The government and it's ever-increasing power: Can we limit it?

[ShakeZula06]

I was really close to making this a post in this thread but I'm deciding to make this a thread in politics because it's off topic and I don't want to hijack.

BigWig's beef in the linked thread (mine too) is that government is proned to oversteppping it's boundaries by legislating morality and making laws that clearly benifit only themselves or those paying them.

Online poker is yet another example of that. It makes me sick that these scumbags are looked at as the leaders of our society.

Those against legislating morallity usually fall into two camps. (1) One camp believes that we need to limit government to stay out of people's personal decisions and the other camp who believes (2) we need to get rid of government. Obviously each has it's own sub-camps, but for the purposes of this discussion at this time it isn't a big thing.

Once I came to terms with the idea that government needs to stay out of personal decisions and stop going after people who commit victimless "crimes" I (I assume most anybody) fell into camp #1 (which would be after I stopped drinking the Republican kool-aid).

However, I have moved to camp #2 with the help of the ACists on this board that I now include myself in. The biggest reason is that I believe that Government is proned to grow bigger and grow larger and larger and control anything it can. Just look at America. The founders set up a Constitutional Republic aimed at having a (relative to the individual states) weak federal government, and a weak executive branch. Well, so much for that.

So the question I pose is, is it possible for the government to actually restrict it's own power? We seen pretty clearly that in the face of a constitution limiting governments power we have still seen it steadly grow over the last ~250 years, so my answer right now is no, but I (would like to think I [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img])am not set in my way of thinking yet.

[Borodog]

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So the question I pose is, is it possible for the government to actually restrict it's own power?

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In general, no. On very rare occassions it occurs. This is equivalent to asking, "Can all of the air in the room suddenly end up in the corner?" Technically, yes. Is it likely to occur any time soon? No. The chances of this occuring are inversely proportional (at best) to the size of the government in question. So as governments grow larger, the possibility continues to decline.

Notable cases in the recent past have been New Zealand, Ireland, some Eastern European former Soviet Bloc countries, like Estonia.

[Mickey Brausch]

We are too ready to damn any and all types of government in society. But clearly some types of government are doing significantly better than others, in terms of citizen satisfaction or even just plain ol' vulgar economic performance.

Take the Vikings.

Often cited by the Left or the Right as examples of "good government" or "government run wild", respectively, they manage to have, nonetheless an enviable level of citizen satisfaction and come out on top in economic competitiveness.

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CNN Business
GENEVA, Switzerland (Reuters) -- The United States fell to sixth place in the World Economic Forum's 2006 global competitiveness rankings, ceding the top place to Switzerland, as macroeconomic concerns eroded prospects for the world's largest economy.
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Switzerland was followed by Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Singapore. After the United States, which had topped the 2005 index, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain rounded out the top 10.

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They must be doing something right those Scandinavians, meriting at least somber examination.

Mickey Brausch

[irvman21]

It's interesting though, despite being a country many point to, especially in Europe, for how things should be done, Sweden has a rather unhappy populace. Approval for the social democrats has been falling steadily, for among many other economic issues, its handling of immigration.

[hmkpoker]

Mickey.

Learn what a sample size is.

You can't look at three countries (that happen to be highly socialized) and automatically think gee golly the welfare state must be working out for them! There are other factors in a society that influence productivity (culture, geography, resources, etc).

Also, notice that they're all behind the low-tax nation of Switzerland. Clearly, we should all start wearing Leiderhosen.

[BCPVP]

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Also, notice that they're all behind the low-tax nation of Switzerland. Clearly, we should all start wearing Leiderhosen.

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And be allowed to have automatic weapons in our houses! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[hmkpoker]

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Also, notice that they're all behind the low-tax nation of Switzerland. Clearly, we should all start wearing Leiderhosen.

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And be allowed to have automatic weapons in our houses! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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They can have full auto!??!

[censored], where do I sign up?

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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Also, notice that they're all behind the low-tax nation of Switzerland. Clearly, we should all start wearing Leiderhosen.

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And be allowed to have automatic weapons in our houses! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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They can have full auto!??!

[censored], where do I sign up?

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They're required to!

[govman6767]

[ QUOTE ]
Mickey.

Learn what a sample size is.

You can't look at three countries (that happen to be highly socialized) and automatically think gee golly the welfare state must be working out for them! There are other factors in a society that influence productivity (culture, geography, resources, etc).

Also, notice that they're all behind the low-tax nation of Switzerland. Clearly, we should all start wearing Leiderhosen.

[/ QUOTE ]

First of all I'm an american with a Swiss-Italian heritage
Let me tell you something. The swiss are the supreme race not the germans.

We make the best
1) Hot Chocolate
2) Cheese
3) Army-Knife's
4) Watches
5) Have the Best Ski Slopes
6) Best Rescue Dogs
7) Stayed out of 2 world Wars
8) Cold Chocolate

It's obvious we are better than all of YOU So we should be #1 on the list.

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] heh This pisses everyone off when I tell them I'm the man [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Bjorn]

[ QUOTE ]
Mickey.

Learn what a sample size is.

You can't look at three countries (that happen to be highly socialized) and automatically think gee golly the welfare state must be working out for them! There are other factors in a society that influence productivity (culture, geography, resources, etc).

Also, notice that they're all behind the low-tax nation of Switzerland. Clearly, we should all start wearing Leiderhosen.

[/ QUOTE ]

Being a Swede myself my personal hypothesis based on my expeience both traveling to other countries and also working with people of other nationalities (I work in a mutinational company) is that corruption is the key.

It's probably not a coinincidence that the same countries that have the strongest economic indicators are also very well placed in surveys such as this one that measure corruption.

Leaving out (for the moment) the moral question of goverment intervention I've come to the conclusion that the exact rules of the society (as defined by system of goverment and economy) are less important for how effective the system is, what's important is the fact that the rules are actually followed. Unfortunatly I have as of now no good answer why some countries would be less corrupt than others...

/Bjorn