Quote:
Originally posted by Moneyguy1
Oh, I don't know...How did this morph from "The Wild West wasn't wild" to secession (pat's FAVORITE topic)?
I think you might want to rethink the "wild" in the west. Granted, pat, you may know the history of the Southeast, but that seems to be where it ends. Right or wrong, there were a considerable of individuals caught up in land wars, battles with the Ute, the Apache, and other tribal groups (and I do NOT take sides on the "right" or "wrong" actions of either side, there is room for volumes on that topic). The very fact that until the end of the 19th century the population was quite sparse (at one time Tombstone was the largest City in the Southwest) led to a type of lawlessness "Sheriff didn't see it, we didn't do it".
Getting rid of government? Curtailing, yes, but eliminating it altogether? You like the nice roads for your Porsche? You like the security offered by a federal armed force? Willing to become a citizen soldier, spending part of your time securing the borders of SC? In this all too uncertain world, the lack of a unified fighting force would leave this country and the individual states open for opportunistic nations. The same with state government. Reduction, yes. Local government? You prepared to dig holes to bury your garbage? Willing to give up that low slung go-buggy for something that will navigate over unpaved terrain? Ready to dig your own well for water? Generate your own power?
I am all for minimal intrusion of government at all levels, but I am convinced there are jobs that can collectively be done at far less effort if not cost by some form of central operation.
You have some fine companies in SC. Been there, seen them. How much of the materials they use come from outside the state on federally constructed roads? How many products made are transported to other states on those same roads? What would be the effect on cost if different states initiated tariffs on goods coming and going?
Our government is far from perfect, and it has become bloated, especially over the past five years or so. However, with some work and the efforts of real dedicated Activists..not the far extremes or the ever loyal "true believers", we may be able to return sanity and forge ahead.
|
Just taking one issue, highways, I think I can knock this down.
First, almost all highways are constructed by private companies, there are a few states that actually build roads but they're so inefficient that only a truly corrupt state continues the practice. The federal government, to my knowledge, builds no roads at all,with the possible exception of military installations.
What the federal government does, of course, is take money from us all and then builds roads on a political basis, maintenance is scattered around in the same way. Of course the federal bureacracy, the huge when compared to private industry, skims funds off the top to pay for itself, and a substantial portion of the cost of the roads go into political campaign war chests to garner contracts for the road building for private contractors. There is no need, at all, for the state, particularly at the federal level, to build any road at all. The Constitution allows the federal government to build roads for the use of the Post Office, which is now (wink-wink) been privatized itself. The building of post road power has been severed by that privatization, and the fact that the states have built roads, long ago in most cases, that go where they're needed, when they're needed.
We could get into the abuse of emminent domain that enabled the Interstate Highway System's (formerly the National Defense Highway System, modeled on Hitler's Autobahn's) which ruined thousands of individual private property landholders, but that's for another time.
The long and short of it is that we absolutely do not need government to build roads.