Not to mention the food supply. Would you trust the people who sell you peanuts, spinach, etc. to police themselves better than the FDA? And that’s after a decade of budget cuts.

I’m reminded of what George Carlin said regarding why he didn’t vote - how we’re the ones who elect corrupt and incompetent people into office, so we only have ourselves to blame for the mess we’re in.

Privatizing can have some advantages. I watched on 20/20 once how the Governor of Indiana (I think) had implemented a system in which a company maintained the roadways and was responsible for fixing potholes and other messes and paid the state for doing it. Thus bringing in money to the state. Yet people complained. Yeah, because govt. efficiency was working well before.

Between Reaganomics and Clinton’s NAFTA, we’re in a world of trouble.

We spent millions of dollars developing a pen for the astronauts that would work in zero gravity. Know what the Russians did?

They used a pencil.

Gold again, Mike. My own contemptuous disdain for Bush is equaled by the same for Raygun. Both were actors, albeit one a former professional, the other a rank amateur who ceded the reigns to still stage-struck Cheney.
In addition to your comments, I’ll never forget nor forgive Raygun for his abject refusal to heed medical warnings and pleas to investigate and confront the looming AIDS crisis in America. After all, it was just faggots…let them all die off.
How many countess lives were lost due to Raygun’s bully pulpit in absentia?
Like so many others, I lost people. All those tears and funerals.
For me, Raygun’s reign stands for economic, social and medically shamefully hideous ignorance.

“thirty-fourth-rate president, Ronald Reagan.”
I’m dying to know who you think comes in 35 - 44. I can guess on a couple…

Reagan’s famous quote about government being the problem has been hallowed by one side and demonized by the other. And both (as usual) have it wrong. An excessively large, excessively bureaucratic and unecessarily expensive government is the problem. I can’t think of anyone in the last I don’t know how many decades actually tried to make the government smaller and run cheaper. Obama wants to, and I hope he can. But he’s got as much going against him as the last President had, just from the other side of the aisle. Nobody wants to see the other guy get a win, even if it means that everybody benefits.

There’s plenty of things the government does right. They could do it better on some, but they’re doing a fine job on much, and that includes most of the stuff you mention.

You said yourself, government is not the answer to every problem. The question is ever can they and SHOULD they handle more? If they can show me how they can add another thing to their plate, that they can do it efficiently, and it won’t cost me (too much) more than I may be paying for the same service privately, I’ll be happy to listen.

“We are the government.”

Come come now. We are supposed to vote in the people who we think will do the best for us. Too often, we vote in the prettiest or wittiest one, and find out they’re not quite as interested in our needs as much as his. We re-elect the same people over and over, regardless of the job they do, mainly out of inertia. To say we are the government is like saying we are Fox Television because they let us vote on American Idol.

“If the Neo-Cons had their way, we’d privatize everything.”
And if the arch-liberals had THEIR way, we’d have paralyzing taxes, a system that all but rewarded mediocrity and put the government in charge of almost every facet of your life. I can build straw-men as well as the next guy. NEITHER are right, and luckily, there aren’t nearly as many of them as the other side likes to say. People loooooove being able to point to the actions of one or two people, and claim that everyone that’s a member of that group is like that. It’s anathema when you do it towards certain groups, and all but applauded when it’s done towards others.

If I could find a way to get paid by pointing out double-standards, I wouldn’t need free health care.

Pennie, that reminds me of something that Christopher Reeve said in an interview. How for years, Reagan didn’t do much regarding AIDS until his friend Rock Hudson revealed he had it and also how now some members of the family is supporting stem cell research because they think it may save him. Yet when Reeve and others were championing the cause years before, they were marginalized.

@Jeremiah,
You’re so right. Last night writing my message about Mike’s excellent column, in my sadness and fury, I neglected to highlight the link to the ’80s AIDS situation–Mike’s point.

Raygun’s homophobic negligence–one of the trademarks of his administrations, amounted to official government policy that contributed to the deaths of millions. Back then, there were guesses at the disease’s origin, cause, and treatment. Now, we know so much more and afflicted people live meaningful lives due to government–sponsored research and programs. Yeah, that “big” government thing.

I understand the AIDS issue is just one of so many more–but for me (and others) personally important. Mike pointed out other vital government-sponsored programs that have proven crucial.

One of the reasons I support Obama is that I feel he sees the need and value of officially-sanctioned programs to address an immediate need for relief. Is there anyone with snapping synapses who truly believes the answer for the greatest number of people is less government and tax breaks?
That program will surely help the 20 million un and under employed. That program will surely help teen moms cope, kids stay in school, the disabled, impoverished and vets. Yeah, let’s throw them all under the bus. If they can’t crawl out and get squashed, oh well…less unfortunates. The old Puritan Preterit and Elect division. It’s what made our country great, right?

Didn’t know that about the company, Mike. I guess they left that part out or was just before it ran into problems.

There is a lot of red tape that hinders progress. Charities and private organizations have rebuilt more homes in New Orleans than the govt., even though the money is there.

I remember reading about Ryan White when I was a kid - how he contracted AIDS via a tainted blood transfusion he needed due to his hemophilia. People were demonizing this kid whose only “fault” was that he was born with a genetic disorder.

So much for the notion of “Love thy neighbor”.

@ Mike,
“We didn’t get anywhere on AIDS until people understood it was killing straight, white people. Big surprise.”
Yeah, and you might know that currently, in America, the single largest group of people contracting HIV/AIDS is…straight white women. Hear that all you folks who think it’s just us queers?
Just like some of us predicted decades ago, this medical catastrophe has spread into the mainstream. We were taunted with the usual cusswords and told it would never happen. It didn’t have to be so. Prevention comes in soooo many forms. The best is early and often.

@ Jeremiah,
Like many others, Ryan White was castigated. Genetic disorders? That one is near and dear. The day people drop the concept of “normal” and embrace human beings in all their shapes, colors, and forms I will throw the biggest fucking party ever and you’re all invited. Patron Silver shots for the world!!!!
Ultimately, I think Ryan’s sad case served as a wake-up for some. If the (white) kid next door could contract this disease and die, then what? For others, well, they STILL might not really get it. Homophobes everywhere unite! You have nothing to lose but the world as you know it.

I was so enraged by memories of those dark, dark days I forgot: As a girl with a major writing utensil fetish (’mongst others), The Fisher Space Pen remains one my all-time faves. The things really do write upside down and like the Kama Sutra, work in ANY position. Gotta love them in all their forms.

Pennie, I hope I didn’t give the impression that I thought that Ryan was a freak. He had a rare affliction and because he was different than the “normal” people, instead of being helped, him and his family were shunned. Someone with AIDS has more to fear from a “normal” person than vice versa since their immune system is severely compromised.

“Fact” is just another 4-letter word to some idiots.

@ Jeremiah,
Have no concerns on that account. I was merely extrapolating on your well-made point. Lots to confront here. As a woman born with a genetic disorder, you hit a personal sore spot that rarely gets addressed. It’s the hottest of my hot buttons.

Combine HIV/AIDS with genetic disorder and “the blond kid next door,” and it became a volatile mix.

I get volatile myself when it comes to the concept of “normal.” There is no normal. There is no abnormal. There are a seemingly near-infinite number of individual varieties of human conditions. Hemophilia is one of these. Intersexuality is another. One of my friends has a 18-year-old daughter born with three nipples. It goes on and on. Instead of celebrating these differences we are taught to react in fear.

Tragically, Ryan’s condition caused him to require transfusions. The lack of knowledge about HIV/AIDS back then caused him to become infected and die. Through the centuries, so many others have suffered due to a lack of conformity with societal “norms.”
As a gender-queer woman, I fight this battle every day, nothing new.
Trust me, no offense taken. You’re cool.

Good to know, Pennie. The definition of normal is very broad. A comedian I listened to said how “67% of Americans are found to be dysfunctional. That’s great. That means we’re the majority. The ‘normal people’, they’re the freaks!”

I stutter and have worn glasses for most of my life and I was labeled “different”. People thought I was mentally challenged because of my stutter, but my aptitude tests were in the top percentile. Left me with a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to people classifying others.

Back on track to the substance of the article - sometimes govt. programs are needed to enact certain changes. There are too many “not in my backyard” types that want things to be better, so long as it doesn’t inconvenience them. So, a govt. program to build a shelter would be better than trying to rely on some “concerned citizens” trying to get it moved elsewhere.

@ Jeremiah,
We’re all bozos on this bus.
Glasses–wore ‘em since I was five. Legally blind myself. It only heightened my senses of touch, taste, and smell. Ummm, ummm!

That NIMBY thing–you’re so right. They’re only augmented by those who don’t even want to help at all. We need government–anarchy is just not my kind of alternative lifestyle. But solid government programs also don’t excuse us from contributing our own energies to help others.
Hell, I even know a woman who devotes one day each week to hanging in a hospital with kids struck with cancer to teach them knitting, read to them, and bring them some light. THAT is something I think about all the time.