The "proper" role of government

[Little-Acorn]

The proper role of government is one that does a good job at making us a great power with high living standards.

Not even close. Our role (We the People) is to make us a great power with high living standards. Govt's job is to keep other people from hurting us while we do it.

Government can do nothing to "give" us high living standards. All any government can do, is punish us and restrict us. There has never been a government on Earth, able to do anything else. The only way government can "give" me anything, is by taking it from someone else first... and taking a little off the top to feed itself. The result is ALWAYS a net loss - government cannot create anything.

In many countries, where government takes a LOT from the citizenry, or restrict them from doing beneficial things, the standard of living is low... because government got in the way of citizens trying to create a high standard of living. Note that our present government is trending toward doing this more and more.

The best government can do, is stay out of our way. And keep other people out of our way... which is its ONLY job.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Ayn Rand

Ignorant, reactionary, nonsense.

The proper role of government is that which is defined by the people, either through the democratic process with elections or the process of judicial review in the courts, or often times, both.

Libertarians have this bizarre and incorrect notion that ‘the government’ is somehow ‘separate and apart’ from the people; when in fact nothing could be further from the truth, as the people and the government are one in the same. The government acts at the behest of the people, representing the will of the people, and is comprised of the people, it is their possession and solely their responsibility:

A distinctive character of the National Government, the mark of its legitimacy, is that it owes its existence to the act of the whole people who created it.

U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995).

And if government acts in a manner offensive to the Constitution, where the majority of the people err in their judgment and seek to violate the civil liberties of fellow citizens, those adversely effected may seek relief in the Federal courts, and have un-Constitutional acts of government invalidated.

Our republican form of government, where the people are subject only to the rule of law, safeguards our civil liberties, while at the same time affords the people appropriate and responsible governance.

 

[frigidweirdo]

And that's why the leftist fanatics never try to amend the Constitution to implement their socialist changes.

That's why women still can't vote ...

Nice sarcasm.

Women voting, is "socialist"?

Yes, actually, it is.

So too is black people voting, black people not being in slavery or segregation, the general public voting without having to prove they have a certain amount of money, and many, many things.

If you think what conservative meant in England in 1776 and think what changes have happened that were considered liberal in their time, you'll see that you'd just be a slave or a serf on a farm without the liberals, and the conservatives would be happy.

 

[Clementine]

Rand was a nutter, who died living on Social Security and using Medicare. And the Proper role of government is whatever we damn well say it is.

Not if what you say isn't in the constitution.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Rand was a nutter, who died living on Social Security and using Medicare. And the Proper role of government is whatever we damn well say it is.

Not if what you say isn't in the constitution.

The current Constitution was men saying what the government should be. The next one will be the same. To toss the Constitution, all you have to do is call a Constitutional Convention. Ironic eh?

And you should learn what extra-constitutional means? It's an important concept to know.

 

[eflatminor]

The current Constitution was men saying what the government should be. The next one will be the same. To toss the Constitution, all you have to do is call a Constitutional Convention. Ironic eh?

Careful what you wish for. When this happens, it's isn't going to be the central planners leading the charge...

It's Time For States To Call A Constitutional Convention And Pass A Balanced Budget Amendment - Forbes

Growing Chorus of State Lawmakers Call for Constitutional Convention to Force Fiscal Discipline in Washington | TheBlaze.com

 

[PaintMyHouse]

The current Constitution was men saying what the government should be. The next one will be the same. To toss the Constitution, all you have to do is call a Constitutional Convention. Ironic eh?

Careful what you wish for. When this happens, it's isn't going to be the central planners leading the charge...

It's Time For States To Call A Constitutional Convention And Pass A Balanced Budget Amendment - Forbes

Growing Chorus of State Lawmakers Call for Constitutional Convention to Force Fiscal Discipline in Washington | TheBlaze.com

Central Planning? Is this Russia 1950? And I let the chips fall where they may. The risk is equal for all sides but it is overdue to happen. The Founders certainly would have thought so.

 

[eflatminor]

The current Constitution was men saying what the government should be. The next one will be the same. To toss the Constitution, all you have to do is call a Constitutional Convention. Ironic eh?

Careful what you wish for. When this happens, it's isn't going to be the central planners leading the charge...

It's Time For States To Call A Constitutional Convention And Pass A Balanced Budget Amendment - Forbes

Growing Chorus of State Lawmakers Call for Constitutional Convention to Force Fiscal Discipline in Washington | TheBlaze.com

Central Planning? Is this Russia 1950?

If you had your way, apparently. But hey, just because the central planners of the past failed so miserably, it doesn't mean you wouldn't do a better job...

If only we had a benevolent King!

And I let the chips fall where they may.

Of course you do. That's why we call you sheeple.

The risk is equal for all sides but it is overdue to happen. The Founders certainly would have thought so.

And which side would the founders have been on? Central planning or individual liberty? Even the most ardent supporters of a strong central government would have long ago taken up arms against the onslaught of Progressivism, which is nothing more than central planning drip by drip...like the frog in water that has yet to reach the boiling point.

Anyway, good luck. You're going to need it.

 

[Little-Acorn]

The current Constitution was men saying what the government should be.

Nonsense, as usual. Where do you get this tripe?

The current Constitution was men (a lot of them, it was ratified across the country) saying this was what the government IS, starting today. It was a change in government, not a proposal or a request.

To toss the Constitution, all you have to do is call a Constitutional Convention.

Nonsense, as usual. A Constitutional Convention can't toss the Constitution. All it can do is offer proposals. They must be ratified by 3/4 of the states, or else they go into the trash can.

That's why muddle-headed leftist dreamers and demagogues such as yourself, never try to put their silly ideas into constitutional amendments. They know that normal Americans across the country will tar and feather any state government representatives that try to ratify them.

That's why the people who wrote the Constitution, required any changes to be ratified by people as far from the seat of central power that leftists worship, as possible. And wisely so.

 

[dblack]

The choice is between government that prevents bullies from forcing their will on others, and government that facilitates them.

 

[Erand7899]

Ayn Rand

Ignorant, reactionary, nonsense.

The proper role of government is that which is defined by the people, either through the democratic process with elections or the process of judicial review in the courts, or often times, both.

Libertarians have this bizarre and incorrect notion that ‘the government’ is somehow ‘separate and apart’ from the people; when in fact nothing could be further from the truth, as the people and the government are one in the same. The government acts at the behest of the people, representing the will of the people, and is comprised of the people, it is their possession and solely their responsibility:

A distinctive character of the National Government, the mark of its legitimacy, is that it owes its existence to the act of the whole people who created it.

U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995).

And if government acts in a manner offensive to the Constitution, where the majority of the people err in their judgment and seek to violate the civil liberties of fellow citizens, those adversely effected may seek relief in the Federal courts, and have un-Constitutional acts of government invalidated.

Our republican form of government, where the people are subject only to the rule of law, safeguards our civil liberties, while at the same time affords the people appropriate and responsible governance.

People are only protected by the law when the law is inviolate and consistant. It follows that the minority is only protected by the Constitution when the Constitution is inviolate and consistant. When the law or the Constitution means only what the current judges believe it should mean, then no one is protected at all.

When the US Constitution states that "The Congress shall make no law....", does that mean that Congress shall make no law, or does it mean that Congress shall make no law unless the Courts decide that a law might be good government policy?

Does the constitutional term "or prohibiting the free exercise of" depend on whether the government and the Courts agree that free exercise is appropriate to current government policy?

Your argument that the Courts protect the minority from tyranny of the majority is only valid when the Courts actually uphold the written word of the Constitution. When it does not uphold the written word, I call that judicial activism, and you call it a living constitution.

When a society cannot safely rely on the written words of the law actually being the law, then it has no protection from the Courts, and the Courts become a super legislature that makes laws as they see fit.

 

[Erand7899]

It's not a majority of the people. Do read up. And, the people of the U.S. can have the Constitution thrown out and start all over again. It's in, wait for it, the Constitution, which means that we can define what is the proper role for our government.

Whats not a majority of the people? The people of the United States are not just some mass that thinks alike, and follows some loon into oblivion. There is nothing in the Constitution that allows "we" to define what the proper role of government is, unless "we" can get the super majority to agree to it.

Article V - Amendment Note1 - Note2 - Note3

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Those are not the People, those are the People the People elect.

Your assertion of the obvious has no bearing on the argument that "we" get to decide on what the role of government is. The role of the federal government is delineated in the Constitution, and that role is only legally alterable through the procedure established by that document for change. There is no legal basis for the people or the judges to alter the words themselves or the meaning of the words, for any purpose whatsoever.

In a constitutional republic, the majority can always take care of itself. The law is meant for protection of the individual and/or the minority. The law can hang you, and the law can set you free, but only if the law is not the whim of those in power.

 

[Erand7899]

It says "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

I'm pretty sure they didn't mean dead people.

The role of government evolves along with the people.

If it doesn't it dies.

You can talk about what things ought to be and what is right ... but different people have different ideas. Right now, you are a minority.

They also did not mean mob rule. When a vast majority of Americans, at least two thirds of them, want change, then change is justified. Otherwise it is referred to as tyranny of the majority. And, we have seen a lot of that lately.

The two-thirds threshold is for the Constitution. Not for all laws.

But the alternative is revolution.
If you crap on the majority to the benefit of the minority, you will get a revolution. That's the real world - we've seen it happen too many times throughout history to deny it.

Another assertion of the obvious. The Constitution is the document that delineates what the role of the federal government is, and that document is not subject to the whims of a simple majority, and it is not subject to the whims of nine unelected justices.

If modern life requires a different role for the federal government, then the amendment process needs to be activated for that purpose. The Congress has no authority to amend the Constitution, and the Courts have no authority to amend the Constitution, and that lack of authority applies to little bitty amendments and big amendments alike.

The "living Constitution" argument is a bogus argument that attempts to justify a role for nine lawyers in black robes to "update" our Constitution by making little bitty amendments that, over time, amass into major change.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

The "living Constitution" argument is a bogus argument that attempts to justify a role for nine lawyers in black robes to "update" our Constitution by making little bitty amendments that, over time, amass into major change.

And just what do you our elected officials do?

If you can change it, it's living. If you can't, the Declaration for instance, it's dead Jim.

 

[Doubletap]

Rand was a nutter, who died living on Social Security and using Medicare. And the Proper role of government is whatever we damn well say it is.

The highest tribute to Ayn Rand, is that her critics must distort everything that she stood for in order to attack her. She advocated reason, not force; the individual’s rights to freedom of action, speech, and association; self-responsibility not self-indulgence, and a live-and-let-live society in which each individual is treated as an END, not the MEANS of others’ ends. How many critics would dare to honestly state these ideas, & say “..and that’s what I reject?”

PS. She paid in to the system & was only getting back, like everyone else, what was taken from her.

 

[bripat9643]

The "living Constitution" argument is a bogus argument that attempts to justify a role for nine lawyers in black robes to "update" our Constitution by making little bitty amendments that, over time, amass into major change.

And just what do you our elected officials do?

If you can change it, it's living. If you can't, the Declaration for instance, it's dead Jim.

So here's your logic:

1. The Constitution is a living document because you can amend it.
2. If the Constitution is a living document, then it means whatever the Supreme Court says it means.

Your conclusion doesn't follow from your premise.

 

[bripat9643]

What would you prefer then, anarchy, or forming a new government every few decades?

Both are very bad for Capitalism BTW. The first one it can't even exist in.

I prefer no government.

The Idea of a Private Law Society - Hans-Hermann Hoppe - Mises Daily

The Errors of Classical Liberalism

As widespread as the classical liberal view is regarding the necessity of the institution of a state as the provider of law and order, several rather elementary economic and moral arguments show this view to be entirely misguided.

Among political economists and political philosophers it is one of the most widely accepted proposition that every "monopoly" is "bad" from the viewpoint of consumers. Here, monopoly is understood as an exclusive privilege granted to a single producer of a commodity or service, or as the absence of "free entry" into a particular line of production. For example, only one agency, A, may produce a given good or service, X. Such monopoly is "bad" for consumers because, shielded from potential new entrants into a given area of production, the price of the product will be higher and its quality lower than under competitive conditions. Accordingly, it should be expected that state-provided law and order will be excessively expensive and of particularly low quality.

However, this is only the mildest of errors. Government is not just like any other monopoly such as a milk or a car monopoly that produces low quality products at high prices. Government is unique among all other agencies in that it produces not only goods but also bads. Indeed, it must produce bads in order to produce anything that might be considered a good.

As noted, the government is the ultimate judge in every case of conflict, including conflicts involving itself. Consequently, instead of merely preventing and resolving conflict, a monopolist of ultimate decision-making will also provoke conflict in order to settle it to his own advantage. That is, if one can only appeal to government for justice, justice will be perverted in the favor of government, constitutions and supreme courts notwithstanding. Indeed, these are government constitutions and courts, and whatever limitations on government action they may find is invariably decided by agents of the very same institution under consideration. Predictably, the definition of property and protection will be altered continually and the range of jurisdiction expanded to the government's advantage. The idea of eternal and immutable law that must be discovered will disappear and be replaced by the idea of law as legislation — as flexible state-made law.

Even worse, the state is a monopolist of taxation, and while those who receive the taxes — the government employees — regard taxes as something good, those who must pay the taxes regard the payment as something bad, as an act of expropriation. As a tax-funded life-and-property protection agency, then, the very institution of government is nothing less than a contradiction in terms. It is an expropriating property protector, "producing" ever more taxes and ever less protection. Even if a government limited its activities exclusively to the protection of the property of its citizens, as classical liberals have proposed, the further question of how much security to produce would arise. Motivated, as everyone is, by self-interest and the disutility of labor but equipped with the unique power to tax, a government agent's goal will invariably be to maximize expenditures on protection, and almost all of a nation's wealth can conceivably be consumed by the cost of protection, and at the same time to minimize the production of protection. The more money one can spend and the less one must work to produce, the better off one will be.

In sum, the incentive structure inherent in the institution of government is not a recipe for the protection of life and property, but instead a recipe for maltreatment, oppression, and exploitation. This is what the history of states illustrates. It is first and foremost the history of countless millions of ruined human lives.

I prefer something Hans Hermann Hoppe calls "the private law society." You can learn how it works by reading the article referenced above.

Noted. Always knew you lived in Fantasyland.

Anyone who believes government is capable of being an impartial arbiter in any conflict between private citizens and itself is living in fantasyland.

Government is not an effective guarantor of our rights. It's the primary threat to our rights.

 

[bripat9643]

That's why women still can't vote ...

Nice sarcasm.

Women voting, is "socialist"?

Yes, actually, it is.

So too is black people voting, black people not being in slavery or segregation, the general public voting without having to prove they have a certain amount of money, and many, many things.

If you think what conservative meant in England in 1776 and think what changes have happened that were considered liberal in their time, you'll see that you'd just be a slave or a serf on a farm without the liberals, and the conservatives would be happy.

Modern liberals have no connection with the liberals of 1776. Modern liberals call those men racist, sexist, homophobe, reactionary pigs. Listening to a modern liberal attempt to claim the mantel of the Founding Fathers is both nauseating and hilarious.

 

[Little-Acorn]

The "living Constitution" argument is a bogus argument that attempts to justify a role for nine lawyers in black robes to "update" our Constitution by making little bitty amendments that, over time, amass into major change.

It is much more appropriately called "the enduring Constitution".

Its overriding principle is that it gives the Fed govt their powers... and any power it doesn't name, is forbidden to the Fed.

And that principle is as valid today as it was in 1789. No matter how many liberals try to ignore or violate it.

 

[auditor0007]

Rand was a nutter, who died living on Social Security and using Medicare. And the Proper role of government is whatever we damn well say it is.

This is what drives me nuts about cons. They act like government is this living breathing being with a life of its own when in fact it's exactly what we choose it to be. If we don't want it to be so big, then we can elect those who believe it should be smaller and who will work to make it smaller. The thing is not everyone feels that way, and just because some do not feel that way does not make them un-American.

The government is a gang of mean whose interests are different from mine and generally in conflict with mine. The idea that I have control over it is ludicrous. Even if I did have control over it, how does that give me the right and pillage those who don't want to pay for its so-called "services?"

Society as a whole has control over it. If your views do not fit in with the majority, then you may find you don't care for it so much. In some cases society may be right and you wrong, and in others it might be the other way around. The bottom line is that you have the opportunity to sway others to your way of thinking, even if everyone else thinks you're nuts.