Fundamental Purpose of Government
"The most basic purpose of government is to prevent people from encroaching on eachothers' fundamental rights." -Me
Every once in a while I see someone state that the purpose of government is to protect us and that's it. This is usually after seeing them comment on several other posts denouncing any form of government regulation or government run social programs. I do not know if that belief about the purpose of government is the source of their anti-government stance or if it's just what they say to validate their fears. Even so they are failing to fully apply the concept of "protection".
Protection can be both physical and psychological and it can be both internal and external. The military protects us from external physical threats and the police protect us from internal physical threats. Those are just two such physical protections. There's also the FDA, which protects us from unsafe foods, drugs, and medical implants (I'd bet not everyone knew that one). The FCC does the same thing for high tech stuff, the EPA for environmental factors, etc to infinity.
All of government regulation serves the singular purpose of protecting us from each other and from the world around us. At what point do we have too much protection though? Probably when it no longer serves the purpose described in my own quote. We have fundamental rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to quote the founding fathers. So our air should be easily breathable because if it weren't then that would be a hindrance to pursuing happiness. We shouldn't have to walk through trash to pursue our life goals for the same reason. The EPA's purpose has now been validated twice by the fundamentals of government.
But really this just goes to show how complex government administration is, because after all, everything in this world costs money. Government spending equates to taxes on commerce, and taxes on commerce are a hindrance to the "pursuit of happiness". It's a really complex system to say the least. Politicians and bureaucrats have to balance all of these variables and maximize their own effectiveness within the parameters given to them. I kind of doubt they actually do this though. For the most part they are probably just like the people who vote for them and guess most of the time as to what's the best course of action. It could be calculated guessing but it's still just a guess and hence why our laws are in constant fluctuation.
Example of an EPA decision
Are 10,000 less asthma cases a year worth one million dollars? Well, we'd need to take into account how much someone's happiness is reduced by asthma, quantify that as a dollar amount somehow and then add in the reduced productivity from that person. We should probably also take into account the cost of R&D as well as production costs in making the medication that make life livable for them. Yeesh, I would not want to work for the EPA. Then again, they probably just guess at most of this stuff since it would cost quite a bit of money to research an accurate cost per case of asthma.
Another Purpose of Government
Should we force people to buy health insurance? Nope, not if you agree that government has only one singular purpose and that is protection. So we can have some very severe government regulation of the marketplace but still no mandated health care coverage.
But what if government serves multiple purposes... what if it were also formed to make us a more productive, stronger society? Well then health care coverage for all would be almost a no brainer. I say almost simply because there are some gray areas where people would have to be dropped due to not contributing to the community. That would bring up certain moral dilemas of course but morality has no place in government; I may be wrong about this but since morality is so subjective I really don't think it should play a part in decisions which affect everyone.
Ok, that's enough ranting from me for now. I hope someone learned something. If not, at least I did.
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