The Question:To you, an individual, what is the purpose of Government? What do you believe government is supposed to do? What do you see as it's fundamental responsibilities? Read this not as "What is the Federal/State/Local government of the US supposed to provide/accomplish." This is on a much more general level.

Why I ask: It has become painfully obvious in threads across the SB that very few of us agree on what government should be, or if we even need government in the first place. However, we never really get to the root of those differences. I'm curious to find what the foundation looks like with which we build our arguments and views.

Thoughts to consider:
Should government be given sovreign power? How should this power be administered and concentrated? Amassed with a few or dispersed across many? What's to stop abuse and corruption?

What services, if any, should a government provide to its people? Protection/Security? Protection from what? Should it grant rights or restrict actions?

Should it have the power to regulate? Economy? Technology? Industry and production? Environment?

How should the government pay for the things that you think it should do? Where does it get the money? Who does it get it from?

Who should recieve the benefit of these services the government provides? Everyone? A select few? How do you determine who gets what?

Is there anything a government should NEVER do?

Where do you think your views fall on the scale of civic systems? Why?

---===---

I could think of some more questions, but I think I've got enough down to get things moving. I'm also working on my own response to this, and I'll post it soon. Hopefully someone has something to say.

7/25/2007 10:56:10 AM

I actually agree with the Constitution on this one.

THe government has the right to defend the nation and manage the economy (via official currency).


That's it. Everything else should be done locally.

7/25/2007 11:00:04 AM

and what do you think should be done "locally", he didn't specifically say federal government in the post.

7/25/2007 11:01:54 AM

Quote :

"I actually agree with the Constitution on this one. THe government has the right to defend the nation and manage the economy (via official currency)."

exactly, this way states can enact laws that best fit the culture/beliefs of their area w/o being under an oppressive blanket administration

the government (especially federal) should be invisible most of the time, but we are in an age now where the federal government regulates everything.

7/25/2007 11:05:02 AM

you're still not answering the question of what government should do in general.

7/25/2007 11:11:29 AM

Local governments can do what they want to as elected by their populous. I think all local issues should be on the ballot.

7/25/2007 11:12:33 AM

and why don't you answer his motherfucking question if we're not doing a good enough job.

7/25/2007 11:13:14 AM

Quote :

"you're still not answering the question of what government should do in general. "

there is no right answer, which is why putting individual states in the drivers seat to govern as the majority of that particular state's populus sees fit is better than the federal gov making blanket laws, that may be great for one area but terrible for another.

7/25/2007 11:22:58 AM

I'm actually curious about the basic things which transcend the level at which government operates (local, state, federal, world). Each level obviously contains situations unique to the individual level. If you want to get that detailed in your explaination then feel free. But the intent of the original post was not to make it a battle between the levels and scopes of government.

7/25/2007 11:26:29 AM

Quote :

"THe government has the right to defend the nation and manage the economy (via official currency)."

Agreed, but that's a slippery slope. By saying "defend the nation" that obviously includes war, but what about homeland security. Their jurisdiction obviously reaches far and wide, and has to do with things like FEMA, INS and other such agencies. So then do those organizations trump anything that a state or local government want to do?

They've definitely had their share of disagreements since the agency's inception.

7/25/2007 11:27:18 AM

to go to war for private economic interests

7/25/2007 11:28:29 AM

^^congress should be making all these decisions, and congress is represented by the states so they would have a say.......really, ideally, state governments serve the interests of their citizens, and the Federal government serves the interest of the states, so it should be nothing more than the means through which the states make collective decisions on war or the economy.




[Edited on July 25, 2007 at 11:32 AM. Reason : ^]

7/25/2007 11:31:28 AM

how ever you cut it, as long as we go in and take what we want

7/25/2007 11:32:44 AM

^if it were ran correctly something like that should be somewhat representative of the collective citizens views, as opposed to decisions made for the benefit of a few at the top. and if the majority of citizens truly wanted to do something like that i wouldn't have a problem with the decision (even if i disagreed).

7/25/2007 11:37:00 AM

i don't get my shit fucked up when I walk down the street

i'm posting what I want to in a public forum

i can walk into almost any building and get a clean drink of water

things are pretty fucking swell

7/25/2007 11:43:13 AM

No they're not... the government raped me for $1400 this month alone. Things aren't swell

7/25/2007 12:16:51 PM

Quote :

"No they're not... the government raped me for $1400 this month alone. Things aren't swell"

You also got a decent education, drive on pretty nice roads, eat fairly safe food, have a pension and healthcare when you get old, etc. Shit ain't free... unless you are one of the idiots who think socialized healthcare is "free"

7/25/2007 1:11:38 PM

But...but...that's my money! And I'm not in school or old right now, so why should I be having to pay? And I don't need decent roads, I drive an SUV so I can roll over the bumps. This is bullshit. Wah wah wah.

7/25/2007 1:32:03 PM

One sentence:

The government's responsibility is to ensure the well-being of its citizens.

this includes:

1) ensure their human and civil rights are not infringed upon
2) ensure they are healthy
3) ensure they are safe, from each other and from other nations and entities
4) ensure they are educated
5) ensure they have the opportunity to work
6) ensure that those who do work do not have 1-5 infringed upon by their employers
7) ensure the national economy is healthy
8) ensure the national sovereignty is never questioned
9) ensure the peoples' right to decide who governs them

7/25/2007 1:37:00 PM

^i disagree with a large portion of that...

there is no blanket, cover-all answer for that question.....each society has a different view of what the government is responsible for.

7/25/2007 1:54:15 PM

GrumpyGOP is right. In exchange for the few good things government does for us, we should be willing to pay any price. Conscription, confiscation of wages and property, anything. My god, government only takes half of everything produced every year, it is a small price to pay.

Some idiots will point out that of the 50% government takes, only a fraction was used to build roads, schools, police, retirement, defense, food safety, product safety, drug safety, etc. etc. We should be proud to spend billions of dollars building bridges we will never use, convention centers we will never sit in, tea-cub museums we will never see, junkets for politicians, billions of dollars in subsidies to farmers, businesses, crooks, liers, and the like.
[/sarcasm]

7/25/2007 2:27:56 PM

I'm inclined to say that the feds should stay away from everything aside from protecting sovereignty and aiding the economy as necessary. But then I wonder about all of the things like the Eerie Canal, Panama Canal, transcontinental railroad, interstates, etc that have done great things for the economy but wouldn't have happened were it not for a larger power that had the authority to make it happen.

I also wonder how a federalist government would fair in a modern globalized world were borders are becoming less and less meaningful.

7/25/2007 2:56:16 PM

Broadly speaking, a government should have the power and responsibility to do whatever is best to the people it represents. It should be able to enforce justice, maintain safety for its citizens against external harm, and protect the political freedoms of its citizens. I also agree with other institutions that are generally beneficial but can't always be privately controlled for-profit or impartially, like roads, education, and environmental protection. Other than that, leave shit alone.

There also needs to be a LOT of accountability.

7/25/2007 3:00:17 PM

Quote :

"LoneSnark All American 6619 Posts user info edit post block user GrumpyGOP is right. In exchange for the few good things government does for us, we should be willing to pay any price. Conscription, confiscation of wages and property, anything. My god, government only takes half of everything produced every year, it is a small price to pay. Some idiots will point out that of the 50% government takes, only a fraction was used to build roads, schools, police, retirement, defense, food safety, product safety, drug safety, etc. etc. We should be proud to spend billions of dollars building bridges we will never use, convention centers we will never sit in, tea-cub museums we will never see, junkets for politicians, billions of dollars in subsidies to farmers, businesses, crooks, liers, and the like. [/sarcasm]"

The irony is, this guy would be one of the first to get fucked up without the government ensuring the state of our well being in this country.

7/25/2007 3:17:37 PM

Quote :

"There also needs to be a LOT of accountability"

with that, Shivan Bird wins this thread.

7/25/2007 3:25:20 PM

Quote :

"But then I wonder about all of the things like the Eerie Canal, Panama Canal, transcontinental railroad, interstates, etc that have done great things for the economy but wouldn't have happened were it not for a larger power that had the authority to make it happen."

Who says it wouldn't have happened? When market forces demand that a shipping route be built, there would have been someone to profit off of that.

7/25/2007 4:41:03 PM

^ So every major road/waterway/railway would have a hefty toll.

7/25/2007 5:16:21 PM

Quote :

"^i disagree with a large portion of that... there is no blanket, cover-all answer for that question.....each society has a different view of what the government is responsible for."

we're not talking about society, the question was to you as an individual

Quote :

"I'm inclined to say that the feds should stay away from everything aside from protecting sovereignty and aiding the economy as necessary."

what about civil rights? what about when business does what it always does when left alone, treats people like shit?

i honestly believe my statement is exactly what government is for, why do you think government ever came about to begin with? certainly started off as a way to pool resources so that more could be sustained in a population

7/25/2007 5:33:38 PM

Quote :

"what about civil rights? what about when business does what it always does when left alone, treats people like shit?"

Obviously you'll stop doing business with them in a perfectly free market. And if they manage to kill a few thousand people before the public gets around to stopping doing business with them, oh well, thats just the cost of freedom.

7/25/2007 5:50:42 PM

Git Off Mah Land!

7/25/2007 7:47:20 PM

Quote :

"Obviously you'll stop doing business with them in a perfectly free market. And if they manage to kill a few thousand people before the public gets around to stopping doing business with them, oh well, thats just the cost of freedom."

So then the question is not so much what is the purpose of government, the question is, what is the price of freedom, and how free is that?

In your world view you find it completely horrific that a few thousand people might die before a shitty business finally dies, but let thousands more be killed in the name of privacy. Isn't that just another "cost of freedom"?

7/25/2007 9:11:49 PM

Quote :

"^ So every major road/waterway/railway would have a hefty toll."

Well, probably not hefty, but they would have a price.

It's not like it changes much. The roads cost money to build, someone paid for it. Would life really be worse if instead of taxing the poor through property taxes the roads were actually paid for by those that use them?

And it's not like toll-booths are the only way of doing things. Cars would be sold with EZ-passes built in, allowing road companies to debit your account directly.

Then again, most roads will be free, paid for through access fees. For example, the roads in your neighborhood are maintained by the homeowners association; the road to the highway is maintained through an annual fee paid by your homeowners association to the private company in exchange for access rights; it is only for travelling on the highway that you will need your EZ pass account for every trip.

^ If a business is going to kill thousands of people, it is going to do it whether or not the government is regulating them or not. As no one sane enough to run a successful business would voluntarily ruin themselves, we must conclude the owner had no idea his actions would cause the deaths. As such, if the business owner himself has no idea he is going to kill thousands, how would some government bureaucrat know?

Sometimes people die and entrepreneurs lose everything. The sad part is, bueaucrats routinely pass rules that cause businesses to kill people everyday, yet it is the business owners that get blamed.

[Edited on July 25, 2007 at 9:58 PM. Reason : .,.]

7/25/2007 9:50:12 PM

Quote :

"A government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. -- Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801"

7/25/2007 10:49:36 PM

Quote :

"2) ensure they are healthy"

Cherokee

What, by sending out the food police?



PS: In addition to providing for the national defense, don't forget about property rights! I prefer a modified laissez-faire approach by our government, thank you.

7/25/2007 11:25:15 PM

I saw this earlier on CNN but could only find the story on Foxnews:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290852,00.html

Quote :

"DEA Raids 10 Los Angeles Medical Marijuana Clinics Thursday, July 26, 2007 LOS ANGELES — Federal agents raided 10 marijuana clinics Wednesday, the same day city leaders introduced a measure calling for an end to the crackdown on the dispensaries allowed under state law. The bust netted five arrests, large quantities of marijuana and cash, and was the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's second-largest since California voters approved medical marijuana sales in 1996. The drug remains illegal under federal law."

Positions on medical marijuana aside, it bugs the hell out of me that the feds can come in and bust heads over something that a state has voted to legalize.

7/26/2007 3:17:23 PM

So if a state voted to legalize slavery that would be okay?

7/26/2007 3:52:01 PM

Slavery isn't a victimless crime.

7/26/2007 3:59:28 PM

^^ Ask me again when you actually get a state to do so.

7/26/2007 4:01:10 PM

Quote :

"There also needs to be a LOT of accountability"

See, I think that this alone would improve even our current goverment three-fold. If politicians were actually forced to accept responsibility for their fuck-ups instead of being allowed to sleeze their way through the system, I would think that that would prove to be a powerful deterant to mismanaging taxpayer money.

Back on topic, I think that the federal government is responsible for national defense (ie military) and maintaing a strong economy. Regulatory agencies are a good idea and do provide necessary protection for consumers, but we need to make sure that those appointed to positions within the agencies are not hand-picked by the government itself. I do think that the interstate system is one of the good things that the federal government has done, but I dislike how it uses the threats of yanking highway money in order to get states to bend to its will. The "power of the purse strings" is a power that should be left for the lower, more local levels of government, not the high levels. I do think that deficit spending is something that NO level of government should be allowed to do, and even during times of emergency it should only be allowed sparing use.

And finally, despite being a somewhat vocal libertarian in the past, I would now argue that the federal government is also responsible for insuring that all of its citizens have adequate, affordable health care. Somebody somewhere else put it in better words that me; health care is not one of those things that should be left to the free market/capitalism. Those sytems assume that an exchange takes place such that if you do not like what the other party is offering, you can go somewhere else. But if you're dying and you need surgery/medicine asap, you don't have time to shop around. Being forced to choose between death and shitty, inadequate care that might kill you anyway is not a fair choice. It shouldn't be too much to ask that you be able to get adequate care when you need it. You should never have to negociate to get cancer cut out of your body.

All other powers and responsibilities should be left to individual states.

7/26/2007 4:17:51 PM

Quote :

"If a business is going to kill thousands of people, it is going to do it whether or not the government is regulating them or not. As no one sane enough to run a successful business would voluntarily ruin themselves, we must conclude the owner had no idea his actions would cause the deaths. As such, if the business owner himself has no idea he is going to kill thousands, how would some government bureaucrat know? "

that is a pretty ignorant statement. Regulation keeps business from engaging in practices that hurt more than it helps. Medical waste dumping? People might not die from that for 40 years but we know we shouldn't do it. Yet if it saves a business money, they will more often than not just start dumping.

Quote :

"What, by sending out the food police? "

immunizations, healthcare, medicine

7/26/2007 4:30:15 PM

Quote :

"Slavery isn't a victimless crime."

Point?

Quote :

"it bugs the hell out of me that the feds can come in and bust heads over something that a state has voted to legalize"

Where did you mention anything about victims? (part of the argument against medical marijuana is that it creates victims)

Quote :

"Ask me again when you actually get a state to do so."

Fuck, I seem to remember something called the Civil War, which was about the Federal government coming in a busting heads because certain States wanted something legal and that right was slowly being taken away.

I don't think the states should have greater power than the federal government. The more local you get, the more chance you have of a fuckhead coming to power. Federal Law>State Law>County Law>City Law.

I consider myself a United States citizen, not a citizen of X state. I want the laws in New York to agree with the laws in LA.

7/26/2007 5:01:38 PM

Quote :

"Where did you mention anything about victims?"

Uh...sorry I didn't spell it out for you enough?

7/26/2007 5:10:25 PM

Quote :

"immunizations, healthcare, medicine"

You could save a lot of taxpayer money on healthcare and medicine if you madated that everyone submit a daily log to a government office of what they ate and how much exercise they did and were thrown into jail if they failed to follow government standards.

Quote :

"I consider myself a United States citizen, not a citizen of X state. I want the laws in New York to agree with the laws in LA."

Why bother having states and state laws then? Why not just have an official George Bush (or Hilary Clinton) appointed magistrate to rule over each territory.

Or more accurately, if you want to live under the laws of NY or LA, why not move there?

Maybe if it were the other way around, maybe if State Law > Federal Law, then people would have more control over their lives and politics. Imagine if instead of the president of the US being the most influential election, it was the Mayor?

7/26/2007 5:26:44 PM

Quote :

"You could save a lot of taxpayer money on healthcare and medicine if you madated that everyone submit a daily log to a government office of what they ate and how much exercise they did and were thrown into jail if they failed to follow government standards."

save taxpayer money by funding the jailing of citizens? riight

Quote :

"I consider myself a United States citizen, not a citizen of X state. I want the laws in New York to agree with the laws in LA."

i agree and understand what you are saying. having state laws separate from federal laws is fine with me as long as it is applied to things that do not restrict rights. states allowing marijuana may conflict with the federal government but it doesn't take away any rights. slavery on the other hand violates human rights

7/26/2007 5:45:27 PM

^ Well, you also have to realize that idealy, if we were forcing people to eat and exercise, our prison system would be hell on earth or at least a forced labor camp. So either it will only cost us a few pennies a month or it will generate money.

7/26/2007 5:57:22 PM

Quote :

"I don't think the states should have greater power than the federal government. The more local you get, the more chance you have of a fuckhead coming to power. Federal Law>State Law>County Law>City Law."

And the more national you get, the lower the chance you have of escaping the fuckheads.

But it does beg the question. It turns out fuckheads are kinda rare in American politics (unless you are of the mind that all politicians are fuckheads). It is really so terrible to have marijuana legalized in California? Is it really a threat to national unity to let Arizona have an 80mph speed limit?

If people are happiest when they are able to live in an area where the laws are most similar to what they want, then only Federalism allows for that. If the country is divided perfectly 50%/50% on a contentious issue, such as abortion, then no matter what happens 50% of us will be pissed. But if it is a state issue, then when we find out that 90% of Californians want legalized abortion, while 90% of Mississippians want it illegal, then 90% of those living in the two states will be happy, a victory for democracy.

7/26/2007 7:35:46 PM

^i agree completely accept for your point about abortion. women should have the right to choose. it is THEIR body. but the rest of what you said makes absolute sense

7/26/2007 9:02:13 PM

lol

it was just used as an example

watch out, someone might trample your opinion!!!!!

[Edited on July 26, 2007 at 9:28 PM. Reason : learn your crazy code Aficionado

7/26/2007 9:28:05 PM