A central notion in The Declaration of Independence is unmistakable: the role of government is to promote "the public good." If government promotes "the public good," then "the pursuit of happiness" is enhanced. These ideas, of course, are not unique to the Founding Fathers. They are central to the Enlightenment, the 18th century philosophical and political movement in which thinkers attempted to use Reason and science to create a utopian society, "a more perfect union." Accordingly, the founding of the United States had little to do with religious principles or notions of limited government. Instead, the inspiration for our republic came from the Enlightenment principle that "a more perfect union" would be based upon reasoned principles that would fashion utopian states in which people could freely pursue their goals. Enlightenment thinkers like Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Jefferson argued that "a more perfect union" would result from individual sacrifice -- life, labor, and taxes -- to promote the general well being of the state. In other words, you act not only to pursue your own goals, but also to enhance the lives of other people.
In contemporary American society, such notions may appear to be quaint or even naive. In many respects contemporary social life in the United States appears to encompass the endless pursuit of personal interest, an interest that seems to be part of the philosophical foundation of The Tea Party and an ever-more radically conservative Republican Party. The endless drum role for lower taxes and limited government is a case in point. By limiting taxes and government, the public good gives way to personal desire. In a world governed by principles of personal desire, your hard earned money will no longer be wasted on government programs -- scientific research, public education, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, to name a few -- that have no immediate or direct impact on your life. Why should your tax dollars contribute to programs that help the sick, the poor, and the elderly? What have they done for you? Why should the government -- and your tax contributions -- help them? If they can't help themselves, their families should take care of them? If their families can't help, the sick, the poor, and the elderly will just have to tough it out and take care of themselves.
These days we all too often witness everyday behaviors that underscore this set of insensitive and narrow-minded attitudes. Every semester my students complain to me that that someone has ripped out the pages of book or a bound journal article that was put "on three-hour reserve" at the university library. If a book is on three-hour reserve, you are time-pressed to return it to the library before the limit has lapsed. If you tear out the pages, though, it becomes easy to read the assignment at your leisure. Such crass behavior, of course, not only gives you some competitive advantage, but also impedes the study of your fellow students. When you are waiting in line -- for an appointment, for tickets, or to pay a fine -- you may encounter a person, who, thinking that his or her time is more precious than yours, attempts to butt in front of you. For some reason they must obtain the ticket, pay the fine, or see the doctor, right away. Such bullying, which may create a scene or trigger an argument, makes the waiting process more time consuming for everyone. When a highway lane is closed, causing a traffic backup, most people cross to the open lane and wait patiently to move forward. There are drivers, however, who think that they shouldn't have to wait like everyone else. They speed along in the lane about to be closed and then squeeze into the free lane at the last minute, a behavior that clogs traffic even more, slowing everyone else's travel progress.
These examples are more than mundane cases of thoughtless and selfish insensitivity, perpetrated by a small minority of individuals who simple don't care about other people. They are prime examples of what happens when personal desire suppresses the public good. Such behavior not only generates infuriating behavior, but it impedes social progress. What is even more disturbing is that this kind of narrow-minded, radically individualistic behavior is being showcased in the current crisis about raising the debt ceiling of the United States. A minority of radically conservative Republican legislators in the US House of Representatives has demonstrated a profound lack of concern for the public good. If they don't get their way, which denies a sense of shared responsibility for the common welfare -- the public good -- of every American, they threaten to block legislation that would raise the debt ceiling, an act that would destroy our economy and shame us with the stigma of being a deadbeat nation. These legislators pay no mind to experts in international finance or economic projection who predict economic catastrophe. They, after all, know the "real truth," which enables them to know what's best for everyone. And if they don't' get their way, to hell with everyone else -- a classic case of how narrow-minded personal desire slows, stops or reverses social progress.
Proud of their ignorance these legislators swagger like bullies who butt into line. Is this the sort of person you want as your representative? If we continue to elect men and women who are willfully disdainful of the public good, our cherished social contract, signed and sealed by the Founding Fathers, will be broken. In a complex and unforgiving world, that means that the poor and not-so poor, the sick and the elderly will suffer needlessly as they are forced to face the ugly prospect of fending for themselves in an increasingly complex and unforgiving world.
As the debt ceiling clock ticks down, we will soon find out if we are a people possessed by selfish personal desire or a people who promote the public good. In what kind of society do you want your children to live?
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Seen in this light, it becomes obvious that the "the public good" is just a feel-good codeword for everything the author approves of and nothing the author opposes. It's a tabula rasa you can imprint your desires and hopes on.
I want my children and everyone's children to live in a world where every shovelful of earth, every gallon of ocean, and every star in the sky is NOT part of one or more United States Military Commands.
I want my children and everyone's children to live in a world in which the United States of America is not a dishonest country, ruled by dishonest men and women with no respect for the law and no will to enforce the laws even that they themselves have written; let alone those of their ancestors.
I want them to live in a world in which their homeland nation did not blindly repeat history to its own perdition, but which instead resoundingly defeated "the enemy within" just as surely as it once did on the fields of battle.
My gaze is not turned to the right or to the left by all this talk of "debts" and "debt limits," but instead rests quite clearly upon a single realization: that all of this is the product of "High Crime," and a refusal to effectively deal with "High Crime." We live in an international world, and the crimes of a nation situated as ours is, are international crimes of the highest order and of the most dire consequences. Consequences that other nations can, and surely will, contain ... but, why should they have to?
Not too long ago, it was considered common to have a single bread winner in the household and the spouse would be free to raise the children and instill the family values that conservatives so often espouse. Now, rarely can a household survive unless both parents are working, and the vaunted conservative family values suffer. Financial security was to be had from a well regulated financial system and from corporations with long term goals, as opposed to the short sighted goal of maximizing shareholder value, and consequently executive bonuses. CEOs that tanked a company (or an economy) weren't awarded with obscene payouts.
A rising tide lifts all boats, but you can only fit a few through a canal lock, and then only those with the price of admission.
I'm not, however, in agreement that it is a "small minority of individuals" that behave this way.
This is, indeed, the time of "greed is good."
Ayn Rand gone wild. Narcissism as a societal meme.
Perhaps we are too disconnected as individuals from the whole.
Our country goes to wars, but it is a small group of so-called "volunteers" that act as mercenaries for the interests of the oil regimes - instead of America going to war.
Congress makes laws to spend money - then unilaterally repudiates the payments of that money - cynically trying to blame their laws on the administrator - the President.
The economy burns - while they play silly, immoral, unethical games.
Washington is a corrupt corporatist kleptocracy.
It is the bastardization of its minor role to the exclusion of its fundamental role in preserving freedom that has brought America to the outrageous state it now finds itself in.
Thank God for the Tea Party Revolution determined to restore the fundamental role of government and dismantle the social democratic state that is a direct result of the bastardization of purpose created by the Social Democrat Party.
Laughable.
"Absolute power corrupts absolutely." We know that.
We can also see the tip of this rotten iceberg at places such as http://www.opensecrets.org, where we can see in a few clicks that, in 2010, $3.50 Billion dollars in .. bribes .. were -openly- paid out to Members of Congress (of both parties, I assure you) by 12,972 professional .. bribers.
I did not pull any punches here; I did not use any euphemistic words. I did not exonerate either political party because: "By their FRUITS shall ye know them."
I know exactly what it means when the US Supreme Court uses its self-appointed power to declare that "corporate $$ freedom $$ of $$ $peech" is a Constitutional Right, when I can plainly read in the actual document that "all civil officers ... shall be removed from office for ... bribery ..." None of the motivations for any of this are the slightest bit transparent.
It's called "high crime," ladies and gentlemen, and you and me are: "Plaintiffs."
The ruling class is not concerned about how the rest of us will live. They are safe and cozy "behind the gates". They exist in the lap of luxury, vacationing in warmer climes, sending their coddled children to posh private schools, getting jobs for and from friends.
The rich are so much different than you and I. They know it, and they don't care.
and sadly, that will never happen.
I cannot believe that our supposed "leaders" are not putting this on the table to be cut. Obama says it is in our national interest to be in the Middle East for a long time.
The process is filled by demands for the BIG deal. That is what Obama's presidency has been about. He did the big stimulus, the big health care bill (at least in the size of the law), and now he wants some type of big deal here. Certainly the Republicans want a big deal here too.
But if they went through item by item, program by program, agency by agency, and passed a series of smaller bills to possibly eliminate ones that do not provide for "the public good" like farm subsidies, energy subsidies, etc. I think we would all be much better off and they would actually look like adults with functional brains.
At this point, this government is not even worth funding as a tax-payer.
Only a cataclysm can change it. Another, much more massive economic collapse, with the resulting overthrow of the political system. Or , we could legalize weed and just chill out.
In Britain with universal health care, people buy private insurance to cut in front of the line to get treatment, something you seem to be so much against.
There are a lot of programs in DC that do not benefit the public. Farm subsidies, wars, oil subsidies, war on drugs, labor policies, etc. that do not benefit the public. Has the Department of Education improved the nation's education? Empirical data suggests no.
Taxation isn't theft, it's the price we, each of us, pay for membership in society. It's the dues of a free people who govern themselves, rather than being governed. By claiming the right to be an American, one must also accede to the obligation they owe to America.
40 % of your earnings after the first 250,000 is the price you pay for the fortune of living in a land that enables you to earn such a figure.Because the only other stable,safe,democratic and fair countries are in Europe where they tax a little bit more. Japan is half run by mobsters and China and Russia are run by the military and oligarchs. Those socialistic Europeans and the United States are THE ONLY place such wealth and Freedom can exist.
This sounds really strange.
We are all part of society because we live within society. People have rights because of our Creator. Who is actually measuring the virtue of someone's membership in society? I think the poor person did not pay the same income taxes that I did, so I am not going to award any assistance to him. This is really a weird philosophy.
One of the BEST things we can do in this country is to toss the current tax code and establish one that is fair and equitable so that each does indeed pay according to their means. No more loopholes and favoritism.
Make it simple so anyone who has/had a high school education can understand and appreciate it. No more tax accountants to complete tax returns. Everyone can do their own.
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Oh wait, I can't. I must pay the amount of taxes that Washington politicians say I must pay, and it funds the things they decide it funds. If I resist, I will be threatened, arrested, or killed. Soooo… if I can't withdraw my consent, why isn't taxation theft? And if taking your money without your consent for some reason isn't theft, then if a member of the government forced a women to have sex against her will, would it be "the price we, each of us, pay for membership in society" and not rape? If not, why not?
Our Founding Fathers / our Constitution / this country is about people being able to make the most out of life themselves -- NOT -- the government taking FROM someone and giving to another - THAT is stealing.