Dr Thompson wrote:"The #1 definition is oppressive power"So? Where in that definition does it say that you MUST transact business with a particular company? If you are so worried about corporate tyranny why did you support Obama's health care bill which was the FIRST law ever that allowed the federal government to REQUIRE every American family to spend thousands a year to buy a product whether they wanted it or not?Dr Thompson wrote:"Start your own business. Now, you are simply being funny. " No, I couldn't be more serious.In my line of work, new businesses are one of my primary lines of revenue. I get lists of new businesses from all over the country every week. Even during the toughest weeks and months of the past two years, I could show you large numbers of new businesses starting up.Turn off CNN, step out of your front door and learn how the rest of the world lives, Dr Thompson.
Business doesnt constitute 'tyranny' unless you are forced to transact business with them (see Obama's health care plan)Otherwise, doing business with a corporation or an individual is VOLUNTARY, and thus doesn't pose the threat of tyranny as a government can, since your relationship as one being governed is NOT voluntary.Low wages? Start your own business. Get a second job. Get a different job. Improve your education and change careers. There are lots of options to 'fight back' if you're poor.Using the government to cripple business only hurts all of us. When success is punished, then you've short circuited your own future because as soon as you're successful.......What to do about low wages? Hmmm, because government taxes companies big time, leaving less money for wages......lessee....what to do........gee, that's a tough one, doc. What should we do, raise taxes on 'the rich', right?
From M-W.com Main Entry: tyr·an·ny Pronunciation: ˈtir-ə-nēFunction: nounInflected Form(s): plural tyr·an·niesEtymology: Middle English tyrannie, from Middle French, from Medieval Latin tyrannia, from Latin tyrannus tyrantDate: 14th century1 : oppressive power The #1 definition is oppressive power and you say Business can't constitute an oppressive power. Okay if you say so. Start your own business. Now, you are simply being funny. There are no jobs...no good jobs to be had and you are saying get a second job or get a different job. What a brilliant idea. So the problem isn't business executives taking home historically high incomes and robbing the workers. The problem in America is the workers. they are lazy and not looking for the second and third jobs like their fathers and grandfathers. Oh, wait, they (fathers and grandfathers) got paid a living wage.
Dr Thompson wrote:"yes, some of the founders were brilliant. Others were simply the right place at the right time. They were ordinary men. They did not wear capes and they did not fly through the air. They were well read -- at least some of them were. That does not mean they were infallible. That does not mean that they wrote down every single contingency that could ever happen the next 300 to 400 years."What they understood what human nature, which does not change with advancing technology.They limited the power that one person or group would be allowed to wield because they held a Christian view of humanity, i.e. Man is sinful.Todays calls for redistribution and 'economic justice' are simply the new words for covetousness and envy, two very old sins that the Founders were quite familiar with.You don't even have to be a Christian to understand that using the blunt object of government force to take one man's goods and give it to another is wrong.
It wasn't wrong when Teddy Roosevelt broke up the trusts. As you mentioned time after time, our forefathers opposed tyranny of any sort. That would also be the power of big business over the common man. Conservatives don't like to talk about the power that big business has through their enormous financial resources to artificially lower wages and to force the poor into servitude. how do the poor fight back?
The problem is that you see one type of misuse, and you propose as a remedy a different type of misuse.The Founders of our country were brilliant men. They understood that the powers of any government are easily twisted by one group or another to suit their purposes.That is precisely why they gave the federal government very few powers to begin with.
yes, some of the founders were brilliant. Others were simply the right place at the right time. They were ordinary men. They did not wear capes and they did not fly through the air. They were well read -- at least some of them were. That does not mean they were infallible. That does not mean that they wrote down every single contingency that could ever happen the next 300 to 400 years.as usual, I appreciate your insight.
finally, I think the founding fathers would be shocked to see how either party has used the government to further their own agenda. Using the government to further business interests I don't think is what Hamilton, Jefferson or Adams had in mind.
Errington C. Thompson, MD
Dr. Thompson is a surgeon, scholar, full-time sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats.“A Letter to America”
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Conservatives and Government
Bush and the size of government
A couple of days ago, one of my commenters correctly mentioned that conservatives want a smaller government and that conservatives have no desire to eliminate government. I can agree with both of these statements. The problem is that conservatives have no desire for government to look out for the people, whereas I believe that liberals see government as a counterbalance to the excesses of business.
The good news is that we can follow conservative philosophy for nearly 100 years. Conservatives like to write. The 1935 book, Our Enemy, the State, written by Albert Nock, is an excellent example of conservatism at its best. The things he writes seem almost exactly like Ronald Reagan. "Wherever the state is, there is a felony." This is right out of Reagan-speak. He wailed against the New Deal as a "coup d'état." He talked about the people ripping off the hard-working few -- rich businessmen.
We can even go back to the 1880s and 1890s to see an example of conservatism at its best. Look at the combination of the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. (The trend may have started earlier, but I cannot find any specific documentation of this.) Richard Olney was a staunch conservative and railroad lawyer who was appointed to be Attorney General. He made his name by attacking the Sherman Antitrust Act. Now he's been placed in a position where he can actually appoint people either to enforce or not enforce the law. He chose the latter. The essence of conservatism, as I see it, is summed up in the famous letter he wrote to his old railroad boss.
Therefore, over the last 30 years, we've seen examples of this throughout Republican administrations. James Watt was an attorney who made his living attacking environmental protections and touting the EPA as being unconstitutional. Reagan appointed him Secretary of the Interior (the EPA is under the Department of the Interior). Although James Watt was the most egregious example, there are literally hundreds of examples throughout the Reagan and Bush administrations. The Securities and Exchange Commission was headed by somebody who did not believe in regulating Wall Street. The agency was packed with like-minded individuals. The Justice Department filled the Civil Rights division with lawyers who did not believe the 1964 Civil Rights Act was constitutional. The Justice Department actually decreased the funding to this department while Bush was in office.
The examples of conservatives using the government as a tool for business and de-funding agencies which could not align with their vision of the function of government are simply too numerous to name. The one thing that modern conservatives like Grover Norquist have done is make government work for them, make government work for business. The quickest way to become a millionaire during the Bush administration, besides winning the lottery, was winning a government contract. Privatization was the way to go. The brilliance of the conservative strategy was to sell privatization to the American people. The sales pitch was that government was inherently inefficient and that business was efficient. Therefore, if we could get the government to work more like a private business then everything would be great. The only thing that would be better would be to privatize portions of the government. This is what happened during the Bush administration.
So, in conclusion, my commenter was 100% right when he said that conservatives do not want to eliminate government totally. Conservatives simply want government to work for big business.