What Government Can Do

I think the view that "government is always incompetent and is an enemy of the people" is a modern view, one that has been put forth by Republicans over the last 27 years, and one that is not really true.

Government went from having nothing more than a few eggheads with an idea to ending World War II with atomic weapons in five years.

Government went from having a ability to put a man in a suborbital space flight to a dozen men on the moon in ten years. Government has sent or is sending robotic space probes to every planet in the Solar System.

The GPS navigational system that provides the signals for everyone in the world to use for all sorts of purposes was put there by our government.

The government has run the safest and probably the busiest air traffic control system in the world, and did so pretty much at little cost to the taxpayer, or at least it did until the Bush Administration started turning it into another method of providing corporate welfare to large companies.

If you're into firearms, the M-1 rifle was a government project. So was the M1903 Springfield rifle and the M-14 rifle. The M-16 was not a government project and it may be just a coincidence that a number of firearms enthusiasts consider it to be a temperamental piece of shit better suited for a firing range than for combat.

The Republicans have put forth the idea for the last generation that government is not an "us", but a "them", that government is not run by our representatives who are trying to do the best they can but a collection of largely faceless incompetents. And what the Republicans have done is that since they are hostile to the idea of government, they see no reason why they just can't staff it with party hacks and ideological goons. Because the Republicans are hostile to government, we get industry that is largely unregulated and destructive to the environment. Anything that can be carved up, chopped down or desecrated to make a buck for someone who is willing to kick some of it back as a campaign contribution is carved up, etc.

And so we now get a Transportation Security Agency that excels at stealing stuff from people's luggage and harassing air travelers to the point that airline flying is an experience akin to having dental work. We get an FAA where pilots who call for the legally-required weather briefing can and do find themselves "on hold" for long periods of time.

And we get FEMA, staffed by a collection of "heckuvajobs".

People bought into the conservative "government is the enemy" view. And in large measure, we now have the government that we deserve.