Discussion » Statements » Rosie's Corner » What is the purpose of government? Do you agree with Ronald Reagan that Government IS THE PROBLEM? How and why?

What is the purpose of government? Do you agree with Ronald Reagan that Government IS THE PROBLEM? How and why?

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Posted - August 16, 2016

Responses


  • 2758

    I agreed with Reagan 100 percent about this.  Too bad Reagan didn't practice what he preached.

    Now, what is the purpose of government:

    Government is the forced assertion of the right of one group of people to tell another group of people how to live.  It is a form of human ownership/enslavement.  Government is evil's proving ground: the greater a government's resources, the greater will be its evil..  For a Christian (as well as for members of other faiths), government is the human arrogation of GOD'S right of rule. (Ever noticed how statists/government apologists generally tend to be atheists?  This is one reason why. There can be no competition with the state--i.e., there can be no God-given rights.)

    Government is also redundant.  Human beings are fully capable of managing (governing) their own lives WITHOUT the need for an institutional proxy.  For example, you don't need a government to tell you not to grab another person's crotch or to stare at them while they're using a public restroom.  If you don't know why you shouldn't do this instinctively, the victim of your perversion will gladly instruct you. :-)

    Those who would tell you that we 'need' government for this, that or the other purpose wish to forcibly take something from you--only they lack the intestinal fortitude (guts) to do it one-on-one.  The only thing you have to figure out is what they want.  Most of the time, they wish to assert some kind of control/ownership of/over your life or property. Conservative statists, for example, want to control your body. Liberal statists, for another, want to control your property.  Both are out to OWN all or some part of your life.


    There is a contrasting point of view, however, which is perhaps best illustrated by this short video:

      August 16, 2016 2:16 AM MDT
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  • 1264

    To serve the people. Yes, I agree with Ron. they've forgotten who they work for. 

      August 16, 2016 4:58 AM MDT
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  • 152
    Ronald Reagan believed in something called the American people and he knew government wasn't the answer. The complete opposite of Obama who loves government and uses it for overreach, power and control. Reagan gave hope to the people and swagger to this country. Obama gives nothing but chaos, fear and worry to the citizenry. America was respected under Reagan. Today America is a laughing stock thanks to a president who always goes out of his way to either apologize or knock this country.


    Reagan believed in American exceptionalism and knew a strong America was not only good for this nation but the world. Obama believes America should be knocked down a few pegs and become like every other Communist hell hole on this globe. Quite a difference in men and ideologies.

    I guess each president can be summed up by quotes showing their polar opposite views on government:


    ----Reagan at his first inaugural:
    “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”----

    ----Obama at Ohio State:
    “Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems,” Obama told the audience at the Ohio State commencement ceremony. “They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices”.----

    Both men added debt to the country. But at least Reagan had something to show for it at the end of his presidency, America had won the cold war and interest rates were back down to a normal rate. Reagan gave the country hope and a belief in the individual.

    Obama has nothing to show for his endless spending and debt. He has enslaved a country and the world is in chaos now, a place that is not safe. Sadly to say most rational people think this was done by design. I do not believe Obama is incompetent. He has had a plan of using the government as a tyranny to utterly destroy this country, he has done a fine job of executing his plan and turning America into a cradle to grave socialist government dependent nation.

    To sum it up: one president, one man, Reagan believed in freedom, America and the individual citizen. The other president, Obama, a despot believes in the new world order, globalism and governmental overreach. When a leader of his or her country fails to put the safety of their people first and their country first, the people suffer. Obama worships power and cares very little about this country or its people. Anybody who uses government to enslave society is nothing more than a pitiful dictator. Anybody who believes the power of the government trumps the power of the people is evil.

    Obama and Reagan were both game changers. They both came along when this nation was at a crossroads. Reagan gave the country pride and hope. Obama has given the nation nothing but worry and chaos. One president believed in the power of the people. The other president the power of government. It will take decades to undo the damage of the Obama presidency. God help this country and the future generations who have no clue what has happened over the past eight years.
      August 16, 2016 6:05 AM MDT
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  •   August 16, 2016 6:30 AM MDT
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  • 5835

    The only proper purpose of a government is to prevent any other group from taking control. The citizen has a duty to control his government. That is why governments always eventually treat the citizen as an enemy of the state.

      August 16, 2016 10:46 PM MDT
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  • 16

    Hmmmm...I suppose the purpose of government is to keep other governments from killing us, and to keep us from killing each other.  

    Everything else is up for discussion.  

    ;-)

      August 17, 2016 10:45 AM MDT
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  • 3907

    Hello Rosie:

    As a small government liberal, I DO agree with Ronald Reagan..  But, the government agencies I have a problem with, aren't the government agencies Reagan had a problem with..

    excon

      August 17, 2016 11:12 AM MDT
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  • 46117

    Regan was a BIG problem, so he was probably right.

    The problem is education.  The PEOPLE don't know whom they are voting for or why it matters. 

      August 17, 2016 11:19 AM MDT
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  • 46117

    Reagan’s Legacy: Homelessness in America


    As some Americans mourn the death of Ronald Reagan, let us recall that the two-term president was no friend to America’s cities or its poor. Reagan came to office in 1981 with a mandate to reduce federal spending. In reality, he increased it through the escalating military budget, all the while slashing funds for domestic programs that assisted working class Americans, particularly the poor.

    Reagan’s fans give him credit for restoring the nation’s prosperity. But whatever economic growth occurred during the Reagan years only benefited those already well off. The income gap between the rich and everyone else in America widened. Wages for the average worker declined and the nation’s homeownership rate fell. During Reagan’s two terms in the White House, which were boon times for the rich, the poverty rate in cities grew.

    His indifference to urban problems was legendary. Reagan owed little to urban voters, big-city mayors, black or Hispanic leaders, or labor unions – the major advocates for metropolitan concerns. Early in his presidency, at a White House reception, Reagan greeted the only black member of his Cabinet, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Samuel Pierce, saying: “How are you, Mr. Mayor? I’m glad to meet you. How are things in your city?”

    Reagan not only failed to recognize his own HUD Secretary, he failed to deal with the growing corruption scandal at the agency that resulted in the indictment and conviction of top Reagan administration officials for illegally targeting housing subsidies to politically connected developers. Fortunately for Reagan, the “HUD Scandal” wasn’t uncovered until he’d left office.

    Reagan also presided over the dramatic deregulation of the nation’s savings and loan industry allowing S&Ls to end their reliance on home mortgages and engage in an orgy of commercial real estate speculation. The result was widespread corruption, mismanagement and the collapse of hundreds of thrift institutions that ultimately led to a taxpayer bailout that cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

    The 1980s saw pervasive racial discrimination by banks, real estate agents and landlords, unmonitored by the Reagan administration. Community groups uncovered blatant redlining by banks using federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act information. But Reagan’s HUD and justice departments failed to prosecute or sanction banks that violated the Community Reinvestment Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in lending. During that time, of the 40,000 applications from banks requesting permission to expand their operations, Reagan’s bank regulators denied only eight of them on grounds of violating CRA regulations.

    By the end of Reagan’s term in office federal assistance to local governments was cut 60 percent. Reagan eliminated general revenue sharing to cities, slashed funding for public service jobs and job training, almost dismantled federally funded legal services for the poor, cut the anti-poverty Community Development Block Grant program and reduced funds for public transit. The only “urban” program that survived the cuts was federal aid for highways – which primarily benefited suburbs, not cities.

    These cutbacks had a disastrous effect on cities with high levels of poverty and limited property tax bases, many of which depended on federal aid. In 1980 federal dollars accounted for 22 percent of big city budgets. By the end of Reagan’s second term, federal aid was only 6 percent.

    The consequences were devastating to urban schools and libraries, municipal hospitals and clinics, and sanitation, police and fire departments – many of which had to shut their doors.

    Reagan is lauded as “the great communicator,” but he sometimes used his rhetorical skills to stigmatize the poor. During his stump speeches while dutifully promising to roll back welfare, Reagan often told the story of a so-called “welfare queen” in Chicago who drove a Cadillac and had ripped off $150,000 from the government using 80 aliases, 30 addresses, a dozen social security cards and four fictional dead husbands. Journalists searched for this “welfare cheat” in the hopes of interviewing her and discovered that she didn’t exist.

    The imagery of “welfare cheats” that persists to this day helped lay the groundwork for the 1996 welfare reform law, pushed by Republicans and signed by President Clinton.

    The most dramatic cut in domestic spending during the Reagan years was for low-income housing subsidies. Reagan appointed a housing task force dominated by politically connected developers, landlords and bankers. In 1982 the task force released a report that called for “free and deregulated” markets as an alternative to government assistance – advice Reagan followed. In his first year in office Reagan halved the budget for public housing and Section 8 to about $17.5 billion. And for the next few years he sought to eliminate federal housing assistance to the poor altogether.

    In the 1980s the proportion of the eligible poor who received federal housing subsidies declined. In 1970 there were 300,000 more low-cost rental units (6.5 million) than low-income renter households (6.2 million). By 1985 the number of low-cost units had fallen to 5.6 million, and the number of low-income renter households had grown to 8.9 million, a disparity of 3.3 million units.

    Another of Reagan’s enduring legacies is the steep increase in the number of homeless people, which by the late 1980s had swollen to 600,000 on any given night – and 1.2 million over the course of a year. Many were Vietnam veterans, children and laid-off workers.

    In early 1984 on Good Morning America, Reagan defended himself against charges of callousness toward the poor in a classic blaming-the-victim statement saying that “people who are sleeping on the grates…the homeless…are homeless, you might say, by choice.”

    Tenant groups, community development corporations and community organizations fought to limit the damage done by Reagan’s cutbacks. Some important victories were won when Clinton entered office – the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and stronger enforcement of the CRA. Funding for low-income housing, legal services, job training and other programs has never been restored to pre-Reagan levels, and the widening disparities between the rich and the rest persist.

    President George W. Bush, who often claims Reagan’s mantle, recently proposed cutting one-third of the Section 8 housing vouchers – a lifeline against homelessness for two million poor families.

    We’ve already named a major airport, schools and streets after Ronald Reagan, and since his death some people have suggested other ways to celebrate his memory. Perhaps a more fitting tribute to his legacy would be for each American city to name a park bench – where at least one homeless person sleeps every night – in honor of our 40th president.

    Peter Dreier is the E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and director of the Urban and Environmental Policy program at Occidental College in Los Angeles. He has co-authored two books, Place Matters: Metropolitics for the 21st Century and The Next LA: The Struggle for a Livable City, which will be published later this year.

      August 17, 2016 11:21 AM MDT
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  • 113301

     And yours are? Thank you for your reply excon! :)

      August 17, 2016 2:45 PM MDT
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  • 113301

     Yes. He WAS THE PROBLEM as governor of California. He gutted education on his watch. Thanks a lot Ronnie. Such a nice thing to do! :( Thank you for your reply Sharonna! :)

      August 17, 2016 2:49 PM MDT
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