How much government do we need?
- We need as much government as is necessary and sufficient to protect our individual rights and freedoms.
- We don’t need so much government that we expect it to assume our individual responsibilities.
The best solution to most problems is the solution that maximizes individual freedom and individual responsibility. Wouldn’t it be great if more people practiced self-control rather than trying to control other people?
Old-Fashioned Values
- Work hard and take pride in your work.
- Save money.
- Don’t spend what you haven’t earned.
- If you incur debt, pay it off promptly.
- Expect nothing from others.
- Express gratittude to those who help you and respect toward those you admire.
- Flatter no one.
- Treat everyone fairly.
- Take responsibility for your actions and their consequences.
- And get off of my lawn!
Government is Not Your Daddy 
Hello! Today I came across your website and really enjoyed some of your political writings (Mrs. Clinton Lets it All Hang Out” was great). I am one of the principles in a little writing experiment called the Constitutional Matters Project (www.constitutionalmatters.com). The project is a compilation of Opinion Editorials from both professional writers as well as talented hobbyists from all political points of view.
I would like to invite you to contribute one of your next articles to our project. Doing so will allow us to share our audience with your political points of view. Of course we’ll credit your work and provide pointers back to your personal blog. If you write consistently, then we can create an account for you within our suite of tools so that you can self-publish. Every time that you update your site, you can republish with us and we’ll help spread your message to folks who may not hear it otherwise.
Let me know if you are interested and we’ll chat more about the details.
Thanks!
Alan | user experience general | constitutional matters project | http://www.constitutionalmatters.com
I agree
Ignorance does not solve poverty, nor guarantee anyones’ rights. If ONE person is poor due to abuse of powers, than anyone can be made poor.
1. Work hard and take pride in your work.
2. Save money.
3. Don’t spend what you haven’t earned.
4. If you incur debt, pay it off promptly.
5. Expect nothing from others.
6. Express gratitude toward those who help you and respect toward those you admire.
7. Flatter no one.
8. Treat everyone fairly.
9. Take responsibility for your actions and their consequences.
10. And get off of my lawn!
All the above 10 ideas I agree, however, the people in power will not let us do the above (even Ron Paul stated at a Colorado rally that the government won’t let him solve poverty). Due to the love of power and money, we have greedy elitists who won’t share nor allow opportunity for all. In addition, it is too simplistic to just say work hard and pay off your debt. Livable wage jobs have been shipped off to Mexico, China, and now India by free market greedy corporations. What I mean by livable wages is is defined in “The Declaration of Independence” which was signed by the congress into law as part of our constitution. See line 6: “unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” How can you persue happiness when opportunity is shipped out of the country and resources for new options are not shared (as in small biz op)? Our economy is based on money. When you ship out good paying jobs, you take power away from the middle and lower classes. Corporations are causing economic insecurity to the masses and to our country. When Japan attacked (1941) and cutoff our access to resources in Asia (rubber and more), we declared war on them. When you cutoff resources and opportunity it is called economic blackmail. This is fascism which IS NOT constitutional. It is immoral. Too much power in the top takes away from the 99 percents rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit happiness.
Solution1: Only buy US products and only elect officials who will end economic black mail of outsourcing and bring back all types of jobs.
It is not wrong for Mexico, China, or India to develop, but not at the cost of US jobs and at the cost of our rights.
Solution 2: Do what Japan does. You cannot sell a foreign made product in Japan if it takes (livable wage) jobs away from any citizen in Japan. Basically, every country should make as many products as they can in their own country, unless they are too small or have 100% employment.
Note: Our federal government and our military are dependent on foreign countries for many high-tech components. This means some of those chips in our missiles come from Asia. What if something happens to that chip plant in Asia?
BEFORE anyone comments, come up with viable alternative solutions! Otherwise you are ignoring the problem. Plus, euthanizing poor people will not fix the problem. Sharing resources like JC and the book of Acts states will help get end poverty and end inequality.
“How can you persue happiness when opportunity is shipped out of the country and resources for new options are not shared (as in small biz op)?”
You can pursue happiness any way you want, as long as you don’t violate anybody else’s fundamental rights. But nobody owes you anything. If jobs get shipped to other countries because the labor unions and labor laws make it economically infeasible to keep the jobs here, then vote to stop the labor unions and labor laws from pricing our own workforce out of the market. You are not entitled to a job. You have to earn it. To do that, you have to develop superior skills to somebody else and offer your skills at as good or better a price than they do.
The viable alternative solution is to allow a free market in this country. Then it will make economic sense to keep the jobs here.
You’re free to pursue your own version of happiness, whatever that may be, as long as you can afford it, but nobody owes it to you. And nobody owes you a living, either. Grow up, stop whining, and start taking responsiblity for your own life.
“jobs get shipped to other countries because the labor unions and labor laws make it economically infeasible to keep the jobs here” (FALSE)
Labor unions were created to protect people from death, injury, and make live-able wages. The Japanese, Germans, French, and other foreign corporations are eager to use our American labor force to build cars here and sell here. It makes economic sense to build here. It makes safety sense to build here. It makes green sense to build here causing less pollution and saving on transportation costs. Otherwise, do you want more lead in your foreign made products. Free market is a myth for corporations to exploit cheap labor. A famous right-wing business man stated that you need to pay your workers enough to be able to buy the products you make. That was Henry Ford’s idea.
“nobody owes you a living, either. Grow up, stop whining”
It is not a matter of owing anyone a job. It is a matter of greed and morality. It is a matter of common people being used by corporations as pawns and not treated with respect for all that American citizens have done. Corporations are making money off our tax dollars, off of the sick, off of the elderly, off of YOU, and off of death/war. Corporations do owe us for protecting them and for protecting their interest overseas. Our taxes pay for many services and research that US corporations take for granted. They use the gov to get what they want and toss those who helped them away. In 2005 Oracle begged the congress to force PeopleSoft to sell themselves, because Oracle was too greedy to license out PeopleSoft’s software products. Within a year Oracle laid off 5,000 people for no reason (see: ZDNetUK News & computerworld.com).
Finally, I am responsible, I am grown up, and I make my own good living, but I am writing for those who are not at my level. When any one American is in poverty, oppressed, and is given injustice by corporations or corrupt governments, then we all are in this danger.
We don’t need a daddy, we do need true fairness, and equality for all. You don’t understand! The USA no longer has a fair playing field for all to find opportunity. May be you’ll grew up and start realizing the mess this country is in. Your blind faith in Reagonomics will be your own undoing. Don’t worry, I won’t be writing back to deaf willfully ignorant ears. Goodbye, notyourdaddy.
So long, T. Happy trails…
wow, you seem to have attracted a few of the whiners Obama has been talking about! How suprising they are on the left side of things!! :)
Come on, can’t we flatter you a little? ;-)
[…] From “Government is Not Your Daddy”……….. visit it here: […]
Today marks the first anniversary of our blog, zionbeckons.blogspot.com, and for our birthday we have discovered “notyourdaddy.” This is great stuff and a wonderful gift, for which we give hearty thanks.
From the Ozarks to Oregon go our best wishes for your continued success. Drop by sometime and enjoy some “preaching to the choir.”
Best regards,
Cec
Happy birthday to ZionBeckons! I just checked out your blog, and it looks like a good one. I’m looking forward to reading more of it.
Welcome to Daddyland, and I hope you’ll be a regular visitor!
Greetings NotYourDaddy,
Just wanted to let you know that I read your article “When A Free Lunch Isn’t Good Enough” over at GoArticles.Com, and I enjoyed it so much I posted it at FreeScreech.Com. Good stuff, keep it up!
Enjoyed your writing! I just started a Free Market Capitalism blog. Please check it out…
FMC (Free Market Capitalist)
Welcome to Daddyland, kmccamey. I checked out your blog at http://freemktcapitalism.blogspot.com. Looks good!
I happened upon your website today by accident, but I am extremely thankful that I found you! The World Wide Web is full of liberal idiots and unfortunately a lot of Americans are buying into their dangerous ideals. Obama is nothing more than a modern day Charismatic orator whose policies and ideals will lead the United States into Socialism. Does anyone remember Adolf Hitler? Liberals believe that Socialism will save the world, but in reality it will destroy the middle class, strengthen poverty, and teach our children that personal accountability is no longer necessary in one’s life. Everyone is responsible for themselves, the American taxpayers and the American Government should not be responsible for holding the hands of the poor and paying the way of the poor. Wealthy Americans earned their money through hard work and intelligent investing; they should NOT be penalized for being wealthy. If Obama is elected the American people can look forward to… paying for everyone that is not as wealthy as themselves, socialized healthcare, loss of property, and loss of the Middle class entirely. A vote for Obama is one step closer to the death of the United States and a slap in the face to every person who fought in every war to ensure that our wonderful country remains free.
re: “Solution 2: Do what Japan does. You cannot sell a foreign made product in Japan if it takes (livable wage) jobs away from any citizen in Japan. Basically, every country should make as many products as they can in their own country, unless they are too small or have 100% employment.”
That made me so mad, I had to respond. It’s not the government’s duty or right to say who can make what and who can buy what. I can buy something from any country I want, that’s not a problem. The problem is that government has regulated all of our U.S. industries so severely that they’ve been driven out of our country. companies in this position have two choices: stay in the U.S. and go bankrupt, or shift work overseas. I don’t blame them for the choice they are making, although I may not agree. I blame the government for putting them in that position in the first place. Do you know how hard it is to run any kind of business? I am a beautician, and I paid for my schooling, licensing, not to mention business fees, taxes, and all the investments to get started. The government RAPES my business for it’s profit, to the point where it’s almost not worth it to do business in the first place. Of course, you probably won’t understand that statement unless you understand that the government takes 50% of most people’s wages in taxes, even though we don’t see it up front. Licenses, permits, fines, fees, regulations, tickets, sales taxes, import/export taxes, property taxes, income taxes…your boss pays tax n your income, then YOU pay taxes on your income, until there is barely anything left. It’st he government that will tax, fine, and enslave the american business and it’s people until there is not a penny left. We do NOT live in anything even close to a free market, no such market exists. So you can’t blame it on the “free market”. If there was a free market, it wouldn’t operate like this, by definition. Corporations are a legal fiction that exist only by the guns of government, they don’t exist in a free market.
Learn about real freedom at http://www.theadvocates.org or http://www.freetalklive.com
Lets face the facts! …The world capitalist private enterprise economy is in the toilet and is about to go down the tubes. The world is on the brink of a necessary change from what was, .. to what will be. The desperate need for a world economy that satisfies the material need of the entire world needs to be realized.
Common sense tells us that for this to happen we must abandon the unplanned system of private enterprise and adopt a world wide planned economy that will utilize the world’s modern technologies without prejudice or discrimination to satisfy the material needs of the people and environment of the world
Uh huh.
And who shall draw up and implement the 5-Year Plans, praytell?
Criminey.
Welcome to Daddyland, Rissy! I agree with you completely. But, the way our nation is headed, we’re going to get more taxes, more regulations, more government debt for us all to pay off, and more entitlement programs to make sure those who don’t want to work hard and take responsibility for themselves will be able to live comfortably at the expense of those who do.
I hope you’ll visit often and join in our lively discussions.
Amen! I’ve actually been asking liberals why grown adults want to be taken care of by a big mommy government.
I’d love it if you checked out a petition I began to urge RINOs to get back to their Reagan Conservative roots:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/we-demand-true-conservative-leadership.html
If you agree, sign it and pass it on. I think returning a liberal-moving Republican party back to real Conservatism is going to take a grassroots effort.
Thanks!!
The “Grass Roots,” are for the most part “unemployed” The Grass Roots are in desperate need of “GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE!”
Thank you, Kathryn. I read and signed the petition, and fully support its goals. I ecourage others to read and sign it as well.
I love this site and I have hooked your RSS feed up to my MyYahoo! page. However, it still shows “Connecting the Bailout Dots” as the top story and does not have any of the later stories.
I did, for one brief moment, see the newer entries this morning, but now it has rolled back to the old ones. Has anyone else reported issues with stale RSS?
Chuck, I have no control over the Yahoo RSS feed, but you can subscribe to an RSS feed that’s always up to date directly from this page. Look in the right hand column, where it says “Subscribe to RSS.” There’s a large button that scrolls the recent headlines. You can click that button to subscribe.
Glad you like the site!
Enjoyed the comments… thank you for this site.
It seems someone needs to tell republicans and big business that government is not THEIR daddy. I googled gov’t bailouts recently and found this interesting graph and timeline: http://www.propublica.org/special/government-bailouts
Please note who the current President was during each one of the afformentioned “programs”.
Also, If Clinton was running on the benefits of the Reagan and Bush 41 economic policy, doesn’t that mean that Bush 43 was running on Clintons economy, and then Obama would be running on exactly whose economy?
Please don’t call me some nasty lib or anything like that. I will admit I lean a little left, I just can’t understand the rhetoric of the right on some of the economic facts. Fiscal responsibilty= getting involved in two wars and then doing what, Oh yeah 2 tax cuts for some of the weatlhiest people in the world. And where did the Trickle down go? They got the tax breaks, why aren’t they hiring? Or do I have to be Chinese or Mexican and willing to work for 2 or 3 dollars and hour?
I appreciate the comment, scoobiejim, but this post is about Government is Not Your Daddy, not about the Republican Party.
The Republican Party is all about “Government Is Not Your Daddy!” You cannot separate the content of this site and the content of the “Republican Party!”
“Scoobiejim’s” comment about the Republican party was, I believe, RIGHT ON!
You have to be completely unconscious to not be aware of the assistance and welfare that that “Big Government” has dolled out to Big Business, and the Big Banks!
It was the “Republican Administrations” of “Bush” and “Reagan” that diverted money from going to the “common people in desperate need” and made sure that their rich friends in the private sector got all of the money that they wanted.
The continuous struggle between the “Rich and Mighty,” and the Middle Class and the “Poor,” for a larger share of the ‘Gross National Product” is a continuing process, and who the Republicans are looking out for in this struggle is very much obvious.
Government is the daddy of the largest businesses in the world in this era of the “Global Economy.”
The Republican contention that it is only the lazy “Poor” and the struggling “Middle Class,” that is receiving “Government Assistance” is a distraction from reality.
The Republicans do not represent a “Populous Movement” of the American population, that they are presently claiming.
The “Tea Party Movement” is a collection of the most ignorant and uninformed paranoid members of our society. They are an embarrassment to most americans and the world is laughing at us because of what they say and think.
They are a throw back to a time that no longer exists.
“but this post is about Government is Not Your Daddy, not about the Republican Party”
…which you’ve thoroughly endorsed over & over again in this very blog.
Another useless post on a 2.5 year old thread…ugh…
So, you can complain about the old and the disabled, and the underprivilaged as needing the Gov’t to be their “Daddy”, But if you point out just who the Gov’t is playing “Daddy” too that is off limits? Sounds like typical conservative talking points to me. Sorry, I won’t make the mistake of posting pertinent information on exactly who the Gov’t is playing “Daddy” to.
Mr. Walters, the Republican Party may be “all about ‘Government is Not Your Daddy’,” but Government is Not Your Daddy is not all about the Republican Party.
There are some posts on this blog that are about the Repbublican Party. If you want to discuss or comment on the Republican Party, you are free to do so on a post that is about the Republican Party. On this page, generic rants against the Republican Party are off topic.
If you want to rail against Republicans, that’s fine. I’m just requesting that you do it in an appropriate place. This is not it.
Thank you.
Since Liberals cannot stay on topic, I will. Specifically these two opening points.
”
#5 Expect nothing from others.
#9 Take responsibility for your actions and their consequences.”
“Others” means the taxpayers, guys. You are not entitled to free food, free education, a free house, a free car, a guaranteed job, a free cell phone, free money from people who have more than you, or even free health care. Someone else pays for others to have it free.
As an American you are entitled to an opportunity to go out and get those things for yourself. You are entitled to not having the Government take them away from you by way of taxes, just to give them to those who have less than you.
You can have free stuff or you can have freedom. The two do not go together. If you care to trade your freedom for free — stuff, there are other countries you can move to .
Alan,
My response to #5 & #9 is….
“Expect nothing from others!”
#5
The entire thrust of the system of “Capitalism” is to take from the “Working Class” and to give what it exploits from the workers and give it to the “Capitalist Class” and call what it robs from the workers, a “profit.”
It is apparent to everyone except those that are blinded by their infatuation for the system of “Capitalism” that the activity of ownership of Land, Factory, Mines Machines , etc., etc., does not produce anything of value!
“Value” that can be used for the purpose of exchange can only be arrived at by the expenditure of “LABOR POWER!” measured by LABOR TIME, that is expended on the production of things that become valuable because of the amount of social labor time that workers as a class had expended in the process of production.
In other words, “Wheat” can be “Exchanged for Corn” if it took equal amount of labor time to produce the “Wheat” and the “Corn.” The intrinsic value of the “Wheat” and “Corn” is equal because of the socially necessary labor time that was expended in its production.
The worker sells his ability to work for a wage! The value that the worker receives in the form of a wage is not equal to the amount of value that the worker created. That value that the worker created but did not receive, is the value that was robbed from the worker, by the owner capitalist, and is called by the capitalist owner, “HIS PROFIT!”
In other Words, All VALUE is produced by the class that works for a living, and the value that goes to the owner of private property is value that is stolen from the class that works for a living.
CAPITALISTS EXPECTS IT”S. WAGE SLAVES TO BE THE SOURCE OF IT”S. PROFIT!
#9
“Take responsibility for your actions and their consequences!”
The “Right Wing Conservative” acts in a way that is “INDIVIDUALIST” to the extreme!
The consequences of their disregard for the people that constitute a community will be a turning away of the community from the individuals that regard themselves as not a part of the community as a whole, but rather free individual agents, separate and apart from society as a whole.
That is why Right Wing Ideologues” cannot be in charge of a community.
They cannot think in terms of what is the common good!