Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 40 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
What is government FOR?
I’ve scanned through some Ricochet posts on the purposes of government, but I wanted to add my own take on this topic.
Because lefties seem to have it precisely backward.
Government IS for:
a. Protecting innocents and protecting the weak from being taken advantage of by the strong.
b. Defending the country and its interests abroad and in wartime.
c. Protecting the interests, property, and rights of its own citizens, including controlling its borders.
d. Providing infrastructure for public use.
Government is NOT for:
-Providing healthcare–or a paycheck, or a house, or Internet, or baby gifts, or sanitary products–for all. (Although given their purpose in point a, they may have some role in regulating health care and business practices.)
-Getting rid of poverty. (If they are observing a through d, however, conditions are more ideal for citizens to thrive.)
-Welcoming anyone who wants to come to our country. (Although allowing immigrants may enrich our country culturally and materially, as long as the government is observing c.)
-Coming up with new rights to defend. (See a and c.)
-Having a budget that looks like household spending. (We need b, and can’t be ashamed of that.)
-Providing lots of employment with generous benefits.
-Forcing businesses to do nice things for people.
-Enforcing current culturally acceptable speech and mores.
The left’s support of a-c can be spotty, and to d they add any number of public benefits that are not in the government’s purview.
Where do I get this dichotomy? From what I understand about the birth of our country, the Founding Fathers argued intensively about what the role of government was to be and how much power the federal government was to have. The government’s powers are enumerated in the Constitution, and its signers were leery of tyranny. They certainly did not foresee the scope and size of the projects our government takes on today, nor heard of quirky, philosophically-based endeavors such as the movement to ease women of the burden of buying their own sanitary napkins. For sure there are plenty of gray areas, and I don’t believe that government is bad at everything it undertakes to do. I may tackle the question of government priorities in another post.
What am I missing here? Is there an obvious, unarticulated e? Can you make better arguments as to the emergence of the conservative vision of government?
Now I should go back and read those other Ricochet posts on the topic. Feel free to link those in the comments.
Published in Politics
Regardless of what aspects of essential government functions the public might agree upon, many rights that were the norm just two generations ago have been lost.
Although your points A thru D regarding “What the government is for” are valuable ones, we are moving away from them. I mean, your Point C “Protecting the interests, property, and rights of its own citizens, including controlling its borders” is spot on.
But under Kamala Harris, should she take over the WH after this coming election, or continuing under the “progressive” regimes of governors in NY state, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota and California, gun control is going to go on steroids. Already in California, people defending their homes from burglars are prosecuted. Even in the semi-Red state of Nevada, squatters cannot be moved out unless you the owner want to be charged with a felony for depriving the squatters of their right to occupy the home that you own.
So the average citizen cannot defend themselves from low life criminals whether the crooks are armed or unarmed.
But we average 21st Century citizens also cannot defend ourselves from the criminals inside Fortune 500 companies who steal our lives and fortunes using a fountain pen.
Now during the time period when our system of government was developing, it was understood that capitalism, aka as “free trade” might need some limits applied. So during the 1800’s, there was a movement that brought about the Anti-Trust Act.
Also during that same time period, the country brought in lots of monies raised through tariffs that were in existence.
During more modern times, and starting around the time of Reagan being president, the notion of having anything that might stifle American businesses was frowned upon. Occasionally this monopoly or that one had to face the anti-trust aspects of its operations. (Witness the governments anti-trust lawsuit against MicroSoft and the young Bill Gates.)
But although there are still on the books laws regulating businesses, the fact remains that since several industries have become such behemoths it can be difficult and even impossible to force them to obey America’s laws. Try to sue a large bank, or a big insurer, or an entity like MicroSoft or Verizon, and the individual attempting such will realize few law firms are willing to take on such powerful adversaries.
So businesses are currently rather unregulated.
Vast segments of governmental agencies also operate outside of US laws. People whose homes were incinerated in the Oct 8th 2017 firestorm that swept thru Santa Rosa California have discovered that they will not be allowed to re-build the homes that were lost unless the prospective home owners agree to make them smaller. This is because the Sonoma County Planning laws are faithful to “sustainability” doctrines that “less is more” and that people eating bugs will not need as much living space as prior human beings demanded.
These are turbulent times.
The approach that is needed to allow people to once again lead normal lives, with normal civil rights, will demand creative answers. If none are forthcoming, I suspect there will be some type of blowback against the unacceptable forces which we now are being forced to accept.
what does (a) mean? What is covered by (a) that is not covered by (c)??
I suppose it’s an offshoot of protecting the right to life, with its attendant issues.
The Founders would have largely agreed with your list, except for (d). There was a monumental debate over whether the federal government had the power to fund improvements in the several states. (Unfortunately, the pro-improvers won the debate.) Otherwise, I think your list mirrors the “official” one:
Not originally a reason, but it’s practically true now.
If I remember correctly from the vast reading I’ve done over the years, President Eisenhower had to sell the Interstate Highway System as necessary for national defense (the movement of personnel and equipment). The argument was compelling, so the law was passed that started the whole shebang . . .
“The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging his own garden–that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time.”
–CS Lewis
Yep. The interstate system is as unconstitutional as the Louisiana Purchase was.
This is why I talk about “public goods” only even though I don’t think it really gets very far.
Stop force and fraud.
Public goods only.
https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microeconomics/market-failure-and-the-role-of-government/externalities-topic/a/public-goods-cnx
Inflation is a fraud. It’s stealing. There is no way it nets back to most people. They don’t even come close to measuring your properly. Even if they did, it’s just a central planning bogey because it affects people unevenly. Inflation comes from modern central banking that pushes the economy around. Central banks are great if they do one thing and that is back up banks with loan problems at a penalty rate.
I seem to recall the Consitution mentioning postal roads, but that’s about it for infrastructure.
Where do I find principles that would apply to state governments, also? I’m looking for ideas that would undergird a limited government at all levels that would leave citizens alone to flourish as in the Lewis quote.
If you’re a believer, you might look at Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2.
These will not undergird the libertarian ideas that you appear to favor. As a religious matter, I suspect that the Talmud would support those ideas, but I’m not that familiar with the Talmud. As a secular matter, John Locke and Adam Smith, perhaps. Locke actually tries to base his theory on the Bible, and specifically on the story of Jephthah in Judges, but he misinterprets the Scripture badly.
I think those passages are why I prioritize protection of the innocent. I was going to add that I think that is the key role of government. Meanwhile, it is not unbiblical to see additional roles. I think we can reason our way to others.
It started long before that. The Cumberland Road (funded in 1806) was the first major federal government-funded improvement.
The definition of “post road” can become very elastic when you want to build a new road west over the Appalachians and would like for Congress to fund it.
Seems like all they would need would be to cross a state border somewhere, and then it becomes Interstate Commerce.
The original concept (and what we should have stuck with) was that the federal government would pay to build the Interstate Highway system, then it would be up to each state to pay for maintenance and upgrades.
The Erie Canal was an early and successful example of government-funded infrastructure, but IIRC is was the NY state government, not the federal government.
The I&M (Illinois and Michigan) Canal connected Lake Michigan with the Illinois River, and thus via the Mississippi with New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. It just about bankrupted the State of Illinois, though.
I figured that reason A (Protecting innocents and protecting the weak from being taken advantage of by the strong) was a reference to keeping law and order.
On whose purposes?
(The question “What are the purposes of government?” is meaningless because it incorrectly assumes that there can be purposes that are not the purpose of any person.)
I am very interested in your views on the real (meaningful) questions, “What is the purpose of government for X?” where X takes on various values:
– people who are pro-American by philosophical principles and tribally (like Victor Davis Hanson)
– people who are pro-American tribally but not philosophically, except by accident (like Sean Hannity)
– people who are anti-American philosophically and tribally (like Barack Obama)
– people without principles who are driven by their lusts (like Kamala Harris).
@CarolJoy Your response made me think about the issue of what should be done when people’s rights are in conflict.
Yes, and I realized later it’s also the punishment of evildoers.
The word “evildoers” is very apt, but it reminds me of when George W. Bush was mocked for using this word. People on the left tried to disparage him for using a term that they said sounded like it came out of the Batman and Superman comics. But I think they really did not like it because they generally do not think in terms of “good and evil.” They kind of think everybody is the same, hence they can never get a grasp on mass murderers nor terrorists. It’s also why they are so soft on crime.
From our federal government? A jobs program for the permanent bureaucrats so they can avoid the rough and tumble world of the private sector.
Here is what our government is for
they are for protecting the bureaucracy uber alles
Catherine Herridge: Whistleblowers Admit FBI, DOJ Knew Hunter Laptop Was REAL and LIED to HELP BIDEN WIN – Twitchy
That is a pretty good point.
My reading of point a is that it refers, somewhat obliquely, to the sacredness of babies in utero.
But point c covers that as well.
I need to research this more, but I heard something that I thought was pretty thoughtful. You wonder what the difference is between the Democrat party of Scoop Jackson and the senator from New York (that I’m not going to look up) and the Kooks we have now. (He was an academic. Pretty reasonable.)
The far left has it in their head that the world has two opposing dynamics: fascism and total equality. Like literally communism and fascism. They can’t stop thinking about total equality and red distribution so they think everything is too fascist until we get there. That is how they think. So everything keeps moving in this stupid direction.
Having said that I am somewhat sympathetic, but I blame Federal Reserve inflationist stupidity.