R
ribozyme
Guest
What is wrong with the welfare, nanny, managerial state? I thought those were examples of social justice because they adequately care for the vulnerable in society.
- Status
F
ForwardProgress
Guest
I think it’s because it presumes all people are infantile, stupid, and unable to care for themselves without the benevolence of an intellectual few.
M
mapleoak
Guest
Power, control, and ultimately dictatorship and slavery are derived from dependants.
A
Al_Masetti
Guest
Because government in taking away peoples’ freedom also imposes mandatory one-size-fits-all policies and procedures. And you don’t have a choice. You have to do what they (the bureaucrats) say.
Just consider the issue of banning incandescent light bulbs to force everyone to use those curly compact fluorescent bulbs.
And this is only one, and a very tiny example, but it is illustrative.
The Bureaucrats ALREADY have bent over backwards double to force us to get rid of mercury thermometers. And now they are forcing us to bring in those compact fluorescent bulbs … and they have TONS of mercury in them. In some places, if you break one, then “legally” you are supposed to call in a haz mat team for the clean up … at YOUR expense.
And, the curly fluorescent bulbs do NOT last as long as touted. Which is yet another example of bureaucrats lying to convince us of the rightness of their schemes.
And, the curly fluorescent bulbs are SUPPOSED to save energy and money … but … they fail to point out … they ONLY save net energy and money IF they get used several hours per day. And there are lots of places where light bulbs don’t get used several hours per day. But we no longer have choice.
And that’s just the most trivial example of what’s wrong with the nanny state.
You could get into all the terrible problems with big programs such as Medicare and Medicaid … problems that the bureaucrats can’t fix, so they sweep them under the rug.
And there are even worse problems in Europe with their nanny states … that the bureaucrats lie about and then choose to sweep under the rug to hide them.
I’ve worked at two bureaucracies for a total of 15 years. Strange set of circumstances. But bureaucracies only survive by lying and by hiding. They don’t deliver better service and the direct costs are much higher than the free market would charge. If free market companies screw up, they go out of business and we are saved from them by the essential self-limiting nature of private businesses. Happens all the time. But if a government screws up, they just get bigger budgets and more people. Sometimes, they actually change the name of the bureaucracy, so it just looks like there have been positive changes. But nothing changes.
What is needed is transparency.
So all government budgets should be posted to the internet for everyone to examine. Transparency is starting in Texas and Alaska and is spreading elsewhere.
Read Grover Norquist’s book … at www.atr.org “Leave Us Alone”
Also check out www.fairtax.org
Read Neal Boortz’s book on The Fair Tax. www.boortz.com
boortz.com/more/books.html
Government has certain duties and responsibilities … these are set out in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Read those documents; they are remarkably brief.
Those two documents were not come by lightly; a lot of thought went into them.
Does Government have inherent limitations, for example.
Then read “The Federalist Papers”. They explain the detailed rationale for the Constitution.
Look up on Amazon, “The Federalist Papers” and Amazon will come up with a book list explaining the process of the American founding documents in wonderful detail.
Just consider the issue of banning incandescent light bulbs to force everyone to use those curly compact fluorescent bulbs.
And this is only one, and a very tiny example, but it is illustrative.
The Bureaucrats ALREADY have bent over backwards double to force us to get rid of mercury thermometers. And now they are forcing us to bring in those compact fluorescent bulbs … and they have TONS of mercury in them. In some places, if you break one, then “legally” you are supposed to call in a haz mat team for the clean up … at YOUR expense.
And, the curly fluorescent bulbs do NOT last as long as touted. Which is yet another example of bureaucrats lying to convince us of the rightness of their schemes.
And, the curly fluorescent bulbs are SUPPOSED to save energy and money … but … they fail to point out … they ONLY save net energy and money IF they get used several hours per day. And there are lots of places where light bulbs don’t get used several hours per day. But we no longer have choice.
And that’s just the most trivial example of what’s wrong with the nanny state.
You could get into all the terrible problems with big programs such as Medicare and Medicaid … problems that the bureaucrats can’t fix, so they sweep them under the rug.
And there are even worse problems in Europe with their nanny states … that the bureaucrats lie about and then choose to sweep under the rug to hide them.
I’ve worked at two bureaucracies for a total of 15 years. Strange set of circumstances. But bureaucracies only survive by lying and by hiding. They don’t deliver better service and the direct costs are much higher than the free market would charge. If free market companies screw up, they go out of business and we are saved from them by the essential self-limiting nature of private businesses. Happens all the time. But if a government screws up, they just get bigger budgets and more people. Sometimes, they actually change the name of the bureaucracy, so it just looks like there have been positive changes. But nothing changes.
What is needed is transparency.
So all government budgets should be posted to the internet for everyone to examine. Transparency is starting in Texas and Alaska and is spreading elsewhere.
Read Grover Norquist’s book … at www.atr.org “Leave Us Alone”
Also check out www.fairtax.org
Read Neal Boortz’s book on The Fair Tax. www.boortz.com
boortz.com/more/books.html
Government has certain duties and responsibilities … these are set out in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Read those documents; they are remarkably brief.
Those two documents were not come by lightly; a lot of thought went into them.
Does Government have inherent limitations, for example.
Then read “The Federalist Papers”. They explain the detailed rationale for the Constitution.
Look up on Amazon, “The Federalist Papers” and Amazon will come up with a book list explaining the process of the American founding documents in wonderful detail.
A
Al_Masetti
Guest
Government also has a certain responsibility to protect its citizens in time of war (from foreign enemies) and to protect its citizens against crime.
What happens is that often the government FAILS to protect its citizens. So what the bureaucracies do is simple … they redefine their responsibilities.
If they lose a war, they redefine the enemy. The government knew all about al Qaeda prior to 9/11. There had been numerous attacks on the United States even before the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 that killed six people, injured thousands, and caused $200,000,000 in damage. But the bureaucracy just ignored the al Qaeda threat … chose the easy way … and then there were the attacks on the U.S. embassies, the Cole, the barracks, etc. But the bureaucracy just ignored them; the bureaucracy didn’t even translate the documents that were seized by the police and FBI. In fact, to this day, the bureaucracy refuses to hire people with language skills. Because they just don’t have the right college and university degrees.
Instead they set up things like the “Gorelick Wall” that prevented agencies from sharing information.
And then 9/11 happened.
And the bureaucracy still didn’t want to deal with it. They worked overtime to sandbag and backstab. They even invented a new word: stovepiping … you only work within your own agency.
If they can’t arrest criminals, then they redefine criminals … they can’t catch the hard-to-find murderers, so they make it a crime to not fasten your seat belt … and they are really good at catching seat belt offenders. Just one example.
The government can’t prevent murderers from getting guns and they can’t catch murderers. So they go after law abiding citizens and prevent law abiding citizens from having guns for self-protection. In doing so they create a new class of criminals. The murderers still go about getting guns and ignoring the law. But now the government has a new class of easy to catch criminals … the law abiding citizen.
And a lot of the “crimes” allegedly committed by the law abiding citizens involve administrative issues. The law abiding citizens who don’t rob and kill … are now punished because their paperwork isn’t perfect.
But the murderers are free to kill.
So the government invents new crimes. You can’t burn leaves (pollution), but you can burn the American flag (free speech).
All of this is well documented.
What happens is that often the government FAILS to protect its citizens. So what the bureaucracies do is simple … they redefine their responsibilities.
If they lose a war, they redefine the enemy. The government knew all about al Qaeda prior to 9/11. There had been numerous attacks on the United States even before the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 that killed six people, injured thousands, and caused $200,000,000 in damage. But the bureaucracy just ignored the al Qaeda threat … chose the easy way … and then there were the attacks on the U.S. embassies, the Cole, the barracks, etc. But the bureaucracy just ignored them; the bureaucracy didn’t even translate the documents that were seized by the police and FBI. In fact, to this day, the bureaucracy refuses to hire people with language skills. Because they just don’t have the right college and university degrees.
Instead they set up things like the “Gorelick Wall” that prevented agencies from sharing information.
And then 9/11 happened.
And the bureaucracy still didn’t want to deal with it. They worked overtime to sandbag and backstab. They even invented a new word: stovepiping … you only work within your own agency.
If they can’t arrest criminals, then they redefine criminals … they can’t catch the hard-to-find murderers, so they make it a crime to not fasten your seat belt … and they are really good at catching seat belt offenders. Just one example.
The government can’t prevent murderers from getting guns and they can’t catch murderers. So they go after law abiding citizens and prevent law abiding citizens from having guns for self-protection. In doing so they create a new class of criminals. The murderers still go about getting guns and ignoring the law. But now the government has a new class of easy to catch criminals … the law abiding citizen.
And a lot of the “crimes” allegedly committed by the law abiding citizens involve administrative issues. The law abiding citizens who don’t rob and kill … are now punished because their paperwork isn’t perfect.
But the murderers are free to kill.
So the government invents new crimes. You can’t burn leaves (pollution), but you can burn the American flag (free speech).
All of this is well documented.
Perhaps not the best argument, but throughout history every time this state is tried, it ends with tyranny.
S
Swamp_Yankee
Guest
The problem with a nanny state is that it is not the Govt’s job to provide a population with it’s needs. It is your / my responsibility to provide ourselves with our wants and needs, ( thats called Freedom). Freedom to suceed and do well, and even the freedom to fail and fall on our faces. Spare us all from a “compasionate” government. Do you think a beaurocrat in a Washington office knows how you should live your life better than you?
B
bpbasilphx
Guest
**
Just consider the issue of banning incandescent light bulbs to force everyone to use those curly compact fluorescent bulbs.**
Isn’t anybody but me afraid of all the mercury they will be leaking into landfills in a few years?
Just consider the issue of banning incandescent light bulbs to force everyone to use those curly compact fluorescent bulbs.**
Isn’t anybody but me afraid of all the mercury they will be leaking into landfills in a few years?
M
mapleoak
Guest
bpbasilphx;3589270**Isn’t anybody but me afraid of all the mercury they will be leaking into landfills in a few years? [/quote said:
N
Newbie2
Guest
What is wrong with the nanny state?
Absolute power corrupts…absolutely.
Absolute power corrupts…absolutely.
C
Catholic90
Guest
From all those “mandatory” compact fluorescent bulbs.
C
Catholic90
Guest
“They” assume none of us have the intelligence to make our own decisions on anything, so “they” dictate to us what we will do. Freedom is lost. Dictator is in charge.
No thanks.
M
mapleoak
Guest
I would assume that has been happening for as long as fluorescent light bulbs have been around.
C
ComputerGeek25
Guest
Define “Vulnerable”…
The problem is that the bar seems to set really low these days, and keeps getting lower…
Tell me something. If you are an able bodied adult, what prevents you from working?
W
Wolseley
Guest
The only way to understand what’s wrong with a nanny state is to compare it with a country that isn’t a nanny state. Since most of us here in The Great North American Looney Bin do not have the slightest conception of what this might actually be like, I submit for your consideration the following articles, written by Fred Reed, who fled to Mexico because he just…couldn’t…take it any more…
(Note to mods: I am reproducing these articles in their entirety because the site in question does not give direct links…you have to go to the site and scroll through a lengthy menu to find them, which is tedious and frustrating. You can remove the articles if you want per The Rules, I guess…but you’d only be reinforcing what these articles are saying.
)
Article #1:
**I am sad to report that Mexico is the most criminal of countries. Let me illustrate.
Suppose that you were subject to, say, horrendous sinus infections or earaches. In America, by law you would have to get an appointment with a doctor, $75, thank you—when he had time, how about day after tomorrow, whereupon he would give you a prescription for amoxicillin, fifteen bucks and a trip to a pharmacy. If this happened on a Friday, you would either slit your wrists by Saturday evening to avoid the torture, or go to an emergency room, however distant, where they would charge you a fortune and give you a prescription for…amoxicillin.
In Mexico, upon recognizing the familiar symptoms, you would go to the nearest farmacia and buy the amoxicillin. The agony would be nipped in the bud (presuming that agony has buds). The doctor would not get $75, which is against all principles of medicine. The pharmacist would not lose his license, as he would in the United States.
See? Criminality is legal in Mexico. That’s how bad things are.
Another grave crime here is horse abuse. Often you see a Mexican father clopping through town on an unregistered horse—yes: the horror—with his kid of five seated behind him. A large list of crimes leaps instantly to the North American mind. The kid is not in a governmentally sanctioned horse seat. He is not wearing a helmet. The father is not wearing a helmet. The horse is not wearing a helmet. The horse is not wearing a diaper. The horse does not have a parade permit. The horse doesn’t have turn signals. The father does not have a document showing that he went to a governmentally approved school and therefore knows how to operate a horse, which he has been doing since he was six years old.
In Mexico, if you want to ride a horse, you get one, or borrow one. If you don’t know how to ride it, you have someone to show you. Why any of this might interest the government is unclear to everybody, including the government.
You see. Here is the dark underside of Mexico. People do most things without supervision, as if they were adults.
This curious state of affairs, which might be called “freedom,” has strange effects on gringos. Shortly after I moved here, I began to hear little voices. This worried me until I realized that I was next door to a grade school. Daily at noon a swarm of children erupted into the street, the girls chattering and running every which way, the boys shouting and roughhousing and playing what sounded like cowboys and Injuns.
In the United States, half of the boys would be forced to take drugs to make them inert. If they played anything involving guns, they would be suspended and forced to undergo psychiatric counseling, which would in all likelihood leave them in a state of murderous psychopathy. Wrestling would be violence, with the same results.**
(cont’d)
(Note to mods: I am reproducing these articles in their entirety because the site in question does not give direct links…you have to go to the site and scroll through a lengthy menu to find them, which is tedious and frustrating. You can remove the articles if you want per The Rules, I guess…but you’d only be reinforcing what these articles are saying.
)Article #1:
**I am sad to report that Mexico is the most criminal of countries. Let me illustrate.
Suppose that you were subject to, say, horrendous sinus infections or earaches. In America, by law you would have to get an appointment with a doctor, $75, thank you—when he had time, how about day after tomorrow, whereupon he would give you a prescription for amoxicillin, fifteen bucks and a trip to a pharmacy. If this happened on a Friday, you would either slit your wrists by Saturday evening to avoid the torture, or go to an emergency room, however distant, where they would charge you a fortune and give you a prescription for…amoxicillin.
In Mexico, upon recognizing the familiar symptoms, you would go to the nearest farmacia and buy the amoxicillin. The agony would be nipped in the bud (presuming that agony has buds). The doctor would not get $75, which is against all principles of medicine. The pharmacist would not lose his license, as he would in the United States.
See? Criminality is legal in Mexico. That’s how bad things are.
Another grave crime here is horse abuse. Often you see a Mexican father clopping through town on an unregistered horse—yes: the horror—with his kid of five seated behind him. A large list of crimes leaps instantly to the North American mind. The kid is not in a governmentally sanctioned horse seat. He is not wearing a helmet. The father is not wearing a helmet. The horse is not wearing a helmet. The horse is not wearing a diaper. The horse does not have a parade permit. The horse doesn’t have turn signals. The father does not have a document showing that he went to a governmentally approved school and therefore knows how to operate a horse, which he has been doing since he was six years old.
In Mexico, if you want to ride a horse, you get one, or borrow one. If you don’t know how to ride it, you have someone to show you. Why any of this might interest the government is unclear to everybody, including the government.
You see. Here is the dark underside of Mexico. People do most things without supervision, as if they were adults.
This curious state of affairs, which might be called “freedom,” has strange effects on gringos. Shortly after I moved here, I began to hear little voices. This worried me until I realized that I was next door to a grade school. Daily at noon a swarm of children erupted into the street, the girls chattering and running every which way, the boys shouting and roughhousing and playing what sounded like cowboys and Injuns.
In the United States, half of the boys would be forced to take drugs to make them inert. If they played anything involving guns, they would be suspended and forced to undergo psychiatric counseling, which would in all likelihood leave them in a state of murderous psychopathy. Wrestling would be violence, with the same results.**
(cont’d)
W
Wolseley
Guest
**
Here you see the extent to which, narcotically, Mexico lags the great powers. The Soviets drugged inconvenient adults into passivity. America drugs its little boys into passivity. Mexico doesn’t drug anyone.
In fiesta season, which just ended, everybody and his grand aunt Chuleta puts up a taco stand or booze stall on the plaza. Yes: In front of God and everybody. These do not have permits. They are just there. If you want a cuba libre, you give the nice lady twenty pesos and she hands it to you. That’s all. There is in this a simplicity that the North American instantly recognizes as dangerous. Where are the controls? Where are the rules? Why isn’t somebody watching these people? Heaven knows what might happen. They could be terrorists.
If you chose to wander around the plaza, drink in hand, and listen to the band, no one would care in the least, in part because they would be doing the same thing. If you didn’t finish your drink, and walked home with it, no one would pay the least attention.
In America this would be Drinking in Public. It would merit a night in jail followed by three months of compulsory Alcohol School. This would accomplish nothing of worth, but would put money in the pockets of controlling and vaguely hostile therapists, and let unhappy bureaucrats get even with people they suspect of enjoying themselves.
Mexicans seem to regard laws as interesting concepts that might merit thought at some later date. There is much to be said for this. The governmental attitude seems to be that if a thing doesn’t need regulating, then don’t regulate it. Life is much easier that way.
If a law doesn’t make sense in a particular instance, a Mexican will ignore it. Where I live it is common to see a driver go the wrong way on a one-way street to avoid a lengthy circumnavigation. Since speeds are about five miles an hour, it isn’t dangerous. The police don’t patrol because there isn’t enough crime (in my town: the big cities are as bad as ours) to justify it. It works. Everybody is happy, which isn’t a crime in Mexico.
I could go on. In Mexico, legally or not, people ride in the backs of pickup trucks if the mood strikes them. This is no doubt statistically more dangerous than being wrapped in a Kevlar crash-box with an oxygen system and automatic transfusion machine. They figure it is their business.
Here is an explanation of Mexican criminality. The United States realizes that a citizen must be protected whether he wants to be or not—controlled, regulated, and intimidated in every aspect of everything he does, for his own good. He must not be permitted to ride a bicycle without a helmet, smoke if he chooses, or go to a bar where smoking is permitted. He cannot be trusted to run his life.
Have you ever wondered how much good the endless surveillance, preaching, and rules really do? In some states your car won’t pass inspection if there is a crack in the windshield. There are—I don’t doubt?—studies measuring the carnage and economic wreckage concomitant to driving with a cracked windshield. Presumably whole hospitals groan at the seams (if that’s quite English) with the maimed and halt.
Or might it be that the rules are just stupid, the product of meddlesome bureaucrats and frightened petty officials with too much time on their hands? Maybe it would be better if they just got off our backs?
Nah.**
Here you see the extent to which, narcotically, Mexico lags the great powers. The Soviets drugged inconvenient adults into passivity. America drugs its little boys into passivity. Mexico doesn’t drug anyone.
In fiesta season, which just ended, everybody and his grand aunt Chuleta puts up a taco stand or booze stall on the plaza. Yes: In front of God and everybody. These do not have permits. They are just there. If you want a cuba libre, you give the nice lady twenty pesos and she hands it to you. That’s all. There is in this a simplicity that the North American instantly recognizes as dangerous. Where are the controls? Where are the rules? Why isn’t somebody watching these people? Heaven knows what might happen. They could be terrorists.
If you chose to wander around the plaza, drink in hand, and listen to the band, no one would care in the least, in part because they would be doing the same thing. If you didn’t finish your drink, and walked home with it, no one would pay the least attention.
In America this would be Drinking in Public. It would merit a night in jail followed by three months of compulsory Alcohol School. This would accomplish nothing of worth, but would put money in the pockets of controlling and vaguely hostile therapists, and let unhappy bureaucrats get even with people they suspect of enjoying themselves.
Mexicans seem to regard laws as interesting concepts that might merit thought at some later date. There is much to be said for this. The governmental attitude seems to be that if a thing doesn’t need regulating, then don’t regulate it. Life is much easier that way.
If a law doesn’t make sense in a particular instance, a Mexican will ignore it. Where I live it is common to see a driver go the wrong way on a one-way street to avoid a lengthy circumnavigation. Since speeds are about five miles an hour, it isn’t dangerous. The police don’t patrol because there isn’t enough crime (in my town: the big cities are as bad as ours) to justify it. It works. Everybody is happy, which isn’t a crime in Mexico.
I could go on. In Mexico, legally or not, people ride in the backs of pickup trucks if the mood strikes them. This is no doubt statistically more dangerous than being wrapped in a Kevlar crash-box with an oxygen system and automatic transfusion machine. They figure it is their business.
Here is an explanation of Mexican criminality. The United States realizes that a citizen must be protected whether he wants to be or not—controlled, regulated, and intimidated in every aspect of everything he does, for his own good. He must not be permitted to ride a bicycle without a helmet, smoke if he chooses, or go to a bar where smoking is permitted. He cannot be trusted to run his life.
Have you ever wondered how much good the endless surveillance, preaching, and rules really do? In some states your car won’t pass inspection if there is a crack in the windshield. There are—I don’t doubt?—studies measuring the carnage and economic wreckage concomitant to driving with a cracked windshield. Presumably whole hospitals groan at the seams (if that’s quite English) with the maimed and halt.
Or might it be that the rules are just stupid, the product of meddlesome bureaucrats and frightened petty officials with too much time on their hands? Maybe it would be better if they just got off our backs?
Nah.**
W
Wolseley
Guest
Article #2:
**It is possible to become so inured to being told what to do, and how to do it, and who to do it with—to become so accustomed to being told what we can say, what we may publicly believe, what we must seem to think, how we must manage our affairs—that we cease to notice just how regimented we are. We are there. We now accept that very nearly everything whatsoever is the proper domain of government. Why?
For example, if I want to let people bring their dogs into my restaurant, why is it the business of government? It used to be, and may still be, that in rural England people regularly brought the pooch into the local pub. It was nice. Country people know dogs and like them. Why is it the government’s concern?
Frightened minor people will nervously wring damp fingers and say, but oh my goodness, it’s an issue of public health. In the first place, it isn’t. Generations grew up with dogs in the house, with whom children regularly played and occasionally slept. The recorded death rate has thus far been subliminal. Give me a quick list of five kids you remember who died of dog poisoning. In the second place, whose business is it? If I want to risk my life by sharing a bar with a golden retriever, why is it not my risk to take?
If you don’t want to come to my restaurant because a Border Collie upsets you, then…don’t come. How hard is that? Find another restaurant. There are lots. If there aren’t, carry a box lunch. It’s my restaurant, not yours. If nobody comes to my place because of dog-distress, then I will go out of business. That’s my problem. It is not the government’s concern.
Incidentally, I much prefer dogs to drab officious little warts in governmental offices. I have lived with dogs, and found them preferable to bureaucrats on grounds of civility, intelligence, and unintrusiveness. Further, some of them could be trained to make change.
What about smoking? Why is it the government’s business? If I want to let people smoke in my bar, it’s my affair. People who don’t like it can, once again, go somewhere else. I don’t say this truculently. Customers have every right not to patronize establishments that they find disagreeable. If they don’t like the smoke, or the music, or the food, or my ugly mug, that thing in front with the hinges on it is available. A “door,” we call it.
I don’t go to places I don’t like, and don’t expect anyone else to. Why is any of this of concern to the government? To any government? Why must we be eternally diapered by tiresome prisses in power?
For that matter, why does the government have any business telling motorcyclists to wear helmets? The usual, and stupid, answer is that if I fall off and gork myself, the public will have to pay to maintain me on life-support forever. No. In the first place, that’s what insurance is for; in the second, the same argument supports making drivers of cars wear helmets, pay for full roll-cages, wear Nomex suits, and drive at five miles an hour.
In fact I don’t smoke, and I did wear a helmet, and it saved my life in a wreck. My choice, my consequence. Your helmet is not my business. Or vice versa.**
(cont’d)
**It is possible to become so inured to being told what to do, and how to do it, and who to do it with—to become so accustomed to being told what we can say, what we may publicly believe, what we must seem to think, how we must manage our affairs—that we cease to notice just how regimented we are. We are there. We now accept that very nearly everything whatsoever is the proper domain of government. Why?
For example, if I want to let people bring their dogs into my restaurant, why is it the business of government? It used to be, and may still be, that in rural England people regularly brought the pooch into the local pub. It was nice. Country people know dogs and like them. Why is it the government’s concern?
Frightened minor people will nervously wring damp fingers and say, but oh my goodness, it’s an issue of public health. In the first place, it isn’t. Generations grew up with dogs in the house, with whom children regularly played and occasionally slept. The recorded death rate has thus far been subliminal. Give me a quick list of five kids you remember who died of dog poisoning. In the second place, whose business is it? If I want to risk my life by sharing a bar with a golden retriever, why is it not my risk to take?
If you don’t want to come to my restaurant because a Border Collie upsets you, then…don’t come. How hard is that? Find another restaurant. There are lots. If there aren’t, carry a box lunch. It’s my restaurant, not yours. If nobody comes to my place because of dog-distress, then I will go out of business. That’s my problem. It is not the government’s concern.
Incidentally, I much prefer dogs to drab officious little warts in governmental offices. I have lived with dogs, and found them preferable to bureaucrats on grounds of civility, intelligence, and unintrusiveness. Further, some of them could be trained to make change.
What about smoking? Why is it the government’s business? If I want to let people smoke in my bar, it’s my affair. People who don’t like it can, once again, go somewhere else. I don’t say this truculently. Customers have every right not to patronize establishments that they find disagreeable. If they don’t like the smoke, or the music, or the food, or my ugly mug, that thing in front with the hinges on it is available. A “door,” we call it.
I don’t go to places I don’t like, and don’t expect anyone else to. Why is any of this of concern to the government? To any government? Why must we be eternally diapered by tiresome prisses in power?
For that matter, why does the government have any business telling motorcyclists to wear helmets? The usual, and stupid, answer is that if I fall off and gork myself, the public will have to pay to maintain me on life-support forever. No. In the first place, that’s what insurance is for; in the second, the same argument supports making drivers of cars wear helmets, pay for full roll-cages, wear Nomex suits, and drive at five miles an hour.
In fact I don’t smoke, and I did wear a helmet, and it saved my life in a wreck. My choice, my consequence. Your helmet is not my business. Or vice versa.**
(cont’d)
W
Wolseley
Guest
**
Why is the government involved in the schools? If the public schools worked, an argument could be made for them: If children don’t learn to read, they are more likely to end up on the public nipple, which is everybody’s business. In fact, if the schools worked, you wouldn’t have to make an argument for them. In the fifties and early sixties, they did work. They taught the educable to read, did a reasonable job of preparing the bright for college, and did very little else. Which was exactly right.
Today they don’t work—endlessly, badly, overwhelmingly, highly documentably don’t work. They don’t work because they are chiefly means of imposing social agendas for powerful lobbies and of hiding the failures of the swing vote in presidential elections.
Note that government is the cause of the failure. It is government in one form or another that mandates the hiring of low-grade (read certified) teachers, insists on hiring according by color instead of competence, forbids the firing of the demonstrably useless, and mandates the purchase of terrible texts. Government requires teaching to the level of the dullest-witted. Government also prevents the establishment of good schools in competition with itself. Don’t think so? Try to start a school and run it as you wish.
For this we pay taxes?
For that matter, why does the government interfere in the drug trade? When I was on the police beat in Washington a buddy of mine in the DEA estimated that ninety-five percent of drugs shipped to the United States successfully entered the country. That is, the government intercepts drugs roughly as well as it schools children. The difference is that we know how to teach kids, but just don’t do it. Nobody knows how to stop the influx of drugs.
In the Twenties the government tried to stop the sale of hooch. It didn’t work because the public wanted hooch. The same is true of drugs. People want them. That’s why they buy them. (A patented Fred Insight, forty-weight. You could lube bearings with it.) Further, anybody who wants drugs can get them. So why do we spend vast sums and put up with intrusion by a government that pretends to try to do what everyone in the business knows it can’t?
I do not say these things from some evangelical libertarian hostility to all things governmental. When government does something well, I say let it. You want to put little crawly prongy things on Mars to look for water and weird worms or half-eaten sandwiches discarded by space aliens? (I do, actually.) NASA does it well. The gadgets are there. They crawl. They’re prongy. You want to bring back the public schools of 1950? Good. They worked. I’ll vote for you.
Today, what the government ought to do, it does badly, and what it ought not do at all, it does too well—such as snoop, control, meddle, and impose the ways of the unwashed on everyone. And it’s going to get worse. Much worse.**
See the difference?
You can find these articles, and much more superb material, here: fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm
Why is the government involved in the schools? If the public schools worked, an argument could be made for them: If children don’t learn to read, they are more likely to end up on the public nipple, which is everybody’s business. In fact, if the schools worked, you wouldn’t have to make an argument for them. In the fifties and early sixties, they did work. They taught the educable to read, did a reasonable job of preparing the bright for college, and did very little else. Which was exactly right.
Today they don’t work—endlessly, badly, overwhelmingly, highly documentably don’t work. They don’t work because they are chiefly means of imposing social agendas for powerful lobbies and of hiding the failures of the swing vote in presidential elections.
Note that government is the cause of the failure. It is government in one form or another that mandates the hiring of low-grade (read certified) teachers, insists on hiring according by color instead of competence, forbids the firing of the demonstrably useless, and mandates the purchase of terrible texts. Government requires teaching to the level of the dullest-witted. Government also prevents the establishment of good schools in competition with itself. Don’t think so? Try to start a school and run it as you wish.
For this we pay taxes?
For that matter, why does the government interfere in the drug trade? When I was on the police beat in Washington a buddy of mine in the DEA estimated that ninety-five percent of drugs shipped to the United States successfully entered the country. That is, the government intercepts drugs roughly as well as it schools children. The difference is that we know how to teach kids, but just don’t do it. Nobody knows how to stop the influx of drugs.
In the Twenties the government tried to stop the sale of hooch. It didn’t work because the public wanted hooch. The same is true of drugs. People want them. That’s why they buy them. (A patented Fred Insight, forty-weight. You could lube bearings with it.) Further, anybody who wants drugs can get them. So why do we spend vast sums and put up with intrusion by a government that pretends to try to do what everyone in the business knows it can’t?
I do not say these things from some evangelical libertarian hostility to all things governmental. When government does something well, I say let it. You want to put little crawly prongy things on Mars to look for water and weird worms or half-eaten sandwiches discarded by space aliens? (I do, actually.) NASA does it well. The gadgets are there. They crawl. They’re prongy. You want to bring back the public schools of 1950? Good. They worked. I’ll vote for you.
Today, what the government ought to do, it does badly, and what it ought not do at all, it does too well—such as snoop, control, meddle, and impose the ways of the unwashed on everyone. And it’s going to get worse. Much worse.**
See the difference?
You can find these articles, and much more superb material, here: fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm
V
vern_humphrey
Guest
A government that is powerful enough to do everything** for** you is powerful enough to do everything to you.
S
Swamp_Yankee
Guest
A Nanny state creates an enviroment of dependency, dependency on the state. Dependency equals slavery.
- Status