On Government

On Apr 4, 7:54*am, Andrew Usher wrote:
No matter your ideological belief, the dumbest thing of all is
to be anti-government. Government has always existed in
civilisation and will always exist; even if one somehow abolish
government there would be something having the powers of
government, call you it a warlord or whatever. If you refuse to
consider the use of those powers in your cause, then you are
losing, and those that will are winning. True, one could
theoretically get elected positions dominated by those of your
persuasion, but I doubt it is really achievable: purely negative
platforms will never be popular with voters, and anyway choosing
_not_ to pass a law about something is itself a choice: to
accept the status quo.

For what happens in our type of society - whether you call the
reason capitalism or bureaucracy or whatever - is a trend toward
uniformity, so that everyone in the same business (or, any
business appropriately situated) adopts the same fundamental
policies. The reason is most often not direct government
regulation but legal or insurance reasons or simply social
pressure, much like that which enforces standards of appropriate
dress beyond the requirements of modesty (such as the business
suit, etc.). Whatever the reason, the only practical way to
change it would be government policy [1], as it is not possible
to pressure any one actor, and pressuring all of them would take
an impossible amount of effort.

Everyone knows that recently smoking has been outlawed in bars
and restaurants in the US and many other parts of the world, and
not long before it was in other public buildings. This happened
only when government action was taken, despite the fact that the
number of smokers was already a minority and falling. That's one
example of the above principle. Another, which I choose because
it is simple and a large number have been exposed to it, is pre-
employment drug testing. There's a lot of people that oppose it
but I wonder how many would assent to the proposition that the
only way it will change is a law against it. The trouble is that
so many of the people interested in freedom are anti-government;
even if not libertarian or anarchist, they *are influenced by
those prejudice into believing that government action is never
[2] the appropriate solution. Even if one could convince _a
majority_ into protesting the practice, they *would still have
no power to change it - and no one person in big companies has
the power to end it - unless they did it through government.
And, truly, it is not possible to adopt that as a general
strategy even if it would work because most people have no time
to be convinced on the thousands of individual issues that could
be treated the same way, each one of which individually is not
serious enough for people to sacrifice for.

I submit that if you love freedom you must believe that we
should devote government to the task, as unlike the masses, they
do have the time to consider every issue. How that is to be done
is not something I am entirely sure about - unless the solution
were to make me dictator - but I am sure it can't be impossible.

[1] There are seeming exceptions to this in the past e.g. the
civil rights movement. But one must remember that they were
exceptional in that they provided _one_ great cause to rally
round, which could be presented as one of fundamental justice.
Further, one of the main goals that those movements achieved was
government action!

[2] With the possible exception (for those on the Left anyway)
of the 'social justice' movements described in note [1]. The
reason for that is not pertinent to this argument.

Andrew Usher

Our founding fathers warned us not to let banks get to big and end up
with all the money. Bush gave them 3.3 trillion (on CNN TV) We owe
commie China about 2 trillion. The Statue of liberty is crying as USA
has become 100% fascist. If your not goose stepping your dead meat.
Have your ID papers on you,or go directly to jail. Mafia owns and
staffs our jails. Godfather controls congress,and 86% of American's
give congress a thumbs down. GOPer children not in M.E wars. Not even
in Afghan to make sure Mafia's poppies are protected. You can't call
China commie. You won't see the word Mafia in the press,movies or
congressional hearings anymore I wonder why ???? TreBert

On Apr 17, 5:53*am, herbert glazier wrote:
On Apr 4, 7:54*am, Andrew Usher wrote:









No matter your ideological belief, the dumbest thing of all is
to be anti-government. Government has always existed in
civilisation and will always exist; even if one somehow abolish
government there would be something having the powers of
government, call you it a warlord or whatever. If you refuse to
consider the use of those powers in your cause, then you are
losing, and those that will are winning. True, one could
theoretically get elected positions dominated by those of your
persuasion, but I doubt it is really achievable: purely negative
platforms will never be popular with voters, and anyway choosing
_not_ to pass a law about something is itself a choice: to
accept the status quo.

For what happens in our type of society - whether you call the
reason capitalism or bureaucracy or whatever - is a trend toward
uniformity, so that everyone in the same business (or, any
business appropriately situated) adopts the same fundamental
policies. The reason is most often not direct government
regulation but legal or insurance reasons or simply social
pressure, much like that which enforces standards of appropriate
dress beyond the requirements of modesty (such as the business
suit, etc.). Whatever the reason, the only practical way to
change it would be government policy [1], as it is not possible
to pressure any one actor, and pressuring all of them would take
an impossible amount of effort.

Everyone knows that recently smoking has been outlawed in bars
and restaurants in the US and many other parts of the world, and
not long before it was in other public buildings. This happened
only when government action was taken, despite the fact that the
number of smokers was already a minority and falling. That's one
example of the above principle. Another, which I choose because
it is simple and a large number have been exposed to it, is pre-
employment drug testing. There's a lot of people that oppose it
but I wonder how many would assent to the proposition that the
only way it will change is a law against it. The trouble is that
so many of the people interested in freedom are anti-government;
even if not libertarian or anarchist, they *are influenced by
those prejudice into believing that government action is never
[2] the appropriate solution. Even if one could convince _a
majority_ into protesting the practice, they *would still have
no power to change it - and no one person in big companies has
the power to end it - unless they did it through government.
And, truly, it is not possible to adopt that as a general
strategy even if it would work because most people have no time
to be convinced on the thousands of individual issues that could
be treated the same way, each one of which individually is not
serious enough for people to sacrifice for.

I submit that if you love freedom you must believe that we
should devote government to the task, as unlike the masses, they
do have the time to consider every issue. How that is to be done
is not something I am entirely sure about - unless the solution
were to make me dictator - but I am sure it can't be impossible.

[1] There are seeming exceptions to this in the past e.g. the
civil rights movement. But one must remember that they were
exceptional in that they provided _one_ great cause to rally
round, which could be presented as one of fundamental justice.
Further, one of the main goals that those movements achieved was
government action!

[2] With the possible exception (for those on the Left anyway)
of the 'social justice' movements described in note [1]. The
reason for that is not pertinent to this argument.

Andrew Usher

Our founding fathers warned us not to let banks get to big and end up
with all the money. Bush gave them 3.3 trillion (on CNN TV) * We owe
commie China about 2 trillion. The Statue of liberty is crying as USA
has become 100% fascist. If your not goose stepping your dead meat.
Have your ID papers on you,or go directly to jail. Mafia owns and
staffs our jails. Godfather controls congress,and 86% of American's
give congress a thumbs down. *GOPer children not in M.E wars. Not even
in Afghan to make sure Mafia's poppies are protected. *You can't call
China commie. You won't see the word Mafia in the press,movies or
congressional hearings anymore I wonder why ???? * TreBert

We were also warned to not let the military complex run us into the
ground, which in fact is exactly what they have done.

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