IndependntLogic
Senior Member
- Jul 14, 2011
- 2,997
- 399
- 48
I have to give some of the Tea Partiers and Libertarians credit. The ones who have responded with reason and calm, have swayed me big time. There are over 2 dozen Federal agencies I would restructure & combine, or eliminate altogether. I'm still not in total agreement with you but I'm a helluva closer than I was before. Well done.
So let's talk about what I perceive would be the unintended result, if you guys totally got your way.
First, a few observations. Some people have the tendency to project an extreme opposite view onto anyone disagreeing with them. Let's try to avoid that. I'm a business owner. Obviously, I don't want a nanny-state, a liberal totalitarian government or whatever.
Also, I dislike both Bush and Obama. This isn't about candidates or the fact that Bush passed the Patriot Act or Obama passed Obama care. THis is just about what would result from getting the kind of government we want.
So instead of diverting the subject with finger pointing, maybe we can just discuss ideology and the results they would produce.
Last thing. This isn't 1776, 1876 or even 1976. So let's keep it as contemporary as possible. We have terrorists, racial equality, the internet, nukes and nuke power and all kinds of things the Founding Fathers couldn't even imagine. That doesn't mean I am discounting their principles, but let's also not discount the impact of change.
So if we got rid of all the agencies and Federal agencies, regulations and controls you want, I see an unintended consequence of a nation of corporatocratic city-states and robber barons where local politicans are owned by local corporations who then dictate what environmental standards will be, labor laws will be, legislate elimination of culpability and so on.
This is what happens all over the world when a strong, centralized government is either eliminated or replaced by a weak one. Look at all the former Soviet countries. Would you want what they have for us? Mexico? Peru? Malaysia? Slovakia?
Where in the last 40 years, has a country's citizens benefitted from a weak central government? I just haven't seen it.
I have seen Lake Erie and the River Rouge polluted so badly by the Big Three Auto makers, that until a bunch of danm Liberals from the Fed (along with those socialist Canadians) made a national issue of it, state politicians did nothing. Why not? You wanna try to get elected in Michigan after pissing off both the Auto execs and the union members? Good luck with that. That's one example and there are certainly others. So while it isn't always great to have some Liberal from California or Connecticut impact those in Texas, I'd rather see that happen, than the politicians whose office was bought and paid for by Big Oil, decide whether valves in the Gulf are just peachy.
While the SEC may seem like a scam to a lot of you, I would like to see it be even bigger. We had friends in Houston who were died in the wool Conservatives. Salt of the Earth. He worked for a utility his whole life and she stayed home. She also ended up with Parkinson's. Then Enron when under. They lost his job, their retirement, their insurance - everything. Plus she couldn't get insured afterward. I'm not saying it's perfect or even great but it's a helluva lot better than nothing.
Same with the FAA, CIA, USDA and a few others.
So let's talk about what I perceive would be the unintended result, if you guys totally got your way.
First, a few observations. Some people have the tendency to project an extreme opposite view onto anyone disagreeing with them. Let's try to avoid that. I'm a business owner. Obviously, I don't want a nanny-state, a liberal totalitarian government or whatever.
Also, I dislike both Bush and Obama. This isn't about candidates or the fact that Bush passed the Patriot Act or Obama passed Obama care. THis is just about what would result from getting the kind of government we want.
So instead of diverting the subject with finger pointing, maybe we can just discuss ideology and the results they would produce.
Last thing. This isn't 1776, 1876 or even 1976. So let's keep it as contemporary as possible. We have terrorists, racial equality, the internet, nukes and nuke power and all kinds of things the Founding Fathers couldn't even imagine. That doesn't mean I am discounting their principles, but let's also not discount the impact of change.
So if we got rid of all the agencies and Federal agencies, regulations and controls you want, I see an unintended consequence of a nation of corporatocratic city-states and robber barons where local politicans are owned by local corporations who then dictate what environmental standards will be, labor laws will be, legislate elimination of culpability and so on.
This is what happens all over the world when a strong, centralized government is either eliminated or replaced by a weak one. Look at all the former Soviet countries. Would you want what they have for us? Mexico? Peru? Malaysia? Slovakia?
Where in the last 40 years, has a country's citizens benefitted from a weak central government? I just haven't seen it.
I have seen Lake Erie and the River Rouge polluted so badly by the Big Three Auto makers, that until a bunch of danm Liberals from the Fed (along with those socialist Canadians) made a national issue of it, state politicians did nothing. Why not? You wanna try to get elected in Michigan after pissing off both the Auto execs and the union members? Good luck with that. That's one example and there are certainly others. So while it isn't always great to have some Liberal from California or Connecticut impact those in Texas, I'd rather see that happen, than the politicians whose office was bought and paid for by Big Oil, decide whether valves in the Gulf are just peachy.
While the SEC may seem like a scam to a lot of you, I would like to see it be even bigger. We had friends in Houston who were died in the wool Conservatives. Salt of the Earth. He worked for a utility his whole life and she stayed home. She also ended up with Parkinson's. Then Enron when under. They lost his job, their retirement, their insurance - everything. Plus she couldn't get insured afterward. I'm not saying it's perfect or even great but it's a helluva lot better than nothing.
Same with the FAA, CIA, USDA and a few others.