Government: Good or Evil

Members of the Tea Party and other seem to consistently depict the government as an evil organization that pries into their affairs, steals their money, and steals their innate freedoms, among other terrible things. Thus they tell us the best government is the least government or perhaps best of all would be no government: oops that anarchy and frontier justice which meant no justice and the guy with the quickest or more likely sneakiest gun won the day, which meant the bad guys generally put it to the good guys, despite what westerns movies and TV depict.

My guess is that all of us spend more time complaining about taxes rather than thinking about all the benefits we receive from those taxes. At the top of my list is education. A democracy is dependent upon a well educated populace. A well educated populace benefits the entire nation. One of my students commented to me no long ago saying, “I can’t believe the trust that parents give me to help raise and teach their children.” We hear a lot about bad teachers than are hard to fire because of  the power of unions, but they are a minority. And do unions overstep their authority, of course, along with everybody else who can get by with it. So, fix the system don’t condemn the whole process. Our current movement of shackling teacher unions lays the framework for poorer and poorer teachers. We need the very best, and in education as in most things, you get what you pay for.

I’m glad with we have highways, railroads, shipping and all those other things that enable us to get products from one part of the country to another. In the name of lower taxes (of the rich) our infrastructure in the country is sadly out of date and in need of repair. President Eisenhower saw the need for the interstate program which was to be followed up with improvements in other places. So what happened to the railways system while we have semi dominating the highways. Not smart.

Without government I doubt that we would have many parks and playgrounds in communities that we enjoy and need. I think most of us like lighted streets to see and help protect us at night. These things cost money.

I’m glad we have social systems that help protect the poor and those who are in need, often at no fault of their own. It is the mark of a civilized society to take care of those in need, not just condemn them for being lazy, even if they are just unfortunate. As a senior citizen I’m pleased with the rewards we receive now that we are on fixed incomes and can no longer take care of our needs as well as we once did.

I am pleased that we have police, firemen, members of the military, paramedics and the like to come to our need when we are in danger, who will give up their wellbeing and lives for our needs. All these cost money, but we are so often indifferent to the scars and needs those folk have after serving us.

This list is just a tiny tiny part of the things we have as a benefit of government in our lives. It all costs money but think what they would cost if we had to provide for those things individually? We couldn’t. Taxes are a good thing. And taxes should be shared by all, but particularly by the most wealthy that have receive the most from our society. Taxes were intended to come mainly from the rich; progressive taxes. Or, as I have said before, in the biblical maxium, “from whom much is given, much is required.” But for over 3 decades not we have reversed that principle so that the tax burden has fallen more upon the middle and lower classes at higher rates and the rich are being subsidized by those who have the least.

We are an incredibly rich coun cable about of taking care of the needs of everyone. We may look down our noses at those so called socialist countries with very high taxes rates, but the data shows they have the happiest citizens. We have within our power to provide high standards living for all, but our recent history shows the opposite taking place for middle and lower classes.

The main reason for all of this I believe in that the government has literally been bought by the ultra wealthy of our country. They have contributed most to the campaigns of those who will support their vested interests. It is their lobbyists that write most of the legislation that cause these imbalances.

The only solution I see is for us to reform election laws so that campaigns are only funded by public funds and no others. This is the people mandate that our congressmen should be hearing from on a constant basis. The original Boston Tea Party was about taxation without representation and a similar thing is happening today. But the current Tea Party members, by arguing for less government, stand counter to that original ideal. We need more government to create and enforce the laws that keep the ultra rich from taking more than their fair share of our resources. Representation has been taken away from the middle and lower classes and given to the ultra rich. That is taxation without representation. When the over half the wealth of the country is in the hands of the upper fraction of the upper 1 percent of the country, we see that democracy and poorly regulated free enterprise has got awry.

Write your congressmen and demand for fairer election practices.