Take A Peek At “Government Is Good”
Take A Peek at the new website Government Is Good. The brainchild of Douglas J. Amy, Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College, Government Is Good should provide Democrats with lots of useful arguments and Republicans with lots of things to debate. And, of course, with bloggers with lots of raw material to become passionate and/or outraged about.
Amy writes:
Why a website extolling the virtues of modern democratic government? Because for years conservative politicians and pundits have been disparaging and demonizing government and too little has been done to defend it. The idea that “government is bad” has been one of the overriding themes of the Republican Party; and it has pledged to reduce government programs to a minimum, except for a few areas like the military and national security. And whenever and wherever conservatives have been in power, they have tried to put their anti-government philosophy into practice by cutting taxes, neglecting social programs, and undermining environmental, consumer, and workplace regulations.
This online resource is a response to this political attack on government and an effort to set the record straight about this much-maligned institution. It will show that government is not a scourge on society; it is a valuable and positive force in the life of every American. Government is not the problem; it is actually the only solution to most of the pressing problems we face as a nation – from global warming to our growing health care crisis. If we want an America that is healthy, secure, well-educated, unpolluted, compassionate, prosperous, just, and free, we need a strong, active, and well-funded public sector.
And, indeed, we are DEFINITELY in a new era when it’s seemingly harder for Republicans to argue that they are in favor of small government or that government is the problem, as the increasingly popular and quoted Ronald Reagan used to say.
In an era of criticism about government bungling on Hurricane Katrina, criticism about government intervention in the Terri Schiavo case, and a government advocating warrant-less wiretaps, coupled with a massive exertion of executive branch power over the legislature, the days when you could say “Republicans want smaller government and Democrats want bigger government” seem gone. Many Republicans do want bigger government but it depends on what it involves (for instance, for some Republicans such as the increasingly unpopular one in the Oval office it should not involve supporting bipartisan-backed children’s health care.)
Take A Peek at Government Is Good – a site that will provide resources for debate (on both sides).
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19 Responses to “Take A Peek At “Government Is Good””
Users of this site who are intrigued by Professor Amy’s wide-left, outside-the-mainstream viewpoint (he has placed the Democratic Party or at least its leadership somewhat right of center and has incorrectly referred to Reagan and Thatcher as “far right”) should appreciate that he is one of the preeminent authors in the USA on the subject of proportional representation.
He has an on-line library on the subject here.
DLS,
What else would you expect from a professor who works at a private, elite university. All of his students are ones who believe that the private sector is worth paying much more for than then public sector alternative. Yet, all of his students are taught that the government is great at producing good and services for the public.
Something less pathetic than “Government Is Good” [b-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!], that’s for certain! Something like this is what I’d expect from New Deal dinosaur (now the late) Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., or a heavily-political northeastern liberal “economist” like Dem Party hack Paul Krugman. (Both Schlesinger and a different northeastern “economist” were militant opponents of any hints at federal reform after the 1994 elections and opposed any balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, for example.)
Prof. Amy’s proportional representation library is actually quite good. (I bought the earlier edition of his book on proportional representation back in the early 1990s.)
He’s a classic liberal college professor — identifying himself and others like him with that much-misapplied word in such cases, “progressive.”
No wonder his new site was selected here on the Moderate [sic] Voice. *chuckle*
Government is good at some things. Government is bad at some things. All we hear anymore is how government is bad at everything, but that government should do more. That sounds idiotic to me. Finding the proper balance of government and private services needs to begin with acknowledging the positive as well as negative aspects of both. I have yet to see any site setup to do anything besides tear down government involvement in things. This could be a refreshing change if it isn’t loaded full of propaganda.
It is obvious that the students of Dr. Amy have decided that government is bad at the delivery of a college education. They are willing to pay $30K per year for a private education.
I also would be willing to bet that most of Dr Amy’s students attended attended private schools. The PrincetonReview indicates that 40% of entering freshman at Mount Holyoke attended private high schools.
Do you see what you’re doing? You are beginning under the assumption that government, or the purpose of government, should be a service agency rather than a true government (with limited scope, authority over people, enforcing laws, and defending the nation and its interests from our adversaries).
(Welcome to the modern welfare state. Thanks, FDR.)
DLS,
The debate about providing basic services stretches back to the mid-to-late 19th century across both this continent and Europe. It wasn’t something hatched in isolation in the brain of FDR. People overwhelming settled on wanting some level of government services over 100 years ago (that’s before TR much less FDR) because the private sector was not cutting it in a lot of areas. It is legitimate to argue what services the government should be involved in and which they should not, or to what degree they should be involved in. This isn’t some novel political theory position. You apparently are of the mindset that no service should be done by the government. That’s a fine position, but one that would be in the minority even among a gathering of libertarians.
I wonder how many of the students at Mount Holyoke go into civil service jobs. If the argument is that the government produces good products, then many of the students at elite liberal arts schools should be working for the government.
However, my guess is that anyone attending a Mount Holyoke reunion who has a government job would be seen as a complete failure and a total loser.
(Yes, some — public schooling and other public services that later were sought by the Progressives, such as public baths for the masses.)
State and local (municipal and county), rather than federal, used to be the rule.
superdestroyer,
Do you have any idea how many civil service jobs there are? Practically all of the federal government is filled with contractors not civil servants.
DLS,
What level of government should do things is another area of debate. However you said true government was just, “limited scope, authority over people, enforcing laws, and defending the nation and its interests from our adversaries.” Again however the debate as to what services the government provides versus if government should provide any services at all was pretty much finished (rightfully so I believe) in the mid-to-late 19th century.
Yes,
If you look at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/05/AR2006100501782.html
you will see that there are about 2 million civil servants, 2 million non-career government employees, and about 7.6 million contractors.
I would guess that you may find a few Mount Holyoke graduates going consulting work for the government as contractors but you will probably not find any in that 2 million civil servant number.
SD,
As I said, most of the federal government are federal contractors (66% by your numbers) and the proportion keeps getting bigger. I’m not sure where you are going with this screed, but I know more contractors who would rather be civil servants than the other way around.
I’ll amend my comments above to say that most new government jobs are contractor positions not civil servants. As existing civil servants retire their positions aren’t replaced with other civil servants but with contractors if at all.
Perhaps the professor would care to answer the following questions:
Is government good when it pre-emptively invades a country halfway around the world based upon false premises?
Is government good when it allows SWAT teams to kick down the doors to people’s houses and injure or kill innocent people in order to pursue a failed drug prohibition policy?
Is government good when it recklessly spends more money than it takes in, putting our country further and further into debt?
Is government good when it ignores the Bill of Rights and our basic civil liberties in order to give us more “security”?
Government is power. Arguing that “government is good” is equivalent to arguing that “power is good.” Sure it’s good…if you’re the one wielding the power. It’s not so good for those whose rights are trampled by that power.
If you mean that people believe government should be more than minimally interventionist in people’s lives, yes, I agree — while the modern welfare state was mainly set up by FDR (involving the federal government where formerly state and local government only were permitted to tread), its roots go back to the aftermath of the industrial (and scientific) revolution of the mid-nineteenth century as well as related events of the time such as urbanization.
Ms Moderate,
The point I was making is that the actions of the elite in this country do not indicate that the government is good at producing high quality goods and services. Do you think that any of the students at Mount Holyoke ever went to government run day care? Barely 1/2 of them even attended public secondary schools. All of the students believe that the private sector provides a better education. I also point out that the government cannot even produce a civil service job that they want.
What the students at Mount Holyoke want is to be in charge of the government as elected officials, staffers (where fewer government rules apply), or as members of the NGO ruling class. I would also guess that every few graduates of Mount Holyoke will ever send their children to public schools.
Not one of the people screaming about this web site have a clue as to where their ideology would really take a 21st century America.