The Logic of Public Welfare
There’s something so simple that it’s hardly ever said, but it’s worth re-stating.
Governments exist to take care of the people that they govern. Their job is to look after the welfare of the public. It’s so obvious that I think a lot of people just take it for granted.
A lot of people who are for tough punishment of drug offenders, for the capitol punishment of murderers, who are anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, etc. believe that they support these positions because they are positions that place the government in a position of protecting the people. They believe that it’s the governments responsibility to do so. It’s interesting to note that a lot of these same people are against the government providing universal health care, social security, equal education programs, etc. Why?
The answer usually given is because that’s not what the government is there for. The government shouldn’t be using our tax dollars to look out for those who can’t afford it.
Suddenly, when it come to social welfare programs, such as crime rehabilitation, food-stamps, education, universal health care, etc., the citizens are suppose to be able to stand on their own two feet…be self-sufficient. But when it comes to breaking laws…we depend on the government to put those criminals to death…put them behind bars…spend tax dollars to go through a lot of legal red tape to ensure that no gay couple gets married, or ensure that nothing but the right-wing ideology is taught in school. These things are worth spending tax dollars on to “protect” the people…but we can’t spend tax dollars on protecting people’s health, or on providing a quality education to all our children.
My questions for the people who believe this way are as follows: If the government isn’t supposed to look out for the health and well-being of those less fortunate…if it isn’t supposed to take care of it’s citizens who have been unfortunate enough to be born into a low-income household, or have a low income job and can’t afford health care, education, healthy food, clothing, shelter, etc. Then why should the government take care of protecting its citizens with laws and punishments, police and a military?
Why should they bother? Why should the government care at all? Why even have a government?
If the citizens are to be self sufficient enough to fend for their own health, then shouldn’t they be self sufficient enough to protect their own? If they are to be self sufficient enough to educate their own children at private schools, then shouldn’t they be self sufficient enough to provide their own roads, and provide for their own traffic safety?
If the government isn’t going to provide for the health and well-being of it’s citizens youth, then why should it bother to protect them with police or protect its borders with a military? If it isn’t going to protect the minds of all their youth by providing them all with a decent and equal education, why try to protect them from a distant country’s tyrants or their supposedly dangerous ideals or people with (according to them) supposedly immoral behavior such as homosexuality? If we aren’t going to protect the health of all our citizens, why try to protect them from murderers or thieves who probably kill less than the health issues that face a developed country?
You simply can’t have it one way, and not the other. The government is there to look after the welfare of its citizens, not just to punish those who break the moral Christian law. Our tax dollars are there to be used to create an infrastructure to be used by all it’s citizens. This not only includes paying a police force, military and building prisons (although, on a side note, I must say that I would prefer rehabilitation programs to “isolation” punishment, or “liberty-removal” punishment), but it also includes educating our young, caring for our elderly who cannot care for themselves, caring for the sick as well as the healthy…the poor as well as the rich.
If we look back in history to a people who were irrationally called "savages" we can find a more civilized, socially responsible form of wealth distribution. Black Elk talks about the Oglala Sioux system in Black Elk Speaks,
"...When they had gathered about the holy tree, some women who were bearing children would dance around it, because the Spirit of the Sun loves all fruitfulness. After that, a warrior, who had done some very brave deed that summer, struck the tree, counting coup upon it; and when he had done this, he had to give gifts to those who had least of everything, and the braver he was, the more he gave away....the next morning nursing mothers brought their holy little ones to lay them at the bottom of the tree, so that the sons would be brave men and the daughters the mothers of brave men. The holy men pierced the ears of the little ones, and for each piercing the parents gave away a pony to some on who was in need."
In The Indian Heritage Of America, Alvin M. Josephy, Jr's talks about...
"A unique institution known as the potlatch (from the Nootka expression patshatl, meaning 'giving') was a prominent feature of tribal life and gave owners of property an opportunity to compete for prestige and status. At a potlatch, a feast given usually to celebrate some important event, such as a marriage or the naming of an heir, or even to remove the stain of a personal humiliation, the host saught greatness and position by giving away his wealth, or ostentatiously destroying it in front of his guests....The more wealth he divested himself of, the greater was his prestige and that of his clan....Persons who gave a certain number of potlatches and impressed others with their wealth were classed as chiefs and "nobles"...the wealth distributed at potlatches often passed into the hands of many people who, eventually, would give potlatches themselves, so that some of the property went round and round."
In Rolling Thunder Speaks: A Message for Turtle Island edited by Carmen Sun Rising Pope, the respected medicine-man explains about the old days, "...when the tribe was traveling and there was hunger, the chief and the medicine man had to eat last after the others had been fed. Now how would it be if your politicians had such a system?"
We can see by these examples, that Indigenous Americans realized that a person doesn’t simply cease to become a citizen or a valuable member to society just because they don’t have a six-figure job. They understood that those in an advantageous position had a responsibility to care for those less fortunate.
We are all citizens of this planet because we all walk on it. If we are going to have a government at all, then its job is going to be to look out for and take care of us all…our protection, our health our education our environment and our freedom. There can be no justice, if justice is not applied equally across the board in regards to all things. If there are going to be taxes, they must serve all, not just the wealthy.
During the debates for framing the constitution of the U.S., James Madison commented that the role of government is “to protect the minority of opulent from the majority.”
I would rather agree with what was mentioned in the introduction to Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, "It would be better to trust the many than the few, who are also infected with the plague of self-interest and selfishness."
If you’re opulent, then you can afford to protect and care for yourself, you have no need to depend on the public trough. However, if you are not opulent…then not only do you deserve protection, the opulent or the government has a responsibility to protect and care for you.
Governments exist to take care of the people that they govern. Their job is to look after the welfare of the public. It’s so obvious that I think a lot of people just take it for granted.
A lot of people who are for tough punishment of drug offenders, for the capitol punishment of murderers, who are anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, etc. believe that they support these positions because they are positions that place the government in a position of protecting the people. They believe that it’s the governments responsibility to do so. It’s interesting to note that a lot of these same people are against the government providing universal health care, social security, equal education programs, etc. Why?
The answer usually given is because that’s not what the government is there for. The government shouldn’t be using our tax dollars to look out for those who can’t afford it.
Suddenly, when it come to social welfare programs, such as crime rehabilitation, food-stamps, education, universal health care, etc., the citizens are suppose to be able to stand on their own two feet…be self-sufficient. But when it comes to breaking laws…we depend on the government to put those criminals to death…put them behind bars…spend tax dollars to go through a lot of legal red tape to ensure that no gay couple gets married, or ensure that nothing but the right-wing ideology is taught in school. These things are worth spending tax dollars on to “protect” the people…but we can’t spend tax dollars on protecting people’s health, or on providing a quality education to all our children.
My questions for the people who believe this way are as follows: If the government isn’t supposed to look out for the health and well-being of those less fortunate…if it isn’t supposed to take care of it’s citizens who have been unfortunate enough to be born into a low-income household, or have a low income job and can’t afford health care, education, healthy food, clothing, shelter, etc. Then why should the government take care of protecting its citizens with laws and punishments, police and a military?
Why should they bother? Why should the government care at all? Why even have a government?
If the citizens are to be self sufficient enough to fend for their own health, then shouldn’t they be self sufficient enough to protect their own? If they are to be self sufficient enough to educate their own children at private schools, then shouldn’t they be self sufficient enough to provide their own roads, and provide for their own traffic safety?
If the government isn’t going to provide for the health and well-being of it’s citizens youth, then why should it bother to protect them with police or protect its borders with a military? If it isn’t going to protect the minds of all their youth by providing them all with a decent and equal education, why try to protect them from a distant country’s tyrants or their supposedly dangerous ideals or people with (according to them) supposedly immoral behavior such as homosexuality? If we aren’t going to protect the health of all our citizens, why try to protect them from murderers or thieves who probably kill less than the health issues that face a developed country?
You simply can’t have it one way, and not the other. The government is there to look after the welfare of its citizens, not just to punish those who break the moral Christian law. Our tax dollars are there to be used to create an infrastructure to be used by all it’s citizens. This not only includes paying a police force, military and building prisons (although, on a side note, I must say that I would prefer rehabilitation programs to “isolation” punishment, or “liberty-removal” punishment), but it also includes educating our young, caring for our elderly who cannot care for themselves, caring for the sick as well as the healthy…the poor as well as the rich.
If we look back in history to a people who were irrationally called "savages" we can find a more civilized, socially responsible form of wealth distribution. Black Elk talks about the Oglala Sioux system in Black Elk Speaks,
"...When they had gathered about the holy tree, some women who were bearing children would dance around it, because the Spirit of the Sun loves all fruitfulness. After that, a warrior, who had done some very brave deed that summer, struck the tree, counting coup upon it; and when he had done this, he had to give gifts to those who had least of everything, and the braver he was, the more he gave away....the next morning nursing mothers brought their holy little ones to lay them at the bottom of the tree, so that the sons would be brave men and the daughters the mothers of brave men. The holy men pierced the ears of the little ones, and for each piercing the parents gave away a pony to some on who was in need."
In The Indian Heritage Of America, Alvin M. Josephy, Jr's talks about...
"A unique institution known as the potlatch (from the Nootka expression patshatl, meaning 'giving') was a prominent feature of tribal life and gave owners of property an opportunity to compete for prestige and status. At a potlatch, a feast given usually to celebrate some important event, such as a marriage or the naming of an heir, or even to remove the stain of a personal humiliation, the host saught greatness and position by giving away his wealth, or ostentatiously destroying it in front of his guests....The more wealth he divested himself of, the greater was his prestige and that of his clan....Persons who gave a certain number of potlatches and impressed others with their wealth were classed as chiefs and "nobles"...the wealth distributed at potlatches often passed into the hands of many people who, eventually, would give potlatches themselves, so that some of the property went round and round."
In Rolling Thunder Speaks: A Message for Turtle Island edited by Carmen Sun Rising Pope, the respected medicine-man explains about the old days, "...when the tribe was traveling and there was hunger, the chief and the medicine man had to eat last after the others had been fed. Now how would it be if your politicians had such a system?"
We can see by these examples, that Indigenous Americans realized that a person doesn’t simply cease to become a citizen or a valuable member to society just because they don’t have a six-figure job. They understood that those in an advantageous position had a responsibility to care for those less fortunate.
We are all citizens of this planet because we all walk on it. If we are going to have a government at all, then its job is going to be to look out for and take care of us all…our protection, our health our education our environment and our freedom. There can be no justice, if justice is not applied equally across the board in regards to all things. If there are going to be taxes, they must serve all, not just the wealthy.
During the debates for framing the constitution of the U.S., James Madison commented that the role of government is “to protect the minority of opulent from the majority.”
I would rather agree with what was mentioned in the introduction to Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, "It would be better to trust the many than the few, who are also infected with the plague of self-interest and selfishness."
If you’re opulent, then you can afford to protect and care for yourself, you have no need to depend on the public trough. However, if you are not opulent…then not only do you deserve protection, the opulent or the government has a responsibility to protect and care for you.
posted by Scott A. Meister at 4/01/2005 01:20:00 PM
8 Comments:
Another great piece from his Scotness...it's amazing how simple logic can be, and yet how appealing illogic(is that a word)appears.hmmm...
Thanks a bunch jez...means a lot.
hmmm..."illogic" as a noun. Haven't seen that done yet, but I'll give you points for creative use, and for being first. I guess I would have chosen "the illogical." Any word on when I can see translations? hehehe...no rush.
oh gawd...I need time for these things...But I'll do it, it's important to me too!
oh gawd...I need time for these things...But I'll do it, it's important to me too!
Hey jez...no rush. Good things come to those who wait, right? Just let me know whenever you have time. It really would be a good way to help me study French though...now that I think about it. Anyway...take your time.
As co-admin, please keep posts on topic.
Thanks "Thought and Humor." However, as long as I'm a moderator/administrator of this site, it shall not be a place for dragging Mr. Meister's private affairs into the public arena. Those who have tried have found themselves deleted. We do, however, enthusiastically welcome relevant, logical discussion - particularly dissenting views - on the topics posted here.
Yours,
DJEB the tyrannical mod.
Scott, my take on Katrina as promised.
Afraid of the stupidity I would find, but infused with a morbid sense of curiosity, I had a look at what the right-wing sites were saying regarding the diaster. In a nutshell, I found the following self-contradictory positions held: First, that the President and his administration were doing a great job in responding to the crisis; and second, the terrible response to the crisis is going to make everyone in the U.S. a conservative because now they know that government can't take care of them.
Ignoring the fact that they claim opposite positions at the same time, I think the second claim is not only fallacious, but also self-contradictory within itself.
First, the claim is a false one. The (artificially, via blockades) impoverished nation of Cuba weathered a category 5 hurricane last year (Hurricane Ivan) with a death toll reaching the grand total of zero (0) people due to that nations preparedness. The storm destroyed 20,000 homes, but everyone was evacuated beforehand, so there was no loss of life. Clearly, a competent government that actually cares about the welfare of its citizens can protect people against natural disasters, thus falsifying the contrary claim.
Second, the claim was made by a group of people who overwhelmingly support the military (ie. the government) and believe that the President and the military (ie. the goverment) are protecting them from terrorists or WMDs or whathaveyou. If one must rely on themselves, as is the right's claim and one cannot rely on the government to keep them safe, then it is irrational to support the President or the military. Also, this group overwhelmingly supports the police (I have saved a jpeg image of an "I love police brutality" bumper sticker from a right-wing site) despite the fact that the police are part of the government. If you reject government, you reject police. And one might imagine what office of the government they might call should their house catch fire; or what branch of government they might rely on to remove snow that has fallen on roads that their government has built.
Need I go on?
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