Why Governments Expand Inexorably.mp4
Channel: The Philosophical Angle
Date: 2012-03-14

Why Governments Expand Inexorably

We all see throughout the world the expansion of government.  Nothing seems to restrain it.  The news is full of reports of Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and others having bloated governments engorging themselves to the extent that they can no longer even pay their bills.  The word "default" is everywhere.  Even here in the U.S., the government has expanded steadily from the 1930's to present day.  In the past three years, our government expansion has even accelerated doubling the size of the national debt.

The governments scream that they do not have enough money and thus, raise taxes.  After raising taxes, they go out to spend more.  

And they all do it repeatedly!  So the question is why. 

The Philosophical Angle has concluded that it's because of the ideology of liberalism which is prevalent within the Democratic Party since the 1930's.  What?, you say.  You object.  You are thinking that Republicans spend and tax also.  

Yes, that is sometimes true, but the greater tendency is within the liberal ideology.  And so, when a Republican Party member joins the spending, that GOP member is not a conservative for that time as we are speaking here of the difference between the liberal and conservative thought.  

Here is the explanation.  First, the difference between a liberal and a conservative is that conservatives assume first that others in society are inherently good.

Liberals think that inherently others are bad; that is, people in general have bad motives and cannot be trusted.  As a result, people cannot be trusted with making their own decisions.  

As an example, what do liberal Democrats say about our invasion of Iraq?  They say that we should not have brought democracy to Iraq because they were not ready for it.  In other words, the Iraqi people are not ready to make their own decisions. 

As an example, what do liberal Democrats say about our invasion of Iraq?  They say that we should not have brought democracy to Iraq because they were not ready for it.  In other words, the Iraqi people are not ready to make their own decisions. 

This reaction would exasperate a conservative who believes that people everywhere would like to be left alone to make their own decisions.  

Well, their explanation is that others are not ready to make their own decisions; that is, they are inherently bad or incompetent.  Also, because there are bad people everywhere, there are victims everywhere.

Hence, for liberals there are people that cannot be trusted and there are victims of these people or those who are not ready to make their own decisions. 

For conservatives, people are inherently good, and as such, people in general try to be the best they can in their daily lives without intent to do harm to others.

The liberal further concludes: because there are those that should not be trusted with their decisions, there needs to be regulation of their activities; and because there are victims of the activities of these people, there needs to be assistance available for them.

This assistance and regulation should be administered by a centralized authority which would be the government.  Thus, a larger governmental bureaucracy develops assisting the victims who are unable to help themselves against the evil doers of society.  For example, those greedy Wall Street Bankers, those terribly cruel Robber Barons.

And additionally, the large bureaucracy helps to create and administer the regulations needed to keep these evil doers in check.  Further because society is made up of these evildoers and their victims, agreements are suspect as to their validity because victims are inherently incompetent to enter into contracts with others in society who are inherently bad in their intentions. 

This rationale allows the liberal to consider all contracts subservient to the will of the government including the original contract between the people and the formation of the government known as the U.S. Constitution. 

With such a rationale in place the liberal would feel comfortable in allowing the government to arbitrarily change this document to conform to the present will of the government. 

Thus, the Liberals tend to have a loose interpretation of the Constitution, and conversely, the Conservatives would have a strict interpretational view. 

But further, there is one more and greater devastative result of this thinking of the liberal: 

Because the liberal mistrusts others in society who are not of this ideology, they believe that agreements must be subject to review by the government, and as such, sometimes need to be broken as they feel that the end justifies the means. 

When the ideology of the end justifies the means is in place, the concept of ethics vanishes, and the government, or should I say the leaders of the government, may use their ultimate societal power to put into place anything that they feel is necessary and good.