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> It's the old "I'm from the government and I am here to help" joke. What else is the government for? I understand it's a popular Reagan talking point but I do

by bdhe 4y ago

> It's the old "I'm from the government and I am here to help" joke. What else is the government for? I understand it's a popular Reagan talking point but I don't really grok it. If you assume the govt doesn't work for us, particularly if you're in politics, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
This is probably not the best thread for a political discussion, but I will take a shot. Nobody disputes that governments should be a force for good. Government's obviously can do both good and bad. Many reason atrocities like the cultural revolution came of under the pretext of trying to help. If you think the government has veered into doing bad, it is natural to want to reform it and make it stop doing that. the talking point and metaphor simply conveys a belief that some of the governments work is bad and should be stopped. It's a lot more complicated, but that's the 5-year-old explanation of it
- civilized 4y ago
  Government that limits its own power by law is humanity's greatest political invention. Anyone can make a government that sometimes does good. The challenge is to create a government that cannot do unfathomable evil.
- joshuamorton 4y ago
  > the talking point and metaphor simply conveys a belief that some of the governments work is bad and should be stopped This is a nuanced and thoughtful position. The statement "The 9 words you never want to hear are I'm from the government and I'm here to help"" is not nuanced and thoughtful, it doesn't suggest governments do good and bad, it positions governments (and their agents) as incapable of doing good. That someone from the government trying to help you must not be, for whatever reason.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    I don't know what to tell you. It's not a literal statement. At Best it is a heuristic and more often, a platitude. It's like don't talk to Cops or corporate HR works for the company and not you. If you were to take it at face value and debate it against it, you would be making the fallacy error of secundum quid. If you want to have a real discussion about how much good and or bad the government does, you need to find a real human to have that discussion with. The saying alone is a not complete self-contained philosophy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secundum_quid#:~:text=Secundum%20quid%20(also%20called%20secundum,as%20a%20general%20rule%20but https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secundum_quid#:~:text=Secund...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
treeman79 4y ago
The idea is that government is inherently bad. But no government is worse. People in government will abuse their positions as much as possible. So limiting government as much as possible is the goal. Good example is pandemic. Governments saved a small number of people by collapsing economies. Quit possibly killing more people then were saved. There is a very good argument that the best thing governments could have done is “nothing”.
- ConceptJunkie 4y ago
  Government is the worst possible way to solve any problem. Therefore, we should only let it solve those problems that absolutely cannot be solved any other way. There are plenty, and this is not a statement that all government is bad, but that it needs to be tightly constrained. People constantly rail about the evil wrought by big business, and they're right to do so, but what is the government (in the US anyway), but the biggest (and perhaps most corrupt) business of all? Except it's not constrained by the requirement to turn a profit, so it doesn't suffer the bad consequences of failure, because you can always print more money. And you're absolutely right about the pandemic response.

by bdhe 4y ago

s1artibartfast 4y ago

This is probably not the best thread for a political discussion, but I will take a shot. Nobody disputes that governments should be a force for good. Government's obviously can do both good and bad. Many reason atrocities like the cultural revolution came of under the pretext of trying to help. If you think the government has veered into doing bad, it is natural to want to reform it and make it stop doing that. the talking point and metaphor simply conveys a belief that some of the governments work is bad and should be stopped. It's a lot more complicated, but that's the 5-year-old explanation of it

civilized 4y ago
Government that limits its own power by law is humanity's greatest political invention. Anyone can make a government that sometimes does good. The challenge is to create a government that cannot do unfathomable evil.
joshuamorton 4y ago
> the talking point and metaphor simply conveys a belief that some of the governments work is bad and should be stopped This is a nuanced and thoughtful position. The statement "The 9 words you never want to hear are I'm from the government and I'm here to help"" is not nuanced and thoughtful, it doesn't suggest governments do good and bad, it positions governments (and their agents) as incapable of doing good. That someone from the government trying to help you must not be, for whatever reason.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  I don't know what to tell you. It's not a literal statement. At Best it is a heuristic and more often, a platitude. It's like don't talk to Cops or corporate HR works for the company and not you. If you were to take it at face value and debate it against it, you would be making the fallacy error of secundum quid. If you want to have a real discussion about how much good and or bad the government does, you need to find a real human to have that discussion with. The saying alone is a not complete self-contained philosophy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secundum_quid#:~:text=Secundum%20quid%20(also%20called%20secundum,as%20a%20general%20rule%20but https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secundum_quid#:~:text=Secund...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

treeman79 4y ago

The idea is that government is inherently bad. But no government is worse. People in government will abuse their positions as much as possible. So limiting government as much as possible is the goal. Good example is pandemic. Governments saved a small number of people by collapsing economies. Quit possibly killing more people then were saved. There is a very good argument that the best thing governments could have done is “nothing”.

ConceptJunkie 4y ago
Government is the worst possible way to solve any problem. Therefore, we should only let it solve those problems that absolutely cannot be solved any other way. There are plenty, and this is not a statement that all government is bad, but that it needs to be tightly constrained. People constantly rail about the evil wrought by big business, and they're right to do so, but what is the government (in the US anyway), but the biggest (and perhaps most corrupt) business of all? Except it's not constrained by the requirement to turn a profit, so it doesn't suffer the bad consequences of failure, because you can always print more money. And you're absolutely right about the pandemic response.