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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (6292)	12/7/2005 11:21:11 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542148

As long as you mentioned my name... <g> Ah, and hello there to you, Karen. A quick response. Tim didn't say that government sometimes gets it wrong, that sometimes it funds things a given set of taxpayers don't approve of. Rather he said "extortion" was at the core of government. My response is simply to say that the things I listed are at the core and I hardly see them as "extortion." One can, of course, and I didn't wish to do that in my post with Tim, take the argument to the next level, into an argument about process. And that would be that it's not "extortion" even if I don't like it, so long as there is some sort of minimal democratic accountability for those expenditures. I think, for instance, the money now being paid to the very rich under the misnomer of "tax breaks" is very, very bad policy for which we will all suffer down the road. But I'm still willing to accept the argument that there is sufficient, if little, democratic process still around to make it possible to reverse that down the road. Minimal.

To: Lane3 who wrote (6292)	12/7/2005 11:24:25 AM
From: Dale Baker	Respond to of 542148

Trying to make all levels of government palatable for all 280 million people they serve ain't gonna happen. If we conducted popular referenda on individual budget items, you might eliminate some pork. But everyone would want more spending for their district and less "waste" elsewhere. Another reason I left government was the lack of popular support, even if you were doing something very useful and worthwhile. All we get is Archie Bunker in the armchair bitching and moaning about generalities. Who needs it? Of course, if the allegedly talented people do leave government early on, the remainder has that many more bored time-servers, the kind you like to hate. If everyone voted against their incumbent Congressman next fall, we might get a change of mindset inside the Beltway. Otherwise we stay with the disconnect between what people say they don't like and what they actually vote for. I still think the enemy is us, ultimately.

To: Lane3 who wrote (6292)	12/7/2005 11:26:18 AM
From: epicure	Respond to of 542148

Look, the government at this moment is spending money on a war which I completely disagree with. But just because a certain administration may be stupid (imo) does not mean I throw out the instruments of government. An army is a good thing to have- because when you need one you really need one. And even though the Bush administration is horrible, in just about every way, the tools they use are important. I'm not going to throw out education, because I don't like the emphasis on testing. I'm not going to throw out the NSA or the CIA because they pandered to Bush. I'm not even going to mind paying the men and women in the military, and I'm also going to believe that we should do the very best for them, because even if I disagree with WHAT they are doing, I recognize them as a valuable tool in the hands of better presidents. Most of us get much more in services from the government than we could afford if we paid privately. I know that our family does. When I add up the services for education for my children, the college education I received (at a CSU and a UC campus), and the one my husband received (at two CSU's, for two degrees), the various federal and state services we have utilized over the years, we've probably gotten our benefits back in tangible ways- but even if we haven't gotten them back personally, I have gotten them back in other ways- the people who I interact with are not completely ignoramuses because they were educated in public schools, my community is served with essential services, and the poor and indigent are taken care of, as is the public health, and environment- I appreciate the monitoring of my food, my water quality, the safety of the products I buy, the AMAZING job the FDA does in regulating medicine- even though it's not perfect, I certainly could not afford to do that on my own. I notice the dentist I went to yesterday was a UC graduate. The vet we took our cat to on Monday was from Davis (as are most vets in California). Most of the professionals I see, year in year out, have been educated at California public colleges. I could be churlish and turn on government because it doesn't do everything I want it to do (even as I take advantage of the peace and stability and resources provided by the government) but that would be gross hypocrisy. I don't know anyone who isn't sucking down off the government udders- either because they've been employed by the government (fed, state, local), or someone they know is employed, or they were educated by the government, and/or their children were, or they are receiving government benefits, or their children are, or they enjoy police, fire, ambulance, the National Parks, the federal highways, museums, public television, NASA (and any spinoffs from Nasa- shall we get in to those? It's quite a list... And then there are investments in companies that have used these spinoffs), or their business, or a relatives business has contracts with the government. So while people who are taxed for things they "disapprove" of could experience distress, my guess is they aren't adding in all the benefits they, and their families, and their communities enjoy- nor are they figuring in how very different our society might look with the stability of large government programs.