Therefore to talk about no government or government being “the problem” is silly. Government is the mechanism that allows men to secure their rights.

It makes perfect sense to talk about eliminating ineffective government or working towards making government more efficient. It even makes sense to discuss reducing the influence of government in a certain sphere. Of course, anyone who is not a demagogue will provide the specifics for their proposals to IMPROVE government and the governance it provides.

Those who talk about eliminating all government as a solution to our problems are story tellers spinning yarns for the man.

Dept of Energy. When it was formed, 30% of our oil was from foreign countries. Today we are above 60%.

Dept of Education. When it was formed we competed internationally academically. Since its inception we have continued to slide in all areas when compared to the rest of the world.

Please tell me why we need these 2 organizations? Why can’t we fire them? Don’t they deserve it?

No government = Afghanistan or Somalia.

What? Both of these have corrupt totalitarian government.

How about
North Korea- they have a big government.

I know it is hard to believe for you, but we could probably live quite confortably and securly without 70% of the government. That is the problem with govenrment, once they start performing the service, it is hard to think of any other way no matter how disastrous their policies. Look at the public school system in the City of Detroit. 60-70% of the kids that start don’t finish. Yet nothing can be done. If this was run privately, you would be screaming about 10%. Citing private companies doesn’t prove anything. There no longer around and their executives are sent to Jail. You put your criminals in the Cabinet. As far as Europe is concerned, their standard of living would have been severly decreased if it wasn’t for the US. Europe is a bad model because they depend so much on the US for their defense, economies, and any inovation in Health care. Open your mind and do some analysis on the socialized health care systems.

Of course taxes are necessary for the maintenance of democracy, but that probably only accounts for a small portion of the government spending we have now. We ought to be able debate the exact size of government.

For anyone else who’s interested, Johathan Haidt’s talk is available on YouTube as well as on http://www.ted.com.

But in this case, I think you are flat out wrong about the psychology of patriotism, as well as the language.

For a true scientific study of both sides and the reality of how patriotism is viewed based on genetics, check out the TED talk by Johathan Haidt. It’s brilliant.

Begala was expressing love of government. Didn’t you read is piece? Did you read mine? Or did you just make shit up?

Yes, I read Begala’s piece, and Matt Stoller’s, and yours. In the case of your article, I don’t claim to understand every sentence, but I think I got the gist right. On rereading, the scatological image with which you open your article still seems intended to belittle the emotions expressed by Stoller and Begala, suggesting that such emotions were infantile. The rest of your article appears to be an elaboration on that theme. And, given that Stoller and Begala were writing about patriotism, that means you were objecting to their expressions of patriotism.

Now, it appears that (at least in the case of Begala), you don’t grant that last point. I partially addressed this in my previous comment. Begala labels his piece “Happy Patriots Day.” If you concede that patriotism is love of country rahter than love of government, your assertion that Begala was expressing love of country is at best problematical. I suppose you could argue that Begala is expressing love of country in the parts of the article where he uses the word “patriotism” but shifts to expressing love of government in other parts of the piece. Or you could reject my definition of patriotism. But you haven’t done either.

That said, I think that in talking about the definition of patriotism I skipped over the more fundamental issues. Stoller doesn’t use the word “patriotism” in the paragraph you quoted in your article, but I didn’t have to click on the link and read the full article to know what Stoller was talking about. To understand language, you need to know more than the definitions of the words. You also need to know the shared assumptions, the things that aren’t normally said because they are taken for granted. In this case, the assumption is that people normally love their country, not their government.

Shared assumptions of this sort don’t control what can be said. If Begala wanted to indicate that he loved his government rather than his country, he could have written, “I love my government, not my country.” What they do control is what can be left unsaid. Begala doesn’t have to explicitly state that he loves his country rather than his government because that is the default assumption.

I believe that this shared assumption is correct. Given Begala’s background in politics, I think there is a distinct possibility that he was not telling the truth about his feelings. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that he doesn’t feel anything at all akin to patriotism. But I don’t find it plausible that he feels love for his government rather than love for his country. If you find your interpretation of what Begala is saying plausible, that suggests that our disagreement is not only about language, but about how people generally experience patriotism.

It would make sense for you to disagree with me on this point if your personal experience were different from mine. If it were the case that you loved your government rather than your country, then it would seem plausible to you that Begala feels more or less the same way. But I don’t believe for a moment that you feel that way any more that I believe Begala feels that way. Normally, when I’m arguing with someone, I don’t assume that the other person’s eperience of their own feelings supports my position. It would seem safer to assume that your personal experience supports your position rather than my position. But in this case, I think you are flat out wrong about the psychology of patriotism, as well as the language.

This sounds like unfounded conjecture to me. I have lived in and and paid taxes to Britain and Australia. Loved em both. People who live abroad form “expat” communities. I have never heard of an American “expat” say they would move away from either country because of the tax structure.

The point is that the taxes people pay in first world countries contribute to making them first world countries. Many of the things that make a country a great place to live, work, and vacation were paid for by tax dollars.

Good government creates the possibility for wonderful first world living conditions. Good government is expensive. Good government is paid for by taxes. Taxes come from the citizenry. Good citizens pay their taxes.

This you tube clip illustrates the principle nicely:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ

I agree it is easier for government to act incompetently for extended periods of time than business, but my point remains:
Enron screws things up. Government screws things up.
AIG screws things up. Government screws things up.
Bernie Madoff screws things up. Government screws things up.
General Motors screws things up. Government screws things up.
Care to add your own?

The idea that government is bad for our country is silly. The idea that if government just got off the back of business is silly. These Republican principles do not improve anything about America.

Reagan said, “Government is the problem.” (He said all this while increasing the size of government massively.) That idea is silly and wrong. Bad government truly IS a problem. We the People must hold bad government accountable.

WHAT HAVE THE ROMANS EVER DONE FOR US!!!