Okay, so I was listening to Phil Valentine on SuperTalk 99.7 (Nashville area station), and I heard him talking about how the Government is mandating the use of Ethanol in gasoline and how 30% of our corn is now used for the production of Ethanol (I also read it somewhere, can’t remember where now). Of course as a result food prices go up and fuel prices go up (and like any conservative talk show host he was outraged!).
You see, what we have here is the government meddling in things it has no business with! Whenever you add the government in on the mix, doesn’t matter what it is… unless it has to do with the biblical place of government which is punishing evil doers, then it’s just a mess! Just take a look around in this country and you can see this phenomenon at work. Anything our government touches falls all to pieces. But that’s what happens when you interfere with Capitalism, it’s just not Capitalism anymore!
You know what’s crazy? As the government messes our Capitalism up more and more, people start screaming more and more for the government to come in and fix the problem. I hear it all the time, “The government needs to do something about the economy.”
O yeah… like what? See the problem is any problem we are having with our economy is already because of government involvement and regulations. They can’t fix something they aren’t supposed to be messing with. And yet it seems that the driving issue for most Americans in this election is “what will the candidate do for the economy?” I can answer that, if he’s a Godly candidate that knows the Biblical place of government, and if he understands capitalism, he will do NOTHING for the economy except LEAVE IT STINKING ALONE!
I hear all this non-sense about sending Americans some sum of money (I’ve heard different numbers on the amount of money, I think it may vary depending on some criterion or other), this is of course tax money. And I’ve even heard Pres. Bush refer to it as a booster shot in the arm for the economy. It really just makes me sick. It sounds a lot like a re-distribution of wealth to me.
You know, there is a system wherein the government interferes with the economy, and where wealth is re-distributed. It’s called SOCIALISM!
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To my Watchful nephew:
You write:
“Whenever you add the government in on the mix, doesn’t matter what it is… then it’s just a mess! Just take a look around in this country and you can see this phenomenon at work. Anything our government touches falls all to pieces. But that’s what happens when you interfere with Capitalism, it’s just not Capitalism anymore!”
I disagree.
Here, off the top of my head, are some things that government does or had done extremely well for us all.
1. The GI Bill. One of the greatest feats of social engineering in our nation’s history. Sent millions of veterans to college. Swelled the ranks of the middle class in ways previously unimaginable. Provided the base of well-educated managers, engineers and entrepreneurs that made possible the vast leaps of computer, space, communications and industrial technology our nation experienced in the last half of the 20th century.
2. Civil rights. It has been less than 50 years since the classified ads of one of the most liberal newspapers in the nation (the NY Times) were still divided in “Jobs-White” and “Jobs-Colored” and “Apartments-White” and “Apartments-Colored.” I don’t think I have to tell you how deeply ingrained segregation was in every aspect of life in most of our nation. Without the intervention of our federal government, those great evils would have persisted. The people who fought against the move to grant equal protection under the law for all people, regardless of race, used many of the same arguments that you are using.
3. Safe food. I’m thinking small scale here, but our city government conducts unannounced inspections at every business that serves ready to eat food. The results are published in the newspaper. Establishments that fail their tests
inevitably are exposed by one local TV station every Sunday night. The reasons these establishments fail their inspections are appalling—implements used on raw meat being used to serve prepared food, food kept at very unsafe temperatures, rodent droppings in food prep areas, pest infestations, etc. I would hate to have to wait for the invisible hand of the marketplace to kick-in and close this business only after enough people have contracted food poisoning for the word to get around. If business are this unconcerned with the city government watching, I shudder to think what it would be like without inspections.
Let’s be clear: everything a governing body does has an intended effect, an unintended effect, and a whole host of otherwise unknown effects that will only become apparent in hindsight. That should give both those who govern and those who are governed pause. But to state that everything a government does is wrong is naive, at best, and willfully blind at worst.
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