This is to follow up on the "what Conservatives believe" and "what Progressives believe" threads. Sadly, I fall into neither of those two camps, so I'm forced to create my own list.
1. All power should be limited in concentration. The central government should be sharply limited to the functions of national defense, regulating insterstate commerce, ensuring evenness of justice in the various states. Regulating commerce enables them in turn to limit the power of corporations. Gersenites believe that government and corporations should be intentionally set up in terms of mutual animosity -- when the government owns the corporations, then communism results and everyone suffers. When the corporations control the government, that state is indistinguishable from fascism, and everyone suffers. Likewise, strict separation of church and state, and separation of church and corporation, are desireable.
2. Very, very few things should actually be illegal, and then only if they demonstratively cause direct harm to others. When in doubt, a "default" status of legal should be assumed unless the data show that direct harm is resulting to others (one has the right to harm oneself, however, if others are not directly impacted). Therefore murder, rape, assault, theft, deception would be illegal. Marijuana, topless sunbathing, and refusing to wear a seat belt would not.
3. Whatever the offense, the sentence should as much as possible serve some purpose other than simple "punishment." Capital punishment in no way resurrects the victims, but it does eliminate any possibility of recivitism. In cases of theft, some sort of work detail (and confiscation of assets to cover the loss) would seem appropriate. Simply chucking criminals together in a cage would seem to have little to recommend it.
4. In the pursuit of beliefs #1 and #2, a legitimate function of local government is to ensure that the liberty of local minorities is not trampled upon by their more numerous neighbors. A legitimate function of the state government is to ensure that the local government isn't simply being used by the local majority to push around the minoities. A legitimate function of the federal government is to ensure that the state governments are not simply favoring certain local governments to abridge the liberty of the citizenry.
Discuss!
I move we add it to the periodic table.
+1 :)
How about social welfare programs at the state and federal levels? (Social security, Medicare, medicaid, mandatory emergency room admittance, TANF, SSI etc.)
How about social welfare programs at the state and federal levels? (Social security, Medicare, medicaid, mandatory emergency room admittance, TANF, SSI etc.)
That's a good question. Certainly, one could make a case that large-scale environmental degredation or catastrophe is harmful to everyone, even if no one person is at fault (Icelandic volcanic eruptions, for example). It therefore seems somewhat unavoidable that some source of funds to address problems that face the public as a whole would be available -- think of that as an extension of national defense.
The next thing to consider is whether (a) lack of affordable medical care creates a public threat of the same magnitude, even if it's no one's "fault," (b) whether that threat can be ameliorated with a public fund, and (c) whether the liberty of a specific group (in this case, the poor saps whose companies opt out of providing health insurance -- which in my system would be 100% of the population since no law would compel them to offer it) is adversely impacted by its lack. I find it absurd that people who pay nothing currently get emergency room treatment at the sole expense of others. I find it equally absurd that people who would like to pay in are denied coverage anyway, and have to worry about everything they've worked for being taken away because of something outside of their control like an unforseen illness. In that case, it might be better to allow everyone to pitch in and share in the benefits, instead of creating a system where only healthy, rich people have any chance to become healthy or rich.
Flip it around though -- I see in Austria people gaming the system, by having a low-paying job (and thus low taxes withheld), but then having 12 kids all on public health care. That harms everyone else, so some measure would need to be in place to prevent that sort of thing.
Tough call. But overall, some public funds for the general well-being of everyone are a plus, in a Gersenite system.
P.S. After having just got back from Europe, I'm also coming to the view that wide sidewalks and public parks are in no way a waste of money, tax dollars or otherwise. People can disagree of course, but in my personal view (which is all I claim to be presenting), the benefit is worth more than the cost.
P.S. After having just got back from Europe, I'm also coming to the view that wide sidewalks and public parks are in no way a waste of money, tax dollars or otherwise. People can disagree of course, but in my personal view (which is all I claim to be presenting), the benefit is worth more than the cost.
In many American cities, prior to the era of manic budget cutting and no-tax hysteria, public parks had at least a part-time supervisor. This was often a college-age person who might have a little booth where kids could come to get basketballs or the like. Some of them ran small concessions too, I imagine.
This was one of the very first things cut. Because the parks no longer had an official minder, even part-time, many of them rapidly turned into unsafe places for children.