The curruption will (did) prevail - rant

RickW

@mr s said:

The other 98% are interested only in TV, Sports and Sex etc. In so far as they do take an interest in politics, they like it presented to them in simple soap-opera style.
A simple telegenic appearance with meaningless catchphrases such as "Change" and a wife whose fashion choices can be discussed endlessly are on about the level required for most.

That's about right, thanks to our dumbed-down government-run education system and our leftist news/entertainment industry, which teach us to trust the government to take care of us.

I personally am sick of the rhetoric that the government will solve our problems and the media's complicity in spreading that message. The government can't even solve its own problems (deficit spending, public debt, overinflated bureaucracy, gross inefficiency), much less ours. And yet, we (collectively) have been conditioned to believe we can't take care of ourselves.

How, then, is it even conceivable that for over 150 years, the US managed to survive without government welfare, government healthcare, government retirement pay, government work programs, and other government fiscal insanity?

The Constitution was established for certain stated purposes, namely to create and set the limits of a new national government for the USA. In outlining the form of that national government, it stated the following reasons and goals for that government:

form a more perfect union (the new form of national government dictated by the Constitution, as compared to that under the Articles of Confederation)
establish justice (through the court system)
ensure domestic tranquility (through the rule of law, not the rule of majority)
provide for the common defense (strong military)
promote the general welfare (not "provide" - the government should create an environment of success, partly by regulating fair practices, but primarily by staying out of the way of what the people can and should do for themselves and each other)
secure the blessings of liberty (liberty being the freedom that comes from a limited government. More government equals less liberty)
And what has happened since 1787?

@unknownuser said:

Paradoxically enough, the release of initiative and enterprise made possible by popular self-government ultimately generates disintegrating forces from within. Again and again after freedom has brought opportunity and some degree of plenty, the competent become selfish, luxury-loving and complacent, the incompetent and the unfortunate grow envious and covetous, and all three groups turn aside from the hard road of freedom to worship the Golden Calf of economic security. The historical cycle seems to be: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to dependency; and from dependency back to bondage once more.

At the stage between apathy and dependency, men always turn in fear to economic and political panaceas. New conditions, it is claimed, require new remedies. Under such circumstances, the competent citizen is certainly not a fool if he insists upon using the compass of history when forced to sail uncharted seas. Usually so-called new remedies are not new at all. Compulsory planned economy, for example, was tried by the Chinese some three milleniums ago, and by the Romans in the early centuries of the Christian era. It was applied in Germany, Italy and Russia long before the present war broke out. Yet it is being seriously advocated today as a solution of our economic problems in the United States. Its proponents confidently assert that government can successfully plan and control all major business activity in the nation, and still not interfere with our political freedom and our hard-won civil and religious liberties. The lessons of history all point in exactly the reverse direction. - Henning W. Prentis, Industrial Management in a Republic, p. 22 (1943)

Are we now in that stage between apathy and dependency? Economic woes have caused many to look to the government for a panacea. A charismatic leader said he could help government make that happen. Each new government program, each new entitlement pushes society further into dependency and that much closer to bondage. It's disconcerting to realize that equally describes 1930s Germany as well as modern day America. Would that we could learn from history before we find ourselves condemned to repeat it.

chango70

Personaly 'bondage' to government that people voted for is better than 'bondage' that would happen to any other powers that be without representation. Remember modern government came from feudal serfdom. Which do you think is worse? Oh I forgot the US has rather short memory. I can never understand this blind devotion to private enterprise. Even Adam Smith warned against the dangers of unfettered private enterprise. If you ever get to watch the documentary it is pretty conclusive that financial institutions abuse of 'securitization' are to blame for the current financial crises.