Joker wrote:
There is an enormous lie told in America. It is told with great regularity by all stripes of people on the right. Conservatives, Republicans and Libertarians all love to tell the lie of small government: That the ideal government is one that takes care of only law and order and defense, and leaves everything else to the states. Many Americans have fallen for this lie, even many here in New Jersey as we saw with the election of Gov. Chris Christie. We see this lie repeated by members of the Tea Party on Fox News and even here at the University in The Daily Targum.
First, let us note the hypocrisy of some of these people who call for small government and a balanced budget while at the same time are studying in a public university. One must question why they are here at the University — why are they using these programs when they go against everything they stand for? Shouldn't they be in one of those private universities that are so much better? Could it be perhaps that public universities are more affordable and accessible than private universities and that's why they're here? Ask them that the next time you see a University Tea Party member, I'd like to know the answer.
The Tea Party remains blind to the simple fact that government was created and exists for a reason: It exists because individual actors in the "free market" are not able to provide for the common needs of society on their own. That includes not just security but roads, electricity, piped water and common welfare. No private charity will ever be able to feed all the homeless, no private charity will ever be able to provide health care for those too poor to afford it. Ironically, what the Tea Party claims they want to prevent — the domination of big business and special interests — is exactly what will happen if the government removes itself from the economic sphere. They are very concerned about individual freedom and liberty and protecting the individual from political tyranny. Yet they fail to acknowledge the tyrannical nature of private corporations. Are the monopolies and oligopolies that will inevitably form and come to dominate the market not tyrannical? They strip individuals of their choices just as easily as and far more readily than the government could. What the Tea Party wants is nothing more than a return to the era of the Robber Barons.
Those that subscribe to the Tea Party platform reveal a purposeful callousness toward their fellow humans. An eleven-year-old girl should not go hungry in school because the subsidized school lunch program has been cancelled. As South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer said, "Don't feed the poor it makes them breed." It's worth noting at this point that Bauer himself was a beneficiary of the subsidized school lunch program. Someone with cancer should not go bankrupt because they are burdened with millions of dollars of debt from being forced to pay for their treatment because the insurance companies wouldn't cover it. Every time the business cycle fluctuates, workers find themselves unemployed with no recourse while corporate CEO's give themselves hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bonuses and golden parachutes. If you believe any of this is OK, then by all means vote for the Republican Party, join the Tea Party rallies and write-in Congressman Ron Paul. You will get what you deserve — nothing more than a Hobbesian state "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."
I, for one, do not want to live in such a state. As the Tea Party so aptly points out, the government is the sum of the individuals. When the government fails to provide security, not just physical but also economical, then government has fundamentally failed in its duties. How many of our citizens should we sacrifice on the altar of the free market before it is enough? President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sums it up best, "But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings."
. I would hope that they change the laws so they are just a little more kind and just a little more fair
What is your preference? A super large Central Government which is manned by aparatchiks , operators, empire builders ---- basically churlish base and stupid people. The U.S. government which is gigantic cannot even do something simple like deliver mail within reasonable cost constraints.
I will tell you what size does. It magnifies the worst aspects of people and it buries and minimizes their best impulses.
ruveyn
14 Sep 2011, 1:49 pm
