I live government; the question should not be all or nothing, but what size government? The best argument for some form of rule is simply from human civilization: pure anarchy never works, to my knowledge. Even the prehistoric tribe had "government" even if it was at a primitive level, perhaps an alpha male as warrior chief, maybe later …
I live government; the question should not be all or nothing, but what size government? The best argument for some form of rule is simply from human civilization: pure anarchy never works, to my knowledge. Even the prehistoric tribe had "government" even if it was at a primitive level, perhaps an alpha male as warrior chief, maybe later with the healer/witch doctor as spiritual guide.
A common analogy of "good" goverment is the traffic signal. Imagine a crossroads. No rules at all only works if there is almost zero traffic. In the early days no signs were needed, just a simple rule like who had right-of-way. Then came the stop sign. Later, the electric traffic signal. As traffic increases, so does the need for some type of control and -- here's a critical point -- universal (or nearly so) compliance. E.g. in a busy city, traffic only flows because everyone, or nearly every driver and pedestrian, obeys the signals. If even a small fraction begin to flout the law, the result is chaos: most likely, gridlock and probably injuries and deaths. There also has to be some means of punishing scofflaws.
More of life is luck than we'd like to acknowledge. You get an idiot alpha male who holds his position in the hierarchy not from real cunningness but from just enough brutal cleverness to intimidate the rest, you got a serious problem (and he probably will have a shortened lifespan himself).
If the Founders had been Puritans we might not have lasted as long as we have. We were uniquely fortunate in the quality of men who hammered out the Declaration and the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Quality has seriously deteriorated since then.
Every government wants to get its hooks into the "scofflaw" and when you make the laws, you can expand that category exponentially. They did with crap like the Blue Laws.
That "eternal vigilance" thingy is true. Good governance must be achieved in every generation; we don't get to inherit a permanent condition of it.
And I don't see how it's realistically possible to have good governance of a country this big, which from its start had been settled by people of diverse origin and who each had different reasons to emigrate from wherever they came and to immigrate here. Federalism is a smart system but human nature being as it is, people are always looking over from their borders and wanting to impose their views on the states in which they do not live.
I live government; the question should not be all or nothing, but what size government? The best argument for some form of rule is simply from human civilization: pure anarchy never works, to my knowledge. Even the prehistoric tribe had "government" even if it was at a primitive level, perhaps an alpha male as warrior chief, maybe later with the healer/witch doctor as spiritual guide.
A common analogy of "good" goverment is the traffic signal. Imagine a crossroads. No rules at all only works if there is almost zero traffic. In the early days no signs were needed, just a simple rule like who had right-of-way. Then came the stop sign. Later, the electric traffic signal. As traffic increases, so does the need for some type of control and -- here's a critical point -- universal (or nearly so) compliance. E.g. in a busy city, traffic only flows because everyone, or nearly every driver and pedestrian, obeys the signals. If even a small fraction begin to flout the law, the result is chaos: most likely, gridlock and probably injuries and deaths. There also has to be some means of punishing scofflaws.
More of life is luck than we'd like to acknowledge. You get an idiot alpha male who holds his position in the hierarchy not from real cunningness but from just enough brutal cleverness to intimidate the rest, you got a serious problem (and he probably will have a shortened lifespan himself).
If the Founders had been Puritans we might not have lasted as long as we have. We were uniquely fortunate in the quality of men who hammered out the Declaration and the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Quality has seriously deteriorated since then.
Every government wants to get its hooks into the "scofflaw" and when you make the laws, you can expand that category exponentially. They did with crap like the Blue Laws.
That "eternal vigilance" thingy is true. Good governance must be achieved in every generation; we don't get to inherit a permanent condition of it.
And I don't see how it's realistically possible to have good governance of a country this big, which from its start had been settled by people of diverse origin and who each had different reasons to emigrate from wherever they came and to immigrate here. Federalism is a smart system but human nature being as it is, people are always looking over from their borders and wanting to impose their views on the states in which they do not live.