(got this in an e-mail; it's too good not to share)
This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US department of energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the national oceanographic and atmospheric administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the national aeronautics and space administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US department of agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the food and drug administration.
At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the national institute of standards and technology and the US naval observatory, I get into my national highway traffic safety administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the environmental protection agency, using legal tender issed by the federal reserve bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US postal service and drop the kids off at the public school.
After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the department of labor and the occupational safety and health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.
I then log on to the internet which was developed by the defense advanced research projects administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.
The funny thing is as long as this story was I could see it being turned into a book.
As I walked my dog in the olympic national park paid for & protected by the national government we come across a group of school children out on a field trip. The public school which is government funded will help get only half of these kids too college, so I smiled & waved them all good luck as we past. Bacon (my dog) who I got from a corporate sponsored kennel also barked them good luck as well.
& that's just apart of chapter one! No one has even capitalized on that title for a book yet either.
You ought to read 'Jennifer Government' by Max Barry. The government has been made powerless by the small-government movement, and corporations have rushed in to fill the power vacuum. Nike starts an ad campaign for its new sneaker by hiring NRA hitmen to kill a few people who buy their new shoes at shopping malls, giving them that instant "dangerous" image, and few of the victims' families can afford to pay the government to investigate (taxes have been abolished and people have to finance anything they want the government to do in the way of law enforcement or upholding regulations).
It eventually boils over into full-scale warfare between rival alliances of corporations, who literally bomb one another's headquarters and kidnap one another's executives. It's a really funny book; Barry's a great writer.
Sounds more like anarchy to me. The point of power is interesting to bring up because what Max's belief was that government should hold the power, where in those who are for small government are really for the constitution to have the power. Because of corporate greed has a high possibility to control a country a new law would have to be written up.
Anyways it was an interesting book & I agree with you. I just never see any understanding of what small government thinking is all about. Especially when it comes to how the police force would work. Like the whole reason why we have states in the first place. Your point of how we are mixed & things are working is true & the only hate I see is where the misunderstanding of why people advocate small government. Which is very far from any wingnut thinking I know. Its all about your freedoms granted under the constitution. Without that we wouldn't have "America".
I think the whole socialism scare is all about how easy it is for freedoms to be taken over. As a democrat would you want full blown socialism? To tell you the truth I don't even like capitalism because its a good power tool. Too many irresponsible people out there. I'm more down for a resource based economy, which would be socialism without money & taking of other peoples "property". I don't even know if we are capable of handling even that though. In an age with computers though I would say hopefully.
No, full-blown socialism isn't the way. But we can't have small government until we can keep businesses at bay, doing what they do without treading all over everyone's rights and liberties.
You look at what we had for the past eight years -- essentially a corporate invasion of a democratic government. Having oil company executives running the country is something that's usually reserved for banana republics, not for the United States, but that is just what we had. And they represented their people well -- America has never been as enslaved to powerful corporations as it is today.
Think about this. You and I and the rest of the American taxpayers paid $90 per load to wash the troops' laundry in Iraq. That sounds like a typical tale of bloated government spending, but actually, it was what the Vice President's former company charged us after winning a no-bid contract to perform services like that in Iraq.
This wasn't big government oppressing business. This was government practically getting raped by big business -- turned into a zombie to do Halliburton's bidding.
Episodes like this should be a clear indicator to all of us of what the intentions are of every George W. Bush or Mitt Romney out there who comes from a business background and wants to be elected into power. The people running these companies seek absolute power, and they are willing to shred the Constitution to get it.
And they want to "make the government small enough to drag it to the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub" (Grover Norquist). I wonder why? Why do they want to remove anything that could hold them in check or challenge their power?
Government has only been in collusion with big business for the past eight years and capitalism is the demon that took over our huge federal government. I mean seriously, anyone can read our Constitution and see that the founding fathers wanted the federal government involved with every aspect of business and it's quite clear that they shed their own blood for the right to give a large part of the fruits of their labor to the Quee... oh sorry, gotta go, my Unicorn just went missing...
