Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for September 10, 2010

after five or six sharks, I think a sponge would work better than a shovel…

Swimming with sharks! Not how I would have defined it, but I’ll still take it. Eleftheria i Thanatos!

Love it.

bleeep straight…lets get rid of the Commie Pinko socialism like social security, veterans affairs and medicare too. While we are at it remember there is no reference in the Constitution for unneeded organizations like the FBI or the FDA….

Hey, no govment at all could be fun…

Actually, freedom means you aren’t forced to pay for a huge bureaucracy of lifeguards. It means people are responsible for taking care of themselves. Freedom means peace and prosperity. Government intervention in our lives means war and poverty.

…and without laws and governance, it also means greed and corruption by the few that think altruism is a disease. Anyone notice the previous few years?

Why should the people have to pay for the wealthy’s blunders? (such as many sea and mountain climbing rescues)

Hey, we NEED the government to tell us not to stay in the water when there are sharks there…in fact, lets pass ‘no swimming in shark infested water’ legislation post haste!

I would suggest a little light reading for those who think government has no place in the affairs of business. In case you missed it in school, I think you would do well to read Upton Sinclair’s novel “The Jungle” which exposes all manner of greed, expolitation, and corruption of the meat packing industry of the early 20th century. While Sinclair wrote about one industry, you may rest assured many of the others of that era were little better in their treatment of employees or their products.

No matter what happens, just remember one thing…we are free to choose our actions. Unfortunately, we are not free to choose the consequences…

Lets see, swim with the sharks or listen to him, tough choice.

Tex, it sounds like you have been propagandized by your government school education to believe everything you read. Sinclair’s “The Jungle” was more fiction than fact, part of the Progressive Era rewriting of history.

The criminal class that run the government would love you to believe government is indispensable for civilized society. Our corporatist government allows large corporations to kill off competition and mistreat both employees and customers. In a free society (free of government chains) businesses that did not treat both employees and customers well could not stay in business.

For example, regulations and high taxes are easily managed by large corporations while small businesses and start up (the likely source of true competition for large corporations) are prevented from growing.

Expand you education. Start with “Economics in One Lesson” by Henry Hazlitt; it’s available as a free download; Google the URL.

“…and without laws and governance, it also means greed and corruption”

It was the laws and government that mandated home loans to people who were bad risks. That was a big part of the economic crash.

Hey, I need the government to tell me the obvious. Like our First Lady spending millions of tax dollars to tell me if I eat too much and don’t exercise, I might grow fat, How come she’s thin and can lie on the beach in Europe at taxpayer expense instead of hiking in America?

Federal government. Does that mean the whole thing? Like secure our borders, negotiate with other nations, fight wars with other nations, encourage interstate transportation, provide a national post office,mint money and resolve differences between states. Isn’t there some old paper that says that? Oh yeah, doesn’t is also say that all other powers are reserved for the states? You think the founding fathers were petrified by strong central goverment?.

Two days ago Fidel Castro said that central government controlling the population did not work. CASTRO!!The father of American liberalism. That’s like Jesus renouncing God. Liberal/socialism/communism does not work. Just ask the starving folk on that cold peninsular where they are still stupid enough to let the state run things

Great… a libertarian

TexTech, I’m with you

you will not change the minds of others tho

they will ride into the sunset with their blinders in place

better yet, go online and view the streaming video of the offshore (100 yds to 1 mile) ¨food bank¨ that sharks of various voracities loiter in. i believe one such pan from a helicopter off southeast florida´s coast observed 20 or 30 great whites strung out over about a 5 mile stretch. you won´t catch me putting myself into the pot when my species is on the recipe card….

Sharks? Cool! Let me get my dive gear and camera!

Stare too long into the abyss and the abyss also stares back into you….. nuff said!

Government can get out of hand. No denying that.

But since people have already started bagging on government, I’ll point out a few things that the government does provide.

Infra-structure – stuff like roads, linkage for utilities, in some places the utilities themselves, police/fire/rescue services, education, various services like libraries, community centers, parks (local/state/national). You might not always make use of them, but if they disappeared you’d probably notice.

Security – at the highest levels the ability to repel invaders or to deal with civil war. Granted the US, other than the war of 1812 has never had to deal with invasion, but countries in Europe have.

Opportunity – Again, our government isn’t perfect, as nothing ever is, but there is far more opportunity here than much of the rest of the world. Why else do you suppose that thousand of foreign nationals come thousands of miles through all manner of hardship to come here? Yes, we are very liberal with hand-outs, but that’s secondary to the opportunity that is lacking in their homelands, let alone avoiding being shot, stabbed, raped, and pillaged on a regular basis by criminals or criminal governments.

And one last thought. Can you point to any other current government – other than the UK – that has lasted 200+ years without at least one change? China – 1949 from KMT to PRC; Russia 1919 Czar to CCCP – 1989 to Russian Federation; Italy more than 50 changes in governmental form; South America and Africa almost to many to keep track off.

See my point? We not perfect, our government isn’t, but we’re still here and we’re still going.

David, re: Security, Don’t Hawaii and Alaska count as the United States? They were both attacked by the Japanese. Before that, Georgia was invaded by Spaniards from Florida, Texas attacked by Mexico a couple of times,,,,,,,,,,, How soon we forget. How about New York being attacked by Islam extremists from Saudi Arabia?

I love listening to the rants of the angry white people. The rich aren’t rich enough. The poor aren’t poor enough. The hungry aren’t hungry enough. We need to kill more foreigners. Etc., Etc., Etc. And yes, I am a proud socialist, so calling me one doesn’t insult me.

@david992

The last time I went to DisneyWorld I enjoyed private roads, infrastructure, and security. How could Disney possibly do such a good job without government? I generally do not feel the same sense of contentment and security when I am on government streets and government parks.

We know how poorly government runs the Post Office and DMV. We are finding out how poorly government controlled medical care is. Why do you believe only government can provide infrastructure and security.

I refer you to two books (Google for free pdf download sites):

“The Privatization of Roads and Highways” by Walter Block

“The Private Production of Defense” by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

David, do you really believe our government has not changed since 1789? Do you think Washington, Jefferson, or even the execrable Hamilton would recognize our present government?

Lincoln wounded our Republic with his centralization of power during the Civil War. The revolution of 1913 (Income Tax, Federal Reserve, Direct Election of Senators) transformed our country from a republic into a fledgling empire. Our transformation into a Warfare/Welfare empire has steadily progressed since WWII.

The reason America has historically been the land of opportunity is because our government used to be less intrusive than other governments. Now I can’t even sit on my own pot without government intruding into the specifications. Government regulates what I eat, watches where I go, listens to what I say.

When I was growing up people used to say, “It’s a free country.” Nobody ever says that anymore.

@Isherris: Yes, of course The Jungle was fictional – it’s a novel. That said, much of what Sinclair wrote about the meat-packing industry in his novel came from direct observation and was deemed at the time an accurate depiction of that industry. Try again.

Spent considerable time rescuing idiots from themselves, some time in combat, and swimming with sharks for that matter. Today’s “conservative movement” in America DOES make me think of sharks- low IQ eating machines that will blindly consume anything they’re fed. The difference is that sharks don’t regurgitate it constantly and try to make us believe an old boot is a blessing.

Sharks, and conservatives, are most dangerous because they take a bite based on instinct, and bleed the smaller folk to death, yet those at the top of the food chain are sustained.

I love the way people who benefit from the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the FDA, OSHA, etc. etc. wail about how there’s too much government.

Ah, for the good old days when you couldn’t fish in your rivers (polluted in another state, so your laws don’t affect them), breathe toxic gasses vented by businesses (which deny doing it), and work in places where the chemicals will kill you. I’m not making this up, it’s 1960s Milford, CT, my hometown.

Yeah, if the whiners busy rewriting reality had lived there, they could have enjoyed all those things - even after they got cancer.

You don’t have to come running…just turn on the bloody alarm…!

@NightShade09:

Let’s discuss how I have benefited from the FDA. Thanks to the FDA prescription drug medication costs much more than it would without this idiotic regulating body. I can’t really blame the drug companies. If it costs a billion dollars to get a drug approved, you have to charge big bucks to recoup that unnecessary investment.

The FDA harms us by preventing people from having access to many excellent medications. Why would i take the risk of developing a new drug unless I could make back the investment. All the new drugs that get approved these are for mass market (ie hyperlipidemia, hypertension, cancer). You won’t see any drugs approved for autism or genetic/metabolic disorders.

The FDA has been responsible for thousands of deaths caused by delays in approving drugs.

Your pollution complaint is a direct result of government courts deciding that polluters would not be responsible. The Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and EPA are all responses to government caused problems.

The only solution to the problem of pollution is respect for private property rights. Polluters need to be responsible. Individuals have the freedom to use their own property as they see fit, but cannot pollute the air, water, or land of their neighbors.

Government is the greatest polluter. The Communist countries of Europe were much more polluted than the so-called Democratic countries. More government leads to more pollution.

paranoia strikes deep

want to get back to a free country? – repeal the Patriot Act

OK! Lifeguard, you better dive in the sand.

You are free to eat as many contaminated eggs as you desire.

exoticdoc – True enough. That, however, is where the electorate – and its’ various groups – disagree.

If the government appears somewhat schizophrenic, that’s a reflection of the electorate. And it’s not even the whole of the electorate, but it’s the largest portion of the electorate that actually took the time to go out and vote.

justice22 – I should have been a bit more specific. Yes, Hawaii and Alaska were both attacked by the Japanese. And yes, we were attacked on 9/11.

Invasion on the other hand, implies foreign troops, on the ground, taking possession of US soil. Which last occurred in WWII.

isherris – Perhaps I should have been clearer. I was referring to the form of government and the basis behind it. I’m referring now to our Constitution. We’ve made 27 Amendments to that document over time to reflect various degrees of social change. Not all of which worked. However, it is still functionally the same document.

We still elect an Executive (the President), yes? We still elect our legislature (although form was changed for popular election to the Senate from election by the various state legislatures), which create our laws. The judiciary still reviews our laws and passes on whether or not the laws are Constitutional.

All this remains the same. The content changes, certainly. And government has a wider role in our lives, at least in part from an increasingly large population.

The debate here is the neccessity of this wider role.

Compare this to other countries. Take the PRC for example. In 1913 the Koumintang ousted the last Imperial Dynasty, which was not even Chinese. In 1949 the KMT was ousted in its turn by the PRC. Imperial to nominally democratic to communist in less than 50 years.

Do you see my point?

We are the government. All American voters are. We live in a Democratic Republic. We elect people to represent us. Pollitcians don’t last long if the people who can vote for ‘em don’t like what they do. Term limits are possible every election. If you disagree with anything the government does, you are really disagreeing with the people who won the last election. There is no government but that which the majority of voters want. Your disagreement isn’t with the government, but with your fellow Americans. Stop blaming “The Government”!

Light match, toss: Big explosion of hot air!

Artfully done, the punch line is the comments.

Ah, but if the majority feel they should have big brother look over them, what of the self sufficient ones? What if voters on the dole vote for more government help and control? When the takers outnumber the producers, how will they vote? People claim it was racism, but what was so bad about property and literacy voting requirements? If you don’t pay taxes but get government assistance, why should you vote on a taxpayers fair share? One last question, what do you say when your daughter says, “Dad, meet my boyfriend, He never worked a day in his life. We’re going to live on Section 8 and food stamps.” Whadda ya say, Dad?

We don’t need your education……

@ commerce 1943 : (raking up the muck)

As an avowed “fundie” I should probably be offended by your “Bringing in the Sheaves” satire but I find it extremely relevant to the conversation.

It appears we have a lot of life guards here.

Yes, we do need govt for certain things – infrastructure, security, economic regulation – as indicated above. Otherwise we could look like Iraq at the moment – no govt in place and not very secure. We do not need govt restricting who we can marry, what pregnant women can/cannot do with their bodies, where we can travel, what we can/cannot do in our bedrooms, what religion we are “free” to believe in, or which scientific facts we “believe in”.

Personally, I believe he needs to stick his head in a bucket of ice water….it’s just a thought….