DangerousTalk

Even among the greater community of reason there are still people who call themselves Libertarians and Republicans. The thing that they argue about the most is “big government.” While that is of course a legitimate issue to some degree, it has morphed into an anti-government dogma. This is unreasonable to me and I am calling bullshit!

Sure, no one wants a 1984-style government where everything we do is regulated by bureaucrats. But we are far from that in reality. The fact is that government does serve an important purpose. Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”

Now, aside from that whole “Creator” part, there is an important point here. The point is that we create the government to do a job. That job is to secure the rights of the people and to protect the people. When some multination corporation jumps toxic waste into the water supply, government is needed to stop them. We do that through regulation. Unfortunately, many of our regulators have been bought by those very same multination corporations and those who make the regulations have also been bought. But that is an issue of government corruption, not government doing its job.

Anti-government people tend to think that all regulations are evil and that it is just more “big government” interference. However, some regulation is important and necessary. Should the government regulate how much television you should watch and what shows you should watch? Of course not, but should the government regulate what corporations can dump into the environment? Fuck yes!

Moving to the more philosophical issue, government is really just about cooperation. When we were cave people we quickly realized that if we went out to hunt alone we probably wouldn’t come back but if we hunted together in a group, we would all share in the spoils. Government’s job is to help us to work together as a society.

Anti-government people have this fantasy of being an island unto themselves and that is quite frankly stupid and impossible in today’s world.

Filed under: culture war, Government, Politics