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I normally am the kind of person who has friends all over the political spectrum, although luckily not too many of the Rushhead Kool Aid drinkers.
Anyway, I was at a bar last night, and this guy outside starts talking about the smoking ban, and I mentioned that I actually enjoy/prefer going outside, but that I think some bars should be able to have smoking establishments if they had a license for it, much like is done with booze.
Well.. that started him off on how we're losing control to the government and how everything is better in his (imaginary apparently) land of free market capitalism. I politely told him that what he said is not necessarily true, that (a) we have massive amounts of free market capitalism all over the country and at every level, almost exclusively, and that (b) private companies are not inherently more efficient nor do they necessarily produce better products.
He then brought out the old "name one thing government ever done right" (along with several minutes of other blather I won't bother repeating), to which I pointed out that he drives every day on roads, and asked if he'd rather have to build his own roads or perhaps pay a toll every other block for private roads. He tried to say that they could have done better (again, with the fantasy world! Are the dittoheads not paying attention to the economic mess we're in or what?), and I said not necessarily, that TONS of private companies are inefficient and bureaucratic.
Of course, that inefficiency was the fault of the government regulating everything in his mind, and he tried to use as an analogy the idea of the State being an airplane and the number of bolts being capitalism, and removing the rivets one at a time would eventually raise the risk of crashing. I think he was saying that the rivets were.. government control? He made no sense, and ironically his analogy worked better for lack of regulation, imo., but it got me thinking about how these people FEAR the government and why.
I don't get it. They are supposed to be all for self-reliance, yet they plainly miss the part in the Constitution where it essentially says that WE are the power behind the government. So instead of doing something productive, such as paying attention to reality and trying to work within the system to elect GOOD and QUALITY people to government, they instantly give up on it and fear it, and elect other people who (allegedly) want government to fail, yet ALWAYS increase governmental power.
It makes no sense. My own analogy is if the State is a vehicle, the Republicans hear the engine knocking, complain about it not working without bothering to fix the problem. Then when it gets worse, they pull over and set the car on fire, running away from it, and then push the burnt out husk into some poor person's yard to deal with it, running over a couple of people in the process.
Why not just try to actually fix the problems in our vehicle instead of abandoning or destroying it? Why not try to hire the SMART and TALENTED mechanic, and pay attention to what they're doing, and be more active in preventative maintenance to keep it running well?
Anyway, I walked away from the guy finally cause I was there to enjoy my friend's band (Coyote Grace - check them out!) and to hang out with friends before I move, not to debate some dumbass who fears what he doesn't bother to understand.
</rant>
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