The Militant Libertarian

I'm pissed off and I'm a libertarian. What else you wanna know?

Friday, May 23, 2008

Government Solving The People's Problems


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posted by Aaron Turpen @ 2:38 PM  

2 Comments:

  • At 4:51 PM, May 23, 2008 , Blogger Bob King said...

    But on the gripping hand, what justification does government have if it does NOT solve the problems of individuals and therefore maximize their individual liberty?

    Perhaps the problem is one in which the wrong questions are asked and therefore irrelevant answers are given.

    Let us get down to basics - I'll bet you that regardless of your politics, access to affordable health care delivered with some regard to your dignity and with respect to your honor is a boil on your personal ass.

    Or let's take energy prices - which are inarguably affecting your freedom of movement, standard of living and most critically, your choice of employment.

    Or let us consider the War in Iraq - and all the money it sucks out of the economy. That is a tax, regardless of all the phony tax cuts.

    An ideal government is rather like my ideal of an ideal theatrical director, who sees his job as being that of keeping the actors from bumping into one another.

    Of course, that requires rather better qualified actors than this generation seems to have blessed us with, but perhaps that's simply because professionals have more options and prefer not to work with amateurs.

     

  • At 7:41 PM, May 23, 2008 , Blogger Aaron Turpen said...

    Every one of the problems you've listed (health care costs, the "cost" of fuels, and the war) are problems CREATED by government.

    Health care costs what it does now because of government over-regulation and bureaucratic meddling. The average physician would have his or her office costs cut by almost 40% if just the government-mandated paperwork were removed. Imagine what hidden things are also piled up thanks to bureaucrats...

    The supposed cost of fuel has nothing to do with the cost of oil and everything to do with the worthlessness of the dollar. Inflation has caused the dollar to fall in worth and we see it directly in the rising dollars-per-gallon at the pump. It's not the rising cost of fuel, but rather then dropping worth of the dollar we're seeing. Again, government.

    Finally, the war. That one's obvious. I won't bother expounding on it. :)

    I think we're close in our views of what government should do for a living, though. I think that government exists only to arbitrate differences or clashes between one individual and another (whether it be business or personal confrontations). That's it.

    No law making "for the common good" or to force one group to pony up cash for another in wealth redistribution schemes, etc. None of that is what government should be for.

    In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the U.S. Constitution is TOO LOOSE in the powers it allows the federal government!

     

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