Posted on 01/04/2002 5:34:10 AM PST by tberry
"America is a country where things turn out better than they ought to."
- English Ambassador James Bryce, April 1909.
What a load of crap. I'll bet you learned it in college from some learned professor. The power to control an economy is too tempting for the politically dominant not to turn it to corrupt purposes. Is government accountable for anything or immune from corruption? Yeah right, just look at Bubba.
Ever heard of private regulation? It's done all the time, and not only that, it's financially accountable. Need an example? Here is just such a system that can entirely replace civic environmental management. It goes on from there.
Robert E. Heinlein said something like: "Democracy works well until the people discover they can vote themselves bread and circuses."
Walt
How 'bout:
"Congress shall raise no direct taxes of any sort, even when proportioned among the several states" and "Each senator shall be appointed by his state's legislature." I'm less certain about the second than the first, but I suspect that those favoring limited, local government will have a better chance of prevailing with the second provision.
By removing the election of Senators from the legislatures to the people, the Senate was changed from, within each State, a geographic division of powers to a demographic one. While the two-per-State Senate still makes little Rhody the equal to California, on the whole the 17th amendment turned the Senate over to the urban populace.
A shame.
The worst effect of the 17th amendment was to detach local representatives from their voters. People tend to care more about the national and Senate elections than those local. They'd care a whole lot more about the local elections if the choice of the Senator depended upon the outcome of the local, not the State-wide election.
If you look at the largest population centers in the United States, they virtually all went for Gore(d). These centers also tend to have the highest number of people on the dole. The city I live in (Milwaukee) was written up for libbies handing cigarettes out for votes.. you may recall....While welfare accomodates many in the cities (the numbers are fewer than those accumulated through suburban and rural areas across the nation, but they are more concentrated per voting block in the cities), a far greater benefit from the current tax code comes to the inner cities in the form of the un-taxed, underground economy. If I were to complain about an unfair tax burden upon the upper 50% of taxpayers, it would not be that the lower half gets entitlements, but that the lower half has too many (illicit) tax breaks -- just like the upper 1-5%.
As always, the middle gets screwed.
In case you are interested.
Aren't most stadiums now owned by governments?
Unfortunately, a large portion of the work is consumed by Nock's grossly inaccurate analysis of the political environment of the early republic. Economic determinism in the tradition of Charles A. Beard and Henry George is the gist of what you find, and all of their fallacies and flaws are given full exercise. Indeed, as one Jefferson scholar has remarked, this work reveals a "uncritical" use of the Beard thesis. Thus, Jefferson is portrayed, not as an advocate of natural rights or anything of the sort, but as the supporter of the interests of the producing class against those of the exploiting class. As one would expect, the Constitution is portrayed simply as a tool for economic exploitation, and much ink is spilled documenting the evils of Hamilton, the Federalists, as well as "speculators." While all of this is not without a semblance of truth, his simplistic and often misleading exegesis is very dissapointing.Beard? Uh Oh. (see my #128)
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