BIG GOVERNMENT, good thing or bad thing?

[[KMA]Avenger]

well, everyone knows what i think of big government so no need for me to go on anymore about it in this first post, but i will say this...i contend we have the capacity to govern ourselves (we just lack the will) and if we did, we would lead not only a much better life but also a more harmonious one. but what do you think, do we need more government or less?

lets talk

[Deaths_Rider]

less government is better for small population i don't doubt that but when you have citys with 100s of thousands of people or in some cases millions of people it just dosen't work you need big governments to take control of things like health care sanitation ect. granted i think at the moment government has too much control but at times i think a benovolent dictator would be the best solution to certain problems and be the best most efficent way to get things done.

all in all while a country town or frountier city may beable to mostly self govern a major city wouldn't and so big governments are needed

[[KMA]Avenger]

less government is better for small population i don't doubt that but when you have citys with 100s of thousands of people or in some cases millions of people it just dosen't work you need big governments to take control of things like health care sanitation ect.

that's the job of a local authority or council, not government.

[Jack]

i contend we have the capacity to govern ourselves (we just lack the will)

Your argument is flawed, you say that we don't need a big government because we can police ourselves, then you go on to say that we do not have the will to police ourselves, which would require a government, being a large country that would mean a large government.



So by your own admission, a large government, whether a good thing or not, is necessitated by our lack of self control.

[[KMA]Avenger]

meh...

not having the will is because we are raised in a system which doesn't give people the will, it used to but not anymore, which is why there is so much more crime than there used to be even with a bigger % of population. pound for pound, there's so much crime nowadays its unreal.

its not all about crime, but crime is a big part...we CAN govern ourselves, trouble is, people would rather someone else do it.

[RepliMagni]

Define "BIG GOVERNMENT" please.

You keep talking about governing ourselves. How? Thomas More's Utopia where every person does a specific job for a set time then changes - people in gov't are personally responsible for their decisions. Paine's small-scale agrarian villages? In a globalised world such self-government is impossible.

Do you want a referendum on each and every problem that arises? We'd never have time or opportunity to do anything for ourselves, to live. The whole point in gov'ts is that we devolve responsibility to others so that we can live ourselves. Sometimes our choices are bad; Hitler was raised by democracy. But big governments are necessary. What one person, or even small group of people can hope to understand all the complicated and convulted processes of governing, and still live a normal life?

What happens when people don't do what is best for the collective as More assumes? Then you automatically need a system of checks, you need bureacracy to ensure things are done as an idealised piece of legislation says it should. I don't deny this process can go overboard. But an element of big gov't is necessary in modern societies....

[Kit-Fox]

I somehow think that the term 'big government' refers to the current situation in most western countries where governments are clutching at as much power as possible (even what they dont need) all in the name of fighting terror or protecting kids.

We dont need such governments, we dont need to be numbered and tracked from the cradle to the grave. We dont need huge databases or security services with unchecked powers.

What we do need is minimised governance, we need to see a return to the idea that laws should be debated fully, they should be written in specifics and not in vagueness. They shouldnt be written to pacify one or two people who have had something tragic happen to them, they should address systemic failures not tragic accidents/freak occurances.

[ramen07]

ideally, we could govern ourselves. note the keyword could. the whole idea behind less government/socialism (and im not saying theyre the same) is that we could fairly govern ourselves out of wanting to do something right. as we've seen with the past and current socialist governments, it ends up being controlled by a power-hungry person or group of people that ultimately defeats the purpose of a less controlling government. now if we could somehow make it less government but a better system of checks and balances, i would be interested in implementing that instead of a bigger government.

btw, when i think of "bigger" government i think a stronger, more centralized government.

[[KMA]Avenger]

tbh, i dont exactly know what i mean by "BIG GOVERNMENT", but as Kit-Fox said, they shouldn't (nor have the right because we did not consent to verbally, we consent by staying silent) to track us from cradle to grave.
if we look at laws, acts and statutes, most of them are in place just so we can be either fined or taxed at every turn and with the smallest slip up. this is wrong and against the basic human right, can anyone honestly say we need so many rules and regs in place to live in peace and abundance? the answer is obvious that we dont, thats 1 level of self governance and i recognize that we are not living in the wild west and need a few rules in place, but not as many as they have now.
we can do away with the privately owned for profit central bank system, and government should regulate the flow of cash money in a more responsible way, this would be a far more stable monetary system than what we have now.
we also dont need a global economy, if someone from say the the US wants to trade with someone from china thats cool, they can do that simply by finding a supplier who meets the requirements of the buyer and the goods can be bought in by container ship and a small tax can be applied to the goods to cover the cost of the ports involved, nothing more need be added to the goods aside from the profit of buyer.

we dont need these massive corporations and so on, we can get along just fine without them.

as for local community needs and services, thats all payed for by a small tax which goes towards these things, think how much money we save if we simply wrote of the national debt, kick out these private bankers and reduce the armed forces to a small defense force!

the above are just a few simple examples, obviously i have missed out allot but theres enough there for you guys to see where i am coming from.

as i see things, big governments are the root cause of most the worlds woes and do nothing but hinder us all in our pursuit for peace, life and happiness.

[I Am Thor]

Big government is a bad thing, which the forefathers of the United States foresaw and wrote in a system of checks a balances, not wanting all the power to lie within the central governing structure, instead the power is with the states but the Supreme Court of the United States is law, and every state has to follow their ruling. Big government also leads to big problems such as corruption, destabilization, and eventually chaos. The greatest example of why big government is a bad thing is communism and facism, both failed because of big government. People gave up their rights and then let others take over in the hopes they would solve all their problems,WWII and the Cold War were the results. Big government, big bad thing.

[Brdavs]

The problem of you folks is you don`t actually know anything about the theory (and history that led to it) behind governance and complex social systems to begin with...

The the whole matter devolves into higlighting the things you don`t like citing them as proof of big brothers opression and nitpicking the aspects you agree with or support and chalking them up to some mythical ability of "naturally" being in place again "proving" the non need of this so called big government.

BG is a straw man. There is no such thing. Simply because the absence of social order that implies governance in some shape or form is not fiesable. Local councils etc. are all part of that. Government is not Capitol Hill or the Kremlin or European Pariament. It`s virtually everything around you. It`s order. It`s the very essence of humans and human society. It`s been with us since the first cavemen started doing tribes. It`s the foundation of everything.
You`d have to be a real hillbilly redneck to actually believe that life would be the most peachy if everyone just went away and governments and societies in current form would shut off and everyone would focus on the induvidua,l since everyone knows what`s "best" for them, and that at the same everything would be utopia on earth. Doesnt. Work. Like. That. lol.

If you dont`t have a complex system of human society you don`t have a human society, you have animals. A FFA survival, not heaven on earth. No platos works cos the man would be to buisy surviving heh. And every complex system is selfdestructive, all theories and empyrical proof points to that. It`s subject to ever increasing degradation and needs to be artificially maintained, cue laws and state opression. And it allso inevitably leads into some sort of oligarchy. The Clintons/Kennedies, the Royals etc. etc. heh

You`re just one more cogg. Embrace it. Resistance is futile. And deep down you know the worst thing that could happen to you is that you succed.

[Kit-Fox]

The problem of you folks is you don`t actually know anything about the theory (and history that led to it) behind governance and complex social systems to begin with...

The the whole matter devolves into higlighting the things you don`t like citing them as proof of big brothers opression and nitpicking the aspects you agree with or support and chalking them up to some mythical ability of "naturally" being in place again "proving" the non need of this so called big government.

BG is a straw man. There is no such thing. Simply because the absence of social order that implies governance in some shape or form is not fiesable. Local councils etc. are all part of that. Government is not Capitol Hill or the Kremlin or European Pariament. It`s virtually everything around you. It`s order. It`s the very essence of humans and human society. It`s been with us since the first cavemen started doing tribes. It`s the foundation of everything.
You`d have to be a real hillbilly redneck to actually believe that life would be the most peachy if everyone just went away and governments and societies in current form would shut off and everyone would focus on the induvidua,l since everyone knows what`s "best" for them, and that at the same everything would be utopia on earth. Doesnt. Work. Like. That. lol.

If you dont`t have a complex system of human society you don`t have a human society, you have animals. A FFA survival, not heaven on earth. No platos works cos the man would be to buisy surviving heh. And every complex system is selfdestructive, all theories and empyrical proof points to that. It`s subject to ever increasing degradation and needs to be artificially maintained, cue laws and state opression. And it allso inevitably leads into some sort of oligarchy. The Clintons/Kennedies, the Royals etc. etc. heh

You`re just one more cogg. Embrace it. Resistance is futile. And deep down you know the worst thing that could happen to you is that you succed.

Sorry but that is utter tosh & complete hogswash to boot.

You do not need such governance as we have now (ie with the associated 'power' they have over individuals) to have a civilised & advanced society.

[Caladon]

You do not need such governance as we have now (ie with the associated 'power' they have over individuals) to have a civilised & advanced society.

What evidence supports this statement? What "civilised & advanced society" exists/existed without a BG?

[Kit-Fox]

You do not need such governance as we have now (ie with the associated 'power' they have over individuals) to have a civilised & advanced society.

What evidence supports this statement? What "civilised & advanced society" exists/existed without a BG?

Well rebutting the idea that governments need such overbearing power is provided by a report published today i do believe, by a collection of judges/lawyers/privacy&civil liberty campaigners from across the world.

The report has stated that by creating so called 'anti-terror' laws that allow the state such overbearing powers (ie powers over the idividual I was refering to earlier) they have infact weakened both international law & their own national laws (especially national laws as of course 'precedent' carries much more weight at a 'local' level than at an international level given the history of some precedents)

Not only do laws such as extended detetion without charge or work blacklists weaken existing laws they outright break some. As does of course several governments aims to catalogue their entire populace for monitoring purposes.

Rebutting the idea that a big government is need to be advanced well given my very small knowledge of the current shape of all the governments/socities across the world everywhere at this moment i'm gonna rely upon historical precedent and use the greeks as a very good example. At the time of their civilisation they were very advanced indeed & you would be hard pressed to argue that they werent civilised and yet for all that in comparison to todays governments theirs was quite small and powerless and yet somehow they managed. Yes I know the populations were smaller back then, but a bigger population != bigger government unless your governments are disorganised & ineffectual, in which case you need a better system not a bigger one.

[Caladon]

Rebutting the idea that a big government is need to be advanced well given my very small knowledge of the current shape of all the governments/socities across the world everywhere at this moment i'm gonna rely upon historical precedent and use the greeks as a very good example. At the time of their civilisation they were very advanced indeed & you would be hard pressed to argue that they werent civilised and yet for all that in comparison to todays governments theirs was quite small and powerless and yet somehow they managed. Yes I know the populations were smaller back then, but a bigger population != bigger government unless your governments are disorganised & ineffectual, in which case you need a better system not a bigger one.

I am not certain if the ancient Greeks really display the civilization and advancement that supports your argument. In ancient Athens, "democracy" only extended to Athens-born males, excluding women (presumption here; I'm presuming that half the population was female). Charismatic leaders, such as Alcibiades, led Athens to ill-fated expedition to Syracuse, in the name of extending its empire. And while I do admire Sparta's military prowess and discipline, I am not sure if I would call it "civilized" or "advanced".

Perhaps a step back is in order: what is your operational definition of an advanced civilization?

While I life in a nation that, in some peoples opinions, overreacted to terror attacks, the inherent checks and balances in place are, albeit slowly, bringing such action back to what is accepted by the majority of the population. In the time of the Greeks, no system of checks or balances existed. Athenian Democracy, as far as it included only Athenian males, was easily swayed by charisma. Those that did not bow to the status quo could find them exiled, if they didn't agree with the status quo (as defined by charismatic leaders), and become isolated from the city-state they loved. That hardly seems "civilized".