The Government Vs No Government Debate.

[xcrissxcrossx]

Many people say that a government is what keeps us safe, and that without it everything that was before illegal will now be acted upon in mass numbers. I have came up with a perfect analogy. Think of yourself as the government and a pet or pets as the people of the government. You do whatever you can to keep them safe, but they would certainly enjoy doing whatever they want without you interfering. but without you the pets can be put in danger, for they were raised to become domestic so they will die in the outside. but if they were never domesticated they would never have died as easily. If you continue to keep the pet it will be safe but it will never experience the full joys of life, but if you let it run wild it may not live long enough to experience them. Either way it's not going to work. So discuss this point of view and tell me if you agree.

[Original Poster]

If the government did what it's supposed to do, which is protect the people against crime and defend against real invaders not just economic troubles, then a government would be a great tool. In this era of widespread corruption, however, I prefer self-rulership. As far as much atrocities take place, I would highly prefer an anarchy at this stage. With anarchy, even if it leads to dictatorships, they would be independent ones, not massive hegemons, and in a sense the global power structure would start over, so I would favor that over our current situation.

[Alric]

Are you saying peoples should be treated like animals because their to stupid and its the governments job to protect them from themself? Or where you saying people have relied on the government to much and can now no longer survive without the governments help? I know you probably didn't mean to say that but that is what you actually said, and thats the biggest flaw of the government. Its not the governments job to take care of people, and they really don't even know any better than you. So why would you listen to them anyway? Just because their the government doesn't mean their any smarter. Lets take bush for example, sinces he is high up in the government does that mean he knows whats good for you? Is he really smarter than the average person? I think you know the answer to that.

[Original Poster]

I'll assume you were addressing the first poster, and I'd like to reply anyways. The government, your right, does not know what's best for the people. Alexander Hamilton, a very prominent founding father, disagreed and thought only those of wealth are intelligent enough to guide anyone. He was very much an elitist. But the good that the government does provide is protection, the government is a way to represent the people of the country, and to unite them, so that in a sense through their representatives the government can build infrastructure, stop crime, protect the citizens from outside threats, and take care of the citizens through social programs. All these things our government did until recently, now none is accomplished, every step taken has been regressive in the idea of the four things I said above. Infrastructure is being knocked out by hurricanes, people that commit crime are escorted to prison where they received proper training and become part of the criminal culture, the opposite of rehabilitation, the government has increased the threat of attack, and funds for social program continue to dwindle. In this "take care of yourself" mentality that certain members of our government are pushing, they're pushing for anarchy, with the difference being they still want you to pay them with your tax dollars for doing nothing.

[Roller]

In this "take care of yourself" mentality that certain members of our government are pushing, they're pushing for anarchy, with the difference being they still want you to pay them with your tax dollars for doing nothing. [/b] The 'take care of yourself' mentality is (usually) known as liberalism. The idea being that true freedom/liberty is to be found in the individual, and the individual should therefore be completely free to make decisions free from the influence of other groups. The state or government is therefore ideally only given the power to intervene to limit the actions of the individual if these actions are going to cause unconsential harm to another, ie: preventing people from murdering one another. Sounds nice yet, as always, the theory seems to be far removed from reality. I'd argue that any form of reliable anarchy would be impossible if today's standards of living are to be maintained. Yeah, the 'system' can be a bitch, but the system provides for so much of our lives that it we could not function in the same way without it. A simple example would be hospitals, which now days are centres of highly specialised training and expertise and, most importantly, technology. They must be funded, staffed, policed adquately and all the works; all of these things require a high amount of orginisation. Government, when taken in simple terms, is the means by which a society is organised and, ah, governed. Yeah, in many cases modern governments need reshaping and are inefficient, impractical and all the rest. The degree of individual freedom idealised by Liberalism is seldom achieved, but it cannot be said that government is not a vital part of our everday life. Regarding the 'domestication/animal' point, a question must be asked: has governance 'domisticated' human society to the degree that we would be helpless without it, or has governance and orginisation provided human societies with a framework that enables us to achieve things we never would have been able to achieve without it?

[Alric]

I have to disagree with you there. Most of the stuff the government does to "help" people could be done by private companies. Government ran programs are very wasteful and inefficient. Liberalism isn't a belief that everything should be done by the individuals but that most things can be done without the government. Give me one reason why a hospital needs to be ran by a government to work? Thats the best thing about a free market system if something is wasteful it will fail and another will take its place. The idea that the government is the best at running things is flawed. Theres really no way to even argue it. All you have to do is look at the US budget and you will instantly see how wasteful government is.

[Roller]

Yeah that's true - private enterprise can fill many of the places in society that are currently the domain of the government, yet a government is still needed for many of the mundane orginisational tasks. Having re-read your post I guess I didn't make myself clear before: By saying that something such as a hospital needs a government to run properly, I'm not suggesting government ownership. On that account, I agree with privatisation and miniising government ownership. I agree with the free-market system, and my argument concerning the role of the government in society isn't free market vs. government ownership, it's government vs. no government. Sorry if I didn't make that clear. Even in a free-market economy, the government plays a vital role in society - not through ownership, but through the normal law-making roles. A privately owned hospital needs a government body or framework for the everyday technical regulations such as the sourcing and control of drugs, duty of care etc. In this way it's not so much a question of government 'controlling' or owning the hospital, but of government setting out the laws and regulations by which the hospital can operate. In this way a liberal ideal is achieved - the government is only intervening in every day life through laws designed to prevent people from being harmed eg. a law that designates that a surgeon must have x amount of training (I'm not sure exactly what these laws are so this is entirely hypothetical). So yeah, free market and privatisation are good but in the debate of government vs anarchy government wins hands down.

[Howie]

What anarchy? People are too stupid to run their own lives. These are the same people that vote in the same incumbents year after year after year and complain that there is gov. corruption and nothing is getting done.

[Leo Volont]

There is no reason for a debate. Read History. We already know what happens. When there is no effective centralized Government over wide expanses of territory reaching natural boundaries (composing what people refer to as 'Known Worlds&#39 then what we have is "Dark Ages", "interregnums", periods of Barbarism where, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". Without Government there never is anything approaching Peace or Order, and without Peace and Order there can be no prosperity, or even the possibility of establishing a Surplus and Trade Economy. Without Trade and Surplus, Cities and Urban Societies are impossible. Human Life can only roam about the countryside, with various Clans and Tribes either raiding each other, or hiding from each other. And it will soon happen to the West. All of the Anti-Government and Conservative Propaganda, pushing actively for Barbarism, will soon have its effect. Private Wealth will grow until Public Wealth is strangled and the Economic Infrastructures collapse or are derailed by economic ruin. And then the Cities will starve. We will have a Modern Dark Ages. It is almost inevitable. History shows that there have as yet been 21 Civilizations, and they have all come to collapse, all but this present one, but it is following closely in the footsteps of Civilizations that have collapsed before. People even now are setting aside gold as a hedge against the impending collapse. But they should think about it. The value of Gold depends upon the ability to trade and protect private property, but that will all be gone. The only things of any value in a Barbaric Dark Age are Weapons and Armor, or the tools necessary to build impregnable fortresses. Without these, one's wisest course is to find somebody who does have such things and offer to be their slave. It will save them the trouble of either killing you or capturing you.

[Kaniaz]

In a nutshell, I don't think anarchy could work, because it relies on (what I consider to be) the slightly fantasy view that left to our own devices we could not end up killing each other and create some great peaceful utopia. Um, no. Look at history. We've been killing each other from the dawn of time and anarchy would be the perfect excuse to do a ton more of it because the grass looked greener on the other side. And the system was supposedly a bitch to you. Just to you, probably, because you spent more time bitching about it than you did actually trying to work with it.

[Alric]

I don't think there is really an arguement for that either, you really do need some form of government. A better debate would be the size of the government. Do you want to try and keep it as small as possible or do you want to allow it to grow as big as it can? I am personally for smaller government but by no means do I want anarchy. When the government tries to do everything it just wastes so much money and makes a lot of things worse. The government needs to be focused do a few things and do them efficiently. Building roads and schools, stuff like that. Common sense stuff that helps everyone. Our government is way to big and out of control right now, we need to get back to the basics.

[Kaniaz]

I don't think there is really an arguement for that either, you really do need some form of government. A better debate would be the size of the government. Do you want to try and keep it as small as possible or do you want to allow it to grow as big as it can? I am personally for smaller government but by no means do I want anarchy. When the government tries to do everything it just wastes so much money and makes a lot of things worse. The government needs to be focused do a few things and do them efficiently. Building roads and schools, stuff like that. Common sense stuff that helps everyone. Our government is way to big and out of control right now, we need to get back to the basics. [/b] I agree completely - the smaller the government the better it's going to work. It's very easy to lose the aim of government in seas of bureaucracy and complex webs of "movers and shakers". The bigger government gets, the more people end up working inside it, and nobody wants to give up their position of government, right? Even when democracy and voting is what decides who goes where, people have a habit of staying in office when it sure seems like you didn't want them to. That said, a small government has a big job - running a country is a very big operation..

[Alric]

The problem with bureaucracy is that they are designed to waste money. If they do a good job they get punished. If say they do a great job one year and use only half their budget what happens? The next year they only get half their budget. So a lot of them get the mentality that your spend you entire budget if you need it or not so that next time you get the same amount. Another problem is the poor preforming sectors get more money, because people complain its not getting the job done. So how do they fix it? They throw more and more money at it. Just look at schools, we just keep giving them more and more money but things never get better because by design the poor preforming items get more money than the very effective ones.

[Leo Volont]

The problem with bureaucracy is that they are designed to waste money. If they do a good job they get punished. If say they do a great job one year and use only half their budget what happens? The next year they only get half their budget. So a lot of them get the mentality that your spend you entire budget if you need it or not so that next time you get the same amount. Another problem is the poor preforming sectors get more money, because people complain its not getting the job done. So how do they fix it? They throw more and more money at it. Just look at schools, we just keep giving them more and more money but things never get better because by design the poor preforming items get more money than the very effective ones. [/b] You've never been in a Big Corporation where the Departments operate in exactly the same way. Empire Building is not simply a trait of Bureaucracies. Every manager, whether in the private sector or in the government sector will try to expand his domain. Now, the only essential difference between the Private Sector and the Public Sector is the Profit Tax. The Private Sector will take a percentage right off the top in addition to money needed for the actual expenses required to run the Operation. This is money that the Public Sector does not throw away to Leisured Living. Those who Propagandize for Capitalism and Private Contracts forget that while the Public Offices may have some waste, the Private Operations will pay out inflated salaries to manangers, will save money by firing essential front line personell and will effectively just throw money away on useless profits for shareholders. Yes, initially Private Sector Contracts rate better then their Public Equivalents, but this is because they are given less money, INITIALLY. But the Private Sector has an old trick... with Banking Support one Company will dump into the Market, becoming the lowest bid producer, forcing everyone else out of business. All the while operating at a loss themselves. But when they have a virtual monopoly -Kaboom! They lower the boom. One Private Contracts kill the Public Sector, then they become just as predatory as any Bureaucracy, but without any Public Oversight, and with the Profit Tax effectively throwing money away. And remember, the Private Sector doesn't care if the job gets done or not. Downsizing decimates the Office Workers and inboxes get piled to the ceilings and the wait for any action goes from days to months. Is it any wonder that the Private Sector says it can work cheaper, since they do less work and provide less of a service. Look at the post office. They say that private contracts are cheaper. yes, but when I was a kid, every home had home delivery, with two distributions each day, and there was Saturday Delivery. Now, the Private Sector Postal Department takes three times as long to do half of the work. Cheaper? Yes. But you get what you pay for.

[Alric]

Yea they do work the same way but your a lot more likely to get fired from a private company if you can't deliver. What you are saying might also be true if there was any real over sight but most of the time there isn't, and over the long period they tend to grow out of control. I am not saying private companies are always the way to go, but in a lot of cases they are a lot better than something ran by the government.

[Leo Volont]

Yea they do work the same way but your a lot more likely to get fired from a private company if you can't deliver. What you are saying might also be true if there was any real over sight but most of the time there isn't, and over the long period they tend to grow out of control. I am not saying private companies are always the way to go, but in a lot of cases they are a lot better than something ran by the government. [/b] What about the people in Private Enterprise who are fired BECAUSE they deliver. Consider: you are a marginally talented Department Manager. A young engineer who has come into your Department is far better than you had forseen. The Corporate VP's might begin to notice him, and certainly they will promote him over you, and this Young Engineer will soon be YOUR BOSS, and he knows how incompetent YOU ARE and will probably fire you. So you fire him first. Corporate Hiring and Firing is full of all those dreadful political agendas. Paradoxically the Public Sector had taken much of the politics out of the Hiring and the Firing. So, yes, in the Public Sector it IS more difficult to torpedo other people's careers in order to protect your own Fortresses and Empires. But that is a good thing. Just look at the quality of the America Product. One has to conclude that somehow Mediocrity and Incompetence are somehow finding their Strongholds in the America System. First there is Masonic Priority in all hiring. the Best People are not getting the jobs, and the Leadership Track hardly cares about merit and abilities but Social and Masonic connections. The Civil Service is a cut above all that because they must necessarily hire according to Objective Testing. Private Enterprise should also go over to Objective Testing. It would torpedo the Masonic Hold on Corporate America, and it would keep these Department Managers from destroying the careers of anybody with talent who would rise up underneath them to threaten their Empires. Give the Best Job to the Best Score.

[Leo Volont]

Oh.... RATING SYSTEMS for employees. Nothing is more abused. They let Managers Rate the People who could take their Jobs. So of course the Best People get their scores shaved to blunt their careers. So where I had previously said the Civil Service was fairer and better than the Private Corporations... well, the Hiring is, but the Masons were able to introduce Mananger Rating Systems into the Civil Service, and there once again enters every possibility of corruption and decadance. I've seen it a thousand times that the most talented people are torpedoed, and that mediocrity and incompetence is allowed to rise up.... because the mediocre and the incompetent represent a threat to nobody and can be easily controlled and brought into league. How else can we explain Ford Motor Company building ugly expensive low tech cars that fall apart. How else can we explain Condoleeza Rice. Rating Systems endorce and promote mediocrity. They should adhere to simple competitive testing for every job slot, public and private. There must be worst possible disasters then having the best people in every job position.

[Alric]

If the government step entirely out of the system and didn't give any kind of aid or money to companies, they will fail. What needs to happen is the ones which become wasteful and inefficient, need to fail and the ones which do a good job will stay. Thats what happens in a true free market system. We have really gotten away from a free market system in the US however.

[Leo Volont]

If the government step entirely out of the system and didn't give any kind of aid or money to companies, they will fail. What needs to happen is the ones which become wasteful and inefficient, need to fail and the ones which do a good job will stay. Thats what happens in a true free market system. We have really gotten away from a free market system in the US however. [/b] You are awfully callous about the lives of so many workers. It is easy for you to say "Death to them all" -- "Let them eat Cake", all for the sake of some easy and automatic way to assure quality control". Why not assure quality control on the Chinese Model -- that when factory managers are found to precide over poor quality, they are taken out and shot. Check, since the Chinese had shot those Factory Managers responsible for the 5 or 6 refigerators that were found with defrosting problems, there has not been a single report from anywhere in the world complaining of the least glitch with a Chinese made refrigerator. You would fire thousands of workers and have them starve to death. I'd rather shoot the manager. But then, I'm not a good republican like yourself. I think workers are human and worthy of some little consideration.

[Alric]

You can't have a business thats just a money pit then expect the US population to foot the bill. How is that fair? Why should everyone else be forced to pay to float some worthless trash company that is constantly losing money? In the short term people may lose a job but in the long term it helps everyone. At the current rate some day the money will run out and half the business will fail at once. Thousands of people lose their jobs, its not the end of the world, they will not starve like you said. They can always get a new job. What do you do when 50 million people lose their job at the same time however? What happens when you get some idiot working for you who is bringing the entire company down because hes so incompetent? Do you fire him and get someone who knows what they are doing? Or do you let him stay untill he slowly makes the company worse and worse untill one day you go out of business? Was saving that one guys job worth everyone in the company losing their job 10 years later? I don't want to see anyone fired, but its a business not welfare.