Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Gummint - what is it good for?
Down through the centuries, different people have had very different views on this. Charles II wanted to be a supreme monarch, but the English parliament managed to strip him of most of his grandiose powers.
Outside of communist (and other totalitarian) states, the people have had a fairly conservative view of what powers government should have, as witness the following quotes:
"When a government becomes powerful, it is destructive, extravagant and violent; it is an usurper which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance for votes with which to perpetuate itself." - Cicero
"Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is force." - George Washington
"In all that people can do for themselves, the government ought not to interfere." - Abraham Lincoln
"The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power." - John Stuart Mill
Then we get NZ's Prime Minister, Helen Clark: "The government's role is whatever the government defines it to be."
Doesn't that have a sort of familiar (sinister) ring about it?
For more discussion on her remarks, see this piece by Roger Kerr.
(Acknowledgements to Dave Crampton for this link.)
Down through the centuries, different people have had very different views on this. Charles II wanted to be a supreme monarch, but the English parliament managed to strip him of most of his grandiose powers.
Outside of communist (and other totalitarian) states, the people have had a fairly conservative view of what powers government should have, as witness the following quotes:
"When a government becomes powerful, it is destructive, extravagant and violent; it is an usurper which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance for votes with which to perpetuate itself." - Cicero
"Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is force." - George Washington
"In all that people can do for themselves, the government ought not to interfere." - Abraham Lincoln
"The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power." - John Stuart Mill
Then we get NZ's Prime Minister, Helen Clark: "The government's role is whatever the government defines it to be."
Doesn't that have a sort of familiar (sinister) ring about it?
For more discussion on her remarks, see this piece by Roger Kerr.
(Acknowledgements to Dave Crampton for this link.)
