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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Koligman who wrote (36432)	5/3/2014 3:16:43 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Recommended By i-node Respond to of 42652

GM is simply the latest 'prime example' in my view of why we do need regulation Bad example, as GM is fairly heavily regulated (and has had extra government influence on top of that because of the bailouts), and also because what it is facing now is primarily liability, not a regulatory response. More generally all sorts of people will make poor or selfish decisions, but that also includes the people making the decision within government (and those influencing the government). ---- "The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? The organizers maintain that society, when left undirected, rushes headlong to its inevitable destruction because the instincts of the people are so perverse. The legislators claim to stop this suicidal course and to give it a saner direction. Apparently, then, the legislators and the organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; if so, let them show their titles to this superiority. " - Frédéric Bastiat, 'The Law' "But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions." - James Madison, 'The Federalist No. 51'