On 10/16/2013 5:54 AM, Shay wrote:
> Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>
>> certain business interests, and the people they paid huge amounts
>> of money to elect, pushed that narrative.
>
>> every single person with any connection at all to (corporate
>> prisons), including politicians, have pushed for more mandatory
>> sentences, less cause or reason to arrest people, the whole
>> creation of three strikes laws.
>
>> Its almost as though the problem isn't government, but money, a
>> failure to regulate, in the interests of said money, and who is
>> f-ing running said government, because of that.
>
> You're aaaaaaalllmost there. Just a few more steps!
>
Oh, no, I think I have gone well beyond you. You, and so many others, 
seem to think that a thing needs to be "labelled" government to be 
corruptible, but that charity, or businesses, or collections of people 
who think they are better "enlightened", somehow are not. All any of 
those are is less controllable, when they grow corrupt. Its a "who 
watches the watchmen?", problem. You can have one big watchman, which, 
if you are careful, have some sort of control over, or can regain 
control over, or you can have hundreds of little watchmen, all with 
their own personal corruptions, a tendency to band together, when they 
see a common goal, and no capacity of the public to either know what 
they are doing, or actually do anything about it, if they do know. 
Corporations "are" governments, with their own mix is dictatorships, 
armed guards to keep the populous in line, in some cases, etc. So can 
charities. The idea that people are better equipped to work out which of 
these thousands of groups are corrupt, when, according to you, its 
dangerous to have one of them, which everyone is watching, and which, in 
turn watches all the mini-governments under it... is the single most 
naive things anyone ever came up with.

But, that is exactly what the idea of normal, everyday people, without 
anyone to help them, being able to control, guide, or otherwise direct 
the market of ideas, products, or even social services, etc., by picking 
and choosing which ones to support, that **is** at the core of 
libertarianism. If even libertarians can't manage it, how the hell are 
300 million people supposed to? This is the role of a government, to be 
the watchman, which everyone else watches. The problem, of course, is 
that those thousands of "mini-governments" have managed to undermine 
this principle. And, ironically, all I ever hear from some people is, 
"Its not fixable, so lets gut it, in the hopes that, once it no longer 
has the means *to* watch anyone, it can do its job better. That it is 
now watching the wrong people, is because of people arguing that it 
should spend less time watching who, and what, its supposed to, and more 
and more time watching everyone else, while letting the "market" do damn 
near what ever the fuck it can get by with, or bribe someone to allow. 
So much for the watchman...

Post a reply to this message