Responsibilities of Government?

What are the responsibilities of government? According to the Constitution of the United States, they are as follows:

1. Form a more perfect union.
2. Establish justice.
3. Insure domestic tranquility.
4. Provide for the common defense.
5. Promote the general welfare.
6. Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

Unfortunately, these do not really tell you very much. Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, and provide for common defense seem pretty clear. Forming a more perfect union is very abstract and, I think, not entirely clear. In this respect it is similar to securing the blessings of liberty…It is "promoting the general welfare" that I believe is far too general, at least for me. For example, I should think that promoting the general welfare would mean providing health care for all. My view is apparently not shared by those in government as we have some 47 million citizens without such care. We do have medicare and Medicaid, begrudgingly given, and still not wanted by some. This is fine, but a drop in the bucket compared to what is needed.

I should think promoting the general welfare would also include seeing to it that no one has to go hungry or starve. As I see ads all the time to help hungry children, and I am told that millions go to bed at night hungry, and so on, it seems our government does not interpret this the way I would. Why should I, without too many means, have to provide for hungry children in the richest country on earth? While on the one hand I feel guilty when I cannot personally solve the hunger problem, on the other I am angry as hell because I believe this should be a governmental responsibility. I am also informed, from time to time, that our elderly are sometimes reduced to eating dog and cat food, or having to choose between paying their rent and paying for their prescription drugs. It’s true we have social security, a blessing, but still hated by some who would like to take it away. Is this their idea of promoting the general welfare?

Similarly, I receive request all the time for donations to save the whales, the dolphins, the polar bears, the spotted owl, elephants, puffins, pygmy rabbits, sage grouse, etc., etc. etc. Why should it be my responsibility to save all these wonderful creatures? Isn’t looking out for them and insuring their well-being promoting the general welfare? Apparently not, our government chooses to promote the general welfare of huge corporations instead. This, too, leaves me very angry.

And what about maintaining and improving our infrastructure? While I do not get requests to personally contribute for this, I certainly have to pay taxes which presumably should be used at least in part for this purpose. But for more than fifty years it has not. Maintainting infrastructure, bridges, highways, schools, public buildings and so on clearly contributes to the general welfare. Where has government been?

Speaking of schools, one would think that a functioning democracy would only be as good as its informed citizens. But our citizens have been increasingly uninformed for years, with no emphasis placed on education and the affordability ebbing away even faster than ordinary inflation. We have become a nation of television addicts, with television programming so dismal for the most part that even semi-intelligent people cannot bear to watch it. Anti-intellectualism is rampant and even our beautiful language is being corrupted. Bush’s question, “is our children learning” sums it up quite well. While we used to lead the world in education, we have fallen badly behind in subjects that are absolutely crucial to survival in the modern world. Under the Bush/Cheney administration science has been replaced with religious fairy tales of one kind or another. Any society where a majority doesn’t believe in evolution is not going to survive for long in the 21st century, except perhaps, as a pitiful nation that once was a player on the international stage.

One only has to look at “providing for the common defense” to learn where our emphasis is and has been for a long time. We not only provide for our common defense, we revel in it, roll in it, overdo it to the point of absurdity, suck it up like catnip. With a defense budget larger than all the rest of the world combined we certainly provide for our common defense, and provide, and provide, and provide. This is so excessive, so insane, so obsessive, it seems to be designed for a science fiction “war of the worlds” rather than any realistic hostilities that could possibly happen here on earth.

Finally, our belief in free market capitalism, is basically opposed to promoting the general welfare of our citizens. Marx predicted long ago that under unregulated capitalism corporations and the wealthy would eventually cannibalize the workers. We have just witnessed the proof of Marx’s theory. Basic necessities like air and water and food and energy and transportation and health care are too important to be left to privatization and an unregulated market system. Let the capitalists concentrate on cosmetics and tobacco and liquor and such and let the rest of us try to live more sensibly. There are social democracies that work well while protecting their citizens from the greed and avarice of unregulated capitalism. They may have their flaws, but they, at least, are on the right track. We are not.

LKBIQ:
[Feminism is] a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.
Pat Robertson

TILT:
Cary Grant’s real name was Archibald Alec Leach.