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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.
Discussion (27)
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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.
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what does (a) mean? What is covered by (a) that is not covered by (c)??
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I suppose it’s an offshoot of protecting the right to life, with its attendant issues.
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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:
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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 . . .
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