It's not a matter of trusting the government's general competence. It's a matter of trusting them more than anyone else.
And it's arguably the stupidest decision we can collectively make. Why in the hell centralizing power in hands of a relatively few people seems like a good idea eludes me. If anybody wants evidence of what that mindset leads to, I suggest a look at the present situation in California.
Why would you need more people? Then it'd just be one giant clusterfuck.
I still fail to understand your "government can't do anything right" mindset
This. I was having a discussion with my father and brother last night about the political views of Thomas Jefferson, and his idea of statist rather than central government. It dawned on me that the time in which Jefferson espoused those beliefs were a time before fast travel was possible, before nations interacted on the level that they do today. Most politics happened within the nation, and therefore politics occurred on a smaller scale, in which it would make sense to divide government by state. If one were to bring Thomas Jefferson into the 20th century, to say nothing of the 21st, so he could see the United States interacting on the world stage with Europe, a bunch of Middle Eastern countries, and even Russia, he would say that the system of statist politics is outmoded in a world where events occur on the world stage. The state model is too small-scale for the world in which we're living, and government should consequentially get bigger.
This is of course disregarding the fact that politics should not kneel to the wisdom of the ancients, as Americans so often and mistakenly do.
Right. We have planes, so everybody vote democrat.
In this whole paragraph I see no good reason to justify the massive government we have today. For one, a lot of the growth in government has nothing to do with other countries, much of it is domestic.
International relations is not a modern concept. Jefferson served as minister to France, completed the Louisiana purchase (It's dubious constitutionality is besides the point for now), and played an important role in the first Barbary War, just to name a few examples. So why does interacting on the world stage, which we've done since the beginning of the country, justify a big government?
And the state's weren't supposed to deal with foreign countries. That's why we have a president and congress. Within the limits of the constitution, those two branches have all the power they need to conduct international relations.
The only exceptions I can think of would be a growing military to defend the country as it expands and maybe more seats in congress to represent the increasing population.
Topic: G.O.P. 2011: Sacrificing tomorrow for a better today (Read 12363 times)
