sycasey said:
My opinion on this is that we are seeing the last gasps of Reaganism, taken to its dead-end extreme. The idea Reagan promoted and popularized was that the "government" could not do anything right and that everything should be left to the free market. Decades of policy shift in this direction have left us with a government that literally cannot do anything to help its people, only to cut taxes and services. It has also left us with the first President who has literally no experience in government or public service.
Very well stated. The thing that always has troubled me about this cynical view of government is that it forgets that we ARE the government. This attitude is built on a self-sufficiency mentality of not wanting a nanny state -- but the state is simply we the people choosing how to manage our society, and spreading burden and benefit across all is noble. The government is only as big or as a little a problem as we let it be. Forsaking government and instead putting all faith in for-profit organizations seems not only completely misguided (and stupid) but antithetical to the desire to avoid a so-called nanny state ("oh please rich people trickle down some of your wealth on us"). It's the ultimate dependency and with little or no leverage or control to safe guard against it not working. At least with a government we have an election and a say.
Not only do we need a government...but the only walls we need to build are between Church and State, and Lobbyists and State.