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coaster
Senior Advisor
Cash: $ 1357.80
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Joined: 11 Oct 2005
Location: Wisconsin
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quote:
Originally posted by pf101
...Having worked with the govt for 3 years though, I can comfortably say it's not just the IRS. It's all branches. ....
This is WAAAAY off topic, but what the heck, being a mod has a few perks, I guess. Following is an email I sent to a local talk show after a discussion about the Bush administration keeping secret their reasons for putting a defensive missle shield in Eastern Europe. It's entitled "The Nature of Government."
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Hi Bill -
Yesterday you characterized my explanation of why government needed to keep secrets as "a little twisted, maybe." I said that the reason was that the government does this as a means of self-preservation. I suppose your thinking is along the lines of such a massive and diverse organization as the federal government can't be thought of as an organic entity, having needs, ambitions and motives, among them being self-preservation.
But the government IS an organic entity - a collective entity, whose behavior is the net result of the the needs, ambitions and motives of all the individual parts that make up that entity; those individual parts being human being. Human beings have needs -- the chief among these are the desire to preserve themselves and their ways of life. Most have families they love and need to support, home mortgages, utility bills, and so forth which involves a need to have a job and to keep that job. And their ambitions are to better their lives, which involves the need to make more money.
These circumstances create a situation in which everything they do in their jobs is influenced by their needs to keep those jobs, and to gain higher pay grades through promotion. In order to achieve these objectives, they need to strive to not only keep the funding for their particular little piece of government, but to get more funding by finding or creating a need to expand their fiefdom and give it more power and authority. So the nature of government is to not just preserve its power and authority, but to seek to expand it. This nature is the net result of human nature. The basic motivation of human nature is self-preservation. So it is the basic motivation of government.
Government is necessary, but how much government? Since government seeks to justify its existence and to preserve its existence, government takes actions to fulfill those ends. Creating and keeping secrets is just one of the means to those ends. As I said yesterday, if I know something you don't know, but you know you need to know, then you need me. You can't do without me. You can't get rid of me. And so it is with government.
It's not just the missle shield ... it's not just homeland security ... the Bush administration has classified enormous amounts of government records as secret, shielded from the Freedom of Information Act, records that have nothing to do with national security. Why are they doing this? To increase the power and scope of the Executive Branch, of course. They do it because they can do it and they can get away with it. Keeping secrets from the people is what government does. And they're keeping an awful lot of secrets these days. It shouldn't be any surprise their reasons for putting a missile shield in eastern Europe are secret as well.
Regards (and slightly out of breath),
Tim
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.... and that's Philosophy 101 for today. 
~Tim~
Eye Candy : Why Whimsy
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Sat Apr 05, 2008 10:39 pm |
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pf101
Senior Member
Cash: $ 62.25
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Joined: 12 Sep 2007
Location: Portland, OR
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Unfortunately, the individuals in power have begun putting their own interests ahead of the interests of the general population which is why our country is completely FUBAR. You recommend tossing the entire tax code, I recommend purging the entire government and starting fresh with people who aren't completely jaded and on the take. I believe that most people start their government careers with the best of intentions. Unfortunately, the longer you're there the more you realize that it's cut-throat and the only person you can afford to look out for is yourself. This leaves those of us who are not actively governing the country left with the nasty byproducts of the internal struggles.
As a Congressional staffer once said to me "people on The Hill eat their young."
Personal Finance 101
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Sat Apr 05, 2008 11:12 pm |
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coaster
Senior Advisor
Cash: $ 1357.80
Posts: 6686
Joined: 11 Oct 2005
Location: Wisconsin
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I think it's the need to get re-elected that infects the whole government, and if we were able to eliminate the professinal politicians and get back to citizen-legislators, it would also do wonders to invigorate the bureacracy. Like you say, they're mostly decent people, they just lose their way in the way the government works now. I'm not talking term limits, I'm talking single terms for all offices. Go to Washington, do your one-term service, and go home. No re-election -- no need to pander to special interests for campaign funds. No need for campaign funds -- no corruption, no pigs swilling at the government trough or fighting over the pork barrel.
Well, off my soapbox ... I'm setting a bad example being off-topic anyway. 
~Tim~
Eye Candy : Why Whimsy
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Sun Apr 06, 2008 1:02 am |
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