Ix, it isn't the elected officials that bother me as much s it is the unelected bureaucrats that cannot be removed except by death no matter how incompetent.
When a private concern is poorly run it goes out of business, unless it is too big to fail, wherein it gets a taxpayer handout. ON the other hand, when a government run entity is run into the ground, they throw more money at it, and make no effort to make it run better, revise it or anything. If it is run so badly, what they do is make an entirely new outfit to do the same thing as the old one, so now there are two pieces of shit sucking up tax money and providing little benefit to the people whom they are to benefit.
That's right Ix, they are the same people. So why does the left think that if business is evil, government will be any better?
I don't think I've ever seen a liberal (or any conservative for that matter) say that government is wonderful, but the expectations of each side are obviously different. In the broadest view, conservatives seem to want government out of people's lives as much as possible, while liberals expect government to take a hand in fixing or preventing the evils of the world. Conservatives seem to think that market forces will just magically balance out the evils & excesses of the world, nevermind humanity's inclination to ruthlessly exploit whatever resource we can get our hands on regardless of the consequences. I think the reason why we see liberals championing government intervention instead of private concerns is that our government is supposed to be representative & inclusive of
all of us, whereas private concerns / business is ultimately answerable only to one thing -- making its owners money.
The most realistic attitude is to acknowledge that
both private and public sectors, business and government, indeed humanity as whole, simply sucks. But change codified in law and enforced by government is a powerful tool for shaping society, and I think it's the best tool we have at our disposal. Law, properly applied, can shape society in ways both subtle and gross, for good or ill. Law can reign in the excesses of the private sector, but it doesn't really work the other way around. I can certainly get behind the idea of reforming government bureaucracy; it's logical and it's necessary, but a dysfunctional bureaucracy is no excuse for dismissing the potential benefits of a government that should be working for everyone's benefit.
In other words, if it's broke, simply putting up with it doesn't fly with me anymore. Either we fix it or we throw it away.
Man, I am so glad I do not have your concepts of religion, spirituality, or whatever. What you think absolutely horrifies me.
I'm assuming you're directing this last part at Burk since you two clash so much on this stuff.
Myself, I can get behind the secular humanist approach to life. And my approach to God is pretty simple -- I would never, ever worship any deity that threatens me with eternal torment for non-belief. Persuading or cajoling people into belief goes against every fiber of my being, and that's not going to change in this life. In the absence of convincing evidence, I won't categorically deny the possibility of a divine superbeing, but I'm highly skeptical that Christianity has the right vision of one. Maybe the word of God really was handed down to some superstitious primitive thousands of years ago, but I rather think that something got lost in the translation at some point or another.
I am somewhat interested in seeing who will take up the almighty Pope hat this time around, and whether it will mark the beginnings of any significant shift in Catholic dogma.
