55% of Americans believe
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heyslick
Members Posts: 1,179 ✭
I guess JFK & his quote about 'Ask not what' your country can do for you....wouldn't be to acceptable in 2012? So many folks today rely on our government - interesting read. I guess this is the WAY America/direction most citizens want our country to go in - well, when the ? hits the fan? -- GOOD OLD Uncle Sam may not be there?
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/55-percent-of-americans-believe-that-the-government-will-take-care-of-them-if-disaster-strikes
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/55-percent-of-americans-believe-that-the-government-will-take-care-of-them-if-disaster-strikes
Comments
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Isn't the purpose of a government to direct, serve, and if necessary protect and help the people who abide by it though. I'm not saying people shouldn't take responsibility, but if the government would just stand by and not do anything to help the people then what is the purpose of it? It almost seems like you want to do away with it which would lead to complete anarchy.
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dallas' 4 eva wrote: »Isn't the purpose of a government to direct, serve, and if necessary protect and help the people who abide by it though. I'm not saying people shouldn't take responsibility, but if the government would just stand by and not do anything to help the people then what is the purpose of it? It almost seems like you want to do away with it which would lead to complete anarchy.
No! that isn't what I want - the government isn't my daddy and I wasn't raised to depend on anyone other than myself to take care of me. BIGGER government will only tell you what they think is good for you - smaller government is what I want. I'll reiterate again - if over 50% of my fellow Americans feel/believe that transforming America is the better option & that's the direction it should go in - OK! I totally disagree with that premise.
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dallas' 4 eva wrote: »Isn't the purpose of a government to direct, serve, and if necessary protect and help the people who abide by it though. I'm not saying people shouldn't take responsibility, but if the government would just stand by and not do anything to help the people then what is the purpose of it? It almost seems like you want to do away with it which would lead to complete anarchy.
The bolded area - I decided to see what our governments real purpose is - check out the comments section -- the second one is right on - Imo the current administration has no regard for the Constitution - I guess transforming America to fit his agenda is what this President is truly about & 'we the people' who disagree are being unfair - ?
http://voices.yahoo.com/the-purpose-us-government-per-constitution-283413.html -
If one was so inclined they should ignore politics and instead focus on political theory which has much less emotional content. From an institutional analysis the government is essentially a geographical monopoly of force and much of the power of the government really comes from its' ability to use violence to instigate societal action. On a micro-level we are often told violence is not a means to solve problems and yet our largest institutions rely on it to make society, allegedly, better.
It's likely true that modern society could simply not form without some sort of state, not because the state was a civilizing principle, but because the states themselves would destroy small communities to sustain their own power. The moment the state "domesticated" itself and stopped wandering and began to tax/farm communities/people is when civilization was allowed to proceed but only lugging around the parasitic mass of the state along with it. Before that civilization just could not proceed as a monopoly of force would enter the scenario and destroy then move to the next target, culling humanity's progress. -
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So YOU didn't write this - how come you didn't provide the link?
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3110374?uid=3739256&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21101174291441 -
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So YOU didn't write this - how come you didn't provide the link?
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3110374?uid=3739256&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21101174291441
I didn't provide a link because institutional analysis is a rather large generalized field of study. Basically the Public Choice school of economics deals with comparing the functioning of markets with teh functioning of centralized bureaucratic institutions but it encompasses everything from teh incentives of politicians face, the incentives voters face, the struggle between exit vs voice in institutions etc. I would start here for a primer http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv27n3/v27n3-2.pdf though those on the left will dismiss it because it's got Cato in its' name.
As far as a state. States have typically been defined as a geographical monopoly of violence. youtube.com/watch?v=ewQl-qAtNwQ right from the horses mouth but for more on this generalized definitions of the state recognize that trait.
As far as the evolution of the state Mancur Olson's "wandering vs stationary bandit" theory is the reference. This would be from his book " Power and Prosperity" "Olson argued that a "roving bandit" (under anarchy) has an incentive only to steal and destroy, whilst a "stationary bandit" (a tyrant) has an incentive to encourage a degree of economic success, since he will expect to be in power long enough to take a share of it. The stationary bandit thereby takes on the primordial function of government - protection of his citizens and property against roving bandits. Olson saw in the move from roving bandits to stationary bandits the seeds of civilization, paving the way for democracy, which improves incentives for good government by more closely aligning it with the wishes of the population." from wiki
Governments only seem to be a good thing in that they prevent other governments from forming. The state has a rather insidious legacy yet those that call for increasing it's power have other interests then political theory so this isn't really common knowledge but i think if we considered the state more we would be constantly taking measures to limit it's power more and more rather then, as we do today, continually give it more and more power.
