Comments on: Be Afraid

By: Vader

Vader — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:22:05 +0000

Many liberals reject American exceptionalism. Yet, in the face of historical evidence that governments regularly murder, torture, and impoverish their citizens, these same liberals seem to feel that the American government is in fact exceptional — it can be given sweeping powers without any danger of it doing these things.

Logical consistency is difficult to achieve in the best of circumstances. But I wonder sometimes if liberals are even trying.

By: veryretired

veryretired — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 21:05:32 +0000

There was an audit of the IRS a few years ago which concluded that their record keeping was so faulty that, if they had been a private company, the people responsible would have been indicted.

I fail to see why these same standards should not be applied to governmental agencies with the same rigor as they are to private businesses and citizens. A few indictments and some jail time would go a long way toward clearing up the corruption and lawlessness which seems to be engulfing all levels of government, but the federal most seriously of all.

The fastest route to an authoritarian state is that of allowing the ruling cadres to believe themselves above the law. I am afraid we are long past that point, and we need to rectify the situation quickly and sternly.

By: renminbi

renminbi — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 04:32:32 +0000

The government is NOT the people,and does not represent the people de facto. To control this monster people should be allowed to sue gov’t agencies or officials on behalf of the public. A successful suit results in an agency’s appropriation being impounded by the treasury. If a department is redundent it is shut down. The person bringing suit gets a portion of what is saved. Gov’t of,for and by the people long ago perished here, but it is time REAL accountability returned.

By: Shannon Love

Shannon Love — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:18:57 +0000

The real danger in modern government is the lack of internal checks and balances. We consider it axiomatic that elected offices must be balanced by other elected and unelected branches but we have no problem investing sweeping power unchecked power in bureaucracies.

For example, the EPA receives a bigger budget and people within the EPA promotions and higher salaries if environmental studies demonstrate a need for more environmental regulation. Who conducts these studies, why the EPA. This pattern repeats itself in every other government organization.

People who see an obvious conflict of interest when a private institutions conducts studies that justify more money going to the institution see no problem with government agencies doing the same thing. We should instead split up government agencies into two or more compartments. One would conduct research and monitor effectiveness of programs while the other compartment actually carried out the duties. We could further separate powers by making the research and monitoring compartment report directly to congress instead of the President.

In the case of the EPA, we would the EPA which regulates environmental matters and then we would have have an Environmental Research Agency or ERA that would tell us what was actually going on.

In the case of the IRS, we should divide the power up between IRS agents, prosecutors and tax judges. Each compartment would, like in the civil criminal system, be separate organizations. I’d like to get rid of the presumption of guilt that exist in the tax code but no where else. In tax law, you have to prove you don’t owe taxes the government doesn’t have to prove you do. I don’t see that happening.