| fastyxx said:
Huh. Well you know that dollar bill in your pocket? That's the government holding your money for you and allowing you to do something with it. Maybe you should barter chickens instead. That crap about the government being a nanny state is such drivel. If we actually allowed people to live without a net, we'd be in utter chaos. Point to a country anywhere that has ever succeeded with a healthy and prosperous population without it. It's so foolish. But whatever. It's your life. You only hurt yourself by turning something like that down and thinking you are somehow living beyond the system. I mean, the government helped you in SOOOO many ways get to the point where you can make that choice. Health services and subsidies, public schools, roads, running water, power grids, investments in the college from which one graduated, the airwaves and telecommunications systems, the internet groundwork you are using now, etc. etc. etc.
The idea that anyone in this country lives above and beyond the government is just so fallacious and fraudulent. And guess what? In order for them to be there in the area that YOU need them to be there - after that car crash, or the time mom needed the ambulance or you needed the power back on after the storm, they need to make choices beyond you. And just because YOUR needs may be different than someone else's doesn't make theirs less important. |
A dollar bill isn't the government holding your money for you, it is an abstract representation of a unit of production within the economy. If a currency was implicitly tied to a government the Euro couldn't exist, and individuals in foreign countries would not see value in a foreign (to them) currency when their own currency has been mismanaged.
As for the countries that have been successful without a nanny state, pretty much every country before the 1950s had a very limited government and most developed nations did not require a corpse mobile to pick up bodies on the side of the road.
No one doubts that individuals get benefits from the government, an important thing you don't seem willing to consider is what portion of government spending goes to services that are widely beneficial and what portion goes to things with limited benefit to anyone. If you add up all the spending on infrastructure, law enforcement and the military only about 10% of GDP is required to cover these expenses; and even if you include education and health care total government expenditure should still be in the 20% of GDP range.
By the way, a large portion of the infrastructure you talk about being important (like your electricity example) is maintained by private corporations. There is no need for the government to be involved in communications, power, natural gas, or water. On top of that, in the past there were successful privately run for profit fire-departments and (while it may not be an ideal situation) the government doesn't have to be involved in services like these in order for them to exist.
