From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Fri Jun 09 2000 - 10:49:40 MDT
On Fri, 09 Jun 2000, Martin Ling wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 09, 2000 at 10:46:30AM -0400, Michael S. Lorrey wrote:
> >
> > the states with the least government and the least regard for government have
> > the most polite, well mannered, considerate, and good neighborly populations,
> > while those with greater levels of government are rife with crime, rudeness,
> > callousness, and disregard for others.
>
> A causes B, B causes A, or C causes A and B?
I personally think that people are naturally civil in the absence of a
signficant governmental presence. I think a lot of the social problems
are a *result* of over-government.
As for the "why", it seems to me that government programs tend to cause
people to abdicate personal responsibility for the welfare of their
society. The government becomes a (poor) surrogate for real civility
amongst individuals. Basically the job of keeping society "nice" gets
shifted from being a personal responsibility to being the responsibility
of a bureaucrat who probably cares much less than the citizenry would in
aggregate. Also, resources are far more likely to be grossly misdirected
when they are controlled by only a few people.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:29:06 MST