isn’t an open-ended agreement to do anything or everything under the sun.
Government carries authority, and its authority conflicts with individual freedom. Other forms of government ask the individual to surrender their freedom to maximize government authority. The American system does exactly the opposite. We restrict government authority to its barest minimum so as to maximize individual freedom. In our system, government certainly has authority, and it certainly comes from the consent of the governed, but that consent was only given so long as the authority is kept restricted.
To push it all into a fuzzy and vague “just stuff we do together” is an attempt to have all of the authority but none of the restrictions.
Re: Government's Just A Word For Things We Choose To Do Together
I see the quotation comes from Barney Frank. The reality is exactly the opposite: government is a form of coerced association, which is why George Washington said: “Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. Government is force; like fire it is a dangerous servant -- and a fearful master.”
And like fire, government is necessary -- Washington and the other Founders understood that. But because of its forced nature, they were very careful to use Separation of Powers, and Federalism to prevent government power from becoming overly concentrated. That obviously is no concern for Barney Frank, who led the disastrous use of government power to fuel the housing bubble, and then led the government's effort to "reform" financial markets, which will prove equally disastrous.
Dec '10
Re: Government's Just A Word For Things We Choose To Do Together
It used to be that government was what we could not do individually. Now it's what we don't have the stomach to do any other way.
Dec '10
Re: Government's Just A Word For Things We Choose To Do Together
"government's just a word for things we choose to do together."
I guess that is technically true. You chose to put a gun to my head and ask me to give you my wallet. I chose to give you my wallet rather than get my head blown off. Yay cooperation!!
May '10
Re: Government's Just A Word For Things We Choose To Do Together
Adam's got it; the key distinction is coercion. More importantly, it's coercion with lasting impact, effecting the freedom and rights of the person being coerced. One can be fired from a company or expelled from some other voluntary association, but government can lock you up, take away your property and apply real force that other associations cannot employ.
There are many ways to do important things "together" that do not require resort to government force. Churches and charities aid the hungry and afflicted, cooperatives build important infrastructure for commerce, and, for most of our history, people have found fulfilling and profitable work in non-government activities. It's a very dangerous delusion to believe that government is the means of accomplishing any task bigger than an individual.
One would need to have very limited experience with the world to believe such a foolish thing.