Posted on 04/13/2010 3:14:12 PM PDT by Maelstorm
You're rather hyperbolic, aren't you?
But somehow I still think that the Broadmoor’s CEO is smart enough to know the difference between offering his RESORT as a model of CITY GOVERNMENT and offering advice.
And yet.... what are all those examples, if not suggestions of how the city ought do do business? He's basically offered his services as a consultant -- and yes, he's offering his RESORT as a model of CITY GOVERNMENT.
“Many of those things make a lot of sense, since they benefit virtually every citizen, and thus can reasonably fit under the ‘general welfare’ clause”
Not saying that they don’t make sense, nor that they are as close to “public goods” as you can get (nothing, in my opinion, could ever truly constitute a public good, but that’s another story). Just saying we didn’t have them for a long time, and somehow we got to where we are.
By the way, your interpretation of the “general welfare” clause is perverse, and I suggest you revise it.
“Government currency is basically the same issue as a standing army — if no country of significant size had a government-issued currency, we might be able to do fine without it, but that isn’t the case and isn’t going to be, and we’d be economically screwed if we didn’t have one”
This makes no sense. We weren’t screwed when we didn’t have it. We were better off, in fact. Only very, very recently did the fed note pop up. We were perfectly fine when we were on the international gold standard, and would still be fine (better, actually) if we had it today. The countries that used paper money instead would be the screwed ones, not us.
“Interstate highways are also great promoters of commerce, benefitting everyone, not just those who drive on them. I really like being able to order something from the cheapest online source and have it arrive on my doorstep quickly and at very low cost, and the manufacturers and sellers of those items likewise benefit from this.”
In economics, there is always the seen and the unseen. Highways are highly visible, not so visible is what would have been bought with the money had not the government confiscated it for its own purposes. Your implication is that without government highways, you wouldn’t get anything delivered to your house. Which is, of course, impossible to prove. Along the same lines, I suppose I’m meant to believe that without government subsidies, we wouldn’t have had railroads, airports, highways, etc., I guess because right-of-ways are too damn hard to aqcuire. Oh, and we keep hearing about how large projects never get done without Caesar whipping people.
Except I might remind myself that the first transcontinental railroad was built by a private company. Which makes me pause to wonder if perhaps we could have come up with the idea of highways on our own. Also, despite the lies of history teachers, government did NOT start because large-scale irrigation required lots of planning and coordination. It started because some people decided it was easier to subdue farmers by force and make them pay you on a regular basis (aka taxation) than to earn a living on your own.
“While Michelle Malkin is a good conservative, I believe she used police services numerous times when threats against her and her family were made. She also used the public highways to move numerous times as I recall.”
So using a public property or services you pay taxes for makes you somehow an imperfect conservative/libertarian? Dang! I guess we better bury the Republic now...all those Congresscritters keep meeting in that thar Capitol building!
Opinions are like....IMO he offered advice and did not offer his organization as a model for the city. If anything was offered as a model, and IMO it was not, it would have been his management of expenses.
You're rather hyperbolic, aren't you?
Not at all...more pear shaped but sometimes prone to high exaggeration to make a point.
“In this era, ad hoc armies would be useless against well-organized standing armies funded by other countries’ large governments.”
I don’t see how you prove that based upon our own huge, well-organized standing army’s long-term success rate against the ultimate in ad hoc armies, i.e., guerrillas funded by other countries. We’re better than we used to be, but the fifth column and hardline ideologues always win against a soft republic with limited and undefined philosophical commitment. No matter the Kennedy or Bush doctrines, we as a country just aren’t that into fighting for the benefit of others, and I don’t have a problem with that, as I haven’t seen a whole lot of countries fighting against our enemies for us.
“Highways are highly visible, not so visible is what would have been bought with the money had not the government confiscated it for its own purposes. Your implication is that without government highways, you wouldn’t get anything delivered to your house. Which is, of course, impossible to prove. Along the same lines, I suppose I’m meant to believe that without government subsidies, we wouldn’t have had railroads, airports, highways, etc., I guess because right-of-ways are too damn hard to aqcuire. Oh, and we keep hearing about how large projects never get done without Caesar whipping people.”
BTTT!
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Except I might remind myself that the first transcontinental railroad was built by a private company
I might remind my self that the railroad company got land directly from the feds for putting in the railroad, not a bad deal “ten square miles of land for every mile of track”
And all it took was tens of trillions of dollars that will have to be paid back by our grandchildren, who will live lives of quiet desperation wondering why everything available in the shops is made in China or India and costs too much to buy.
Oops. Please ignore my post above. Landed on the wrong thread and don’t even know how I did that.
We live out in the sticks. When we moved in we had a large streetlight in our backyard.
I hated the darn thing! It turned night into day and I couldn’t get sleep. Forget about seeing the stars. And it was a huge drain on our electric bill.
We had it pulled. I have a gun and porch lights. That’s served me pretty well for nearly 40 years.
Sounds good to me. We just have a few solar lights along the driveway and the sidewalk to the house, so we don’t have to stumble into the house after dark.LOL.
Stephen Bartolin misunderstands the purpose of government. Government is not about delivering necessary services, government is about creating employment. Government jobs exist to provide a middle class lifestyle to otherwise unemployable people.
Are you saying there is no prostitution now in Colorado Springs? Does making it illegal limit the role that government plays dealing with prostitution?
Think about it and get back to me.
"Small government conservatives in the city of Colorado Springs began slashing government services and taxes earlier this year and show no sign of slowing down. Everything from trash collection to streetlights to police coverage have been phased out in the quest to get closer to the free market model espoused by libertarians such as novelist Ayn Rand."
If you want to continue to keep CS one of the most conservative communities in CO, you'd be wise to chase the godless Ayn Rand libertarians out of town.
If anyone can remember the number, how much did they spend on putting all the art crap downtown? Yeah....stuff like that needs to be cut first before you start looking at essential services.
So using a public property or services you pay taxes for makes you somehow an imperfect conservative/libertarian?
First of all LIE, don't put conservatives that believe in God in the same sentence with "rational atheist" Ayn Rand and her phony libertarian movement.
Secondly, Everything from trash collection to streetlights to police coverage have been phased out in the quest to get closer to the free market model espoused by libertarians such as novelist Ayn Rand.
What's it going to be LIE, do you want to HAVE government services, or phase them out?
The libertarian social philosophy (or more like "agenda") is moving right along. Abortion, homosexuality and pornography, things that are abhorred by God and people that believe in Him, are legal. Libertarians are slow to get prositution and illicit drug use legal in all 50 States, but it's on their "agenda".
Regarding the role of government when it comes to moral laws: "The magistrate, the ruler, "is the minister of God to thee for good" (vs. 4). The ruler is God's minister, His diakonos. He is a deacon, a laborer, a ministrant, an attendant to people for God. As the derivation of diakonos shows, he is one who runs errands: God's errands. In particular, he is to be a Christian teacher and pastor. If the ruler is the minister of God to men for good, then he must rule in accordance with God's judgment of the good, not man's willful, subjective desire to redefine the good. If the ruler is a minister to men for good then he must enforce God's law, not man's desires: there is no other alternative."
"All law commands human action; it seeks either to restrain or to urge particular actions. It necessarily says either "Thou shalt" or "Thou shalt not," and it backs these commands to action or restraint with coercion, with sanctions enforced by the power of the sword. The sword and the word are united in law. And because the word commands action by men, the word of law is necessarily a morel teaching, a teaching which seeks to guide the ruled along a particular way of action, of life."
But he’s busy tearing down that good example, you see. Agenda, agenda, agenda.
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