Res Publica: Public Policy: 2010 elections, Tea Partiers, Laissez-faire economics and public policy

“If there is an overarching theme of election 2010, it is the question of how big the government should be and how far it should reach into people's lives.

Americans have a more negative view of government today than they did a decade ago, or even a few years ago. Most say it focuses on the wrong things and lack confidence that it can solve big domestic problems…..

But ask people what they expect the government to do for themselves and their families, and a more complicated picture emerges.

A new study by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University shows that most Americans who say they want more limited government also call Social Security and Medicare "very important." They want Washington to be involved in schools and to help reduce poverty. Nearly half want the government to maintain a role in regulating health care.”[emphasis added]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/09/AR2010100903308.html?wpisrc=nl_headline

Consider this, over the course of the history of this republic there have always been those who demand less government. Those same folk have screamed, “Laissez-faire.” That’s “leave us alone!” Until that is--- the spokesman for those “free marketers” comes on the television screen, somber faced and declares in Mad Hatter fashion, “the sky is falling, the sky is falling…..”

Then the same folk who bemoan “intrusive government” scream for rescuers. Those rescuers, the taxpayers---all of us---for yes “we the people” are the dreaded “government” move in like firefighters, law enforcers, or a functioning light at an intersection. And do you know why? Because only “we the people” collectively can muster the resources to handle those things that impact us all.

The oligarchs, the few, come close. Consider that the top 1% of the income scale in America is worth more than the bottom 95%. However, that top 1% have no incentive to spend their money on “we the people.” History supports this.

This “we demand smaller government!” thing is as old as the nation. Read some history or watch more PBS. A good primer is the Public Broadcasting Service’s, “The Ascent of Money.”

Almost a century ago, the “free marketers” almost brought the house down it’s euphemistically known as “The Great Depression.”

The same notions being promoted by people such as---libertarians (are you listening Ron Paul?), Tea Partiers and “free market” advocates (Wall Street, “w” and the financial industry are “you” listening?) are the same notions that have now almost undone us as a people and a nation at least twice. The most recent occasion being still too much with us.

Few people like being told what to do. Yet most people don’t know “what to do” if they aren’t told. That is largely an unmendable misfortune and results from the vagaries of being “let alone.”

Put another way, the more lucid understand that there is no such a thing as a “free market.” Left to natural selection or survival of the fittest economics is an ugly, lop-sided thing.

Government or governance when in the hands of mature, unselfish, principled individuals serves to protect the weak from the strong and to share the wealth. Do not misunderstand the wealthy will always be wealthy. It just doesn’t have to be obscenely so. Nor does it mean that wealth should insulate the wealthy from paying a proportionate tax to the very system that made conditions possible for them to attain that wealth---Ayn Rand notwithstanding….

Without a “government” the oligarchs who already have their way will have no apparatus between their greed and the increased oppression of the masses for the Tea Partiers, the libertarians “the masses” means you. So yes, the efforts of the GOPers, the Tea Partiers and libertarians have the potential for unintended consequences. Among those unintended consequences is the control of the folk---even more than oligarchs already have and there will be no apparatus in place (no government) to rein in the oligarhcs.

Wealth is power. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That’s a promise…..

From Texas Red: a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable apartheid public education, lack of healthcare and politicians and majority population intent on keeping it that way…

Hasta Siempre,

More:

Laissez-faire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire

The Ascent of Money
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ascentofmoney/

Beyond the tea party: What Americans really think of government
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/09/AR2010100903308.html?wpisrc=nl_headline

Glenn Beck: Drawing On 1950s Extremism?
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=130534982

being fair and balanced and all guess that’ll be another $1M to Demo Govs?
Fox donates $1 million to GOP governors
http://www.ajc.com/news/fox-donates-1-million-593985.html

Elections 2010: “the Beast” , the money, the power and the glory……
http://robertruiz-respublica.blogspot.com/2010/10/elections-2010-beast-money-power-and.html

Texas Red: a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable apartheid public education, lack of healthcare and politicians and majority population intent on keeping it that way
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-18764-San-Antonio-Public-Policy-Examiner~y2009m10d4-Texas-Red-a-cratered-landscape-of-prisons-deplorable-public-education-lack-of-healthcare-and-poli

Unseen Hand (political science)
The Unseen Hand or the Hidden Hand are metaphors describing the secret and veiled power group(s) that control a government or manipulate public opinion in order to achieve a specific agenda. These terms connotate conspiracies in that these groups attempt through subterfuge to affect designs not overtly popular or known. Moreover, another connotation of these phrases also refer to what may be called "shadow government", "invisible government" or a government within a government. Many observers have noted that historical events hardly ever happen by chance but more often than not occur by deliberate planning.2
http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Unseen_Hand_(political_science)

Gorge Carlin describing facts about this plutocracy/Oligarchy