Spritzler explains government: Doing good more imp than not doing bad?
Most reasonable people see a world full of social problems, pain & injustice and say “hey shouldn’t our gov do something about this”. Count me as one of those folks! That is assuming our gov can do something “GOOD”.
Can it? Other than regulating commerce, maintaining infrastructure (roads), safety regulations and the normal compulsory stuff can you think of a single major social problem the Federales has solved? Go ahead, I’m waiting.
Racism, reducing unwed motherhood, Welfare, improving education, Native American unemployment, drug use…should I continue? Oh, we spent a literal mountain of money trying to fix these social problems but have pretty lame results to show for it.
If you want something fixed, history doesn’t provide much comfort that your elected officials are the answer. Why? Who knows…we could pontificate all day.
I’d rather talk about the stuff our government has tried to fix with disastrous results.
#1: The Great Depression started as one of 4 relatively benign recessions in the 1920s, the first three of which quickly repaired themselves with no help from Uncle Sam. In fact, after the fateful stock market crash in 1929, within 9 months unemployment was back down to 9% and the economy was about to pull another miraculous recovery…that is until Herbert Hoover decided he needed to “help”. Against the urgent pleas of just about every economist of the day (a famous petition signed by 300 was delivered to his door) he forged ahead, raised tariffs and started a trade war.
What we got was 25% unemployment and a global recession that lasted for 12 more years. BTW we also got Adolf Hitler. Yes, he was on the way out (his party in shambles) until the depression ravaged Germany and propelled him back into power. Hey, Snitz are you saying that if Hoover hadn’t screwed up there would have been no WWII, no holocaust, no butchering of 20 million Chinese, 15 million Russians…Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Interesting how a seemingly insignificant mistake can bring on a shitstorm.
#2: Viet Nam: It was certainly wrong for Ho Chi Minh to invade South Vietnam. Had we stayed out of the conflict, the North would have quickly prevailed which would eventually be the case some 15 years later. Of course, we didn’t stay out. We “helped”. “Helping” 5 million Americans get some military training overseas (50,000 never returned) and saw to it that 5 million North and South Vietnamese lost their lives. We also trashed the US economy in the 1970s as a result. So much for “helping” our friends in South East Asia.
#3. Syria: A group of wannabee freedom fighters wanted to overthrow Assad (a bad guy we don’t like). Had we stayed “out” they would have been quickly defeated. Instead, we decided to “help” initially by providing economic and military support. This resulted in a bloody 5-year civil war that produced 3 million refugees. Where did those folks wash up? On the shores of Europe creating an immigrant crisis that now dominates EU politics.
#4. The opioid crisis now kills about 100,000 Americans annually. The origin of that came from the 1995 approval by the FDA of Oxycontin for long-term chronic pain. Prior to that, the drug (& prescription opioids)were only available for post-surgical use (ergo doses good only for a few days). Fortunately for Purdue Pharma (its manufacturer), they were able to pay off the chief FDA official (over the objection of his entire staff) and get the drug’s use changed (with no supporting clinical trials). That guy soon thereafter left the FDA and joined the team at Purdue. Had the FDA done its job there would be no opioid epidemic.
The point of all this? It takes but a minute for our government to create back-breaking problems for society. Subsequently fixing these can prove almost impossible and takes years of glacial progress & almost limitless expenditure.
Maybe the next time you vote for a candidate you’ll pick the person less likely to do something bad, not the outstanding orator who promises the moon and delivers hell on earth.
Postcript-Why do our public officials mess up so frequently? Do the greedy capitalists seem despite their narcissistic intentions to accomplish more? Milt had an interesting theory on that.
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