government.. the is and the ought...

according to the conservative/GOP, the government is too large, too inept
and not useful because the individual knows better about their own interest
then the government…

but that is a false understanding of what the government actual does…

so what does the government do?

the government does what the individual cannot do by themselves…

let us take a simple fact of life… the removal of bodily waste…

we have fancy sewage plants that take care of our bodily waste…
(in fact, I worked at one about 30 or so years ago)
we do this collectively because it is far safer to do this instead of
everyone taking care of their own waste… that would be what cities
like London and Paris and Rome did for centuries and it cause many
outbreaks of diseases that killed hundreds of thousands of people
every year…so from a safety standpoint is is far safer for the
government to take care of this then by any individual method…

so, the conservative argument here isn’t valid…and it allows the
individual to take care of the important business of our lives, instead
of mucking about the… crap…government is doing us all, a real service…

conservatives hold that the individual knows more about what is best for
the individual, but I ask, is the government “intervention” here really
an example of “government being the problem” as conservatives claim?

we have government that takes care of all those things that we as individuals,
are unable to deal with…

so let us take another example… protection… we know that this protection is
both personal and collective… take the local police as the personal idea of protection
and take the military as a collective protection agency…

let us take the conservative argument that the individual knows what is best
for themselves and government needs to butt out of individuals lives…
but to police, either individually or collectively takes money and organization…
both of which comes from the… wait for it… the government…how can
the individual be able to protect themselves if they are also busy doing the day to
day stuff that we individuals do? If I am at work, how can I protect my house?
if I take a trip to the next state, how does my house remain protected?

I don’t see how outside of a government force of some kind, like police
or the military…the wealthy can just hire a private security force, which is
what they did for centuries and still do today… and that is great if you
are wealthy, but what if you are not?

for those of us who are not wealthy enough to hire a private security force,
the government is, is part of the solution… and not the problem…

now if the individual knows what is best for themselves and government cannot/
and must not interfere… then when a women is pregnant and she should be the judge
of what is best for her, why do conservatives suddenly walk away from their principle of
the individual knows best about what is in their own best interest?

or perhaps we could take gay marriage, if the ideal that the individual knows
what is best for them, why then do we need the government to establish laws
against gay marriage? whatever happened to the individual knowing what is best
for themselves and government should or shouldn’t interfere based on the individual
knows best?

how does the conservative justify this governmental power based on the concept
of “the individual knows best”?

so it seems that the conservative zigs and zags on the case of “the individual
knows best” depending on the conservative take on the situation… another words,
a relativistic viewpoint… depending on the situation… but wait, isn’t that
what the GOP accuses the liberals of doing all the time? that liberals have
no clear and solid ideals to base their theories on…that the liberals just make shit up…
isn’t that exactly what the conservative does in the case of abortion and gay rights?
or really any “social issue” the bases of the “culture wars” over the last 50 years?

government needs to stay out of people business unless, I deem it necessary such
as in abortion or gay rights…

so, let us take another idea… taxes… the ideal for decades was a government
small enough to drown in a bathtub, which meant very small amount of taxes
or no taxes…and yet, the presidents that have blown up the budget have
been the GOP presidents… Raygun, Bush jr. IQ45… in fact, Bush Jr.
was handed a surplus and blew it all on massive tax cuts while expanding the
role of the government…you would think that as a conservative, he would actually
know better? you would think?

so, why is it that it is the Dem’s presidents that reduce the deficit
and not the conservative president’s?

I offer up one reason, that the role of the government is really whatever the
conservatives deems necessary at the moment…the relativistic belief in the value
of the government at that moment… it isn’t a fixed idea, but a random, floating idea
of the scope and place of the government…that doesn’t sound like any real principles
in action to me?

when put into context, the conservative actually don’t hold any real or solid
principles…

so what ought the government to be?

not what it is…

Kropotkin