Government Regulation

This is just a quick thought on government regulation.  I was just thinking about what is and is not regulated and it’s really interesting.  I am a Libertarian so I believe in limited government, but sometimes I wonder if I believe that equally.  I was recently reading Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, and he brought up an interesting point.  Obama says (not exact words) that he doesn’t believe gay marriage should be banned because he doesn’t think the government should have a say in what people do behind closed doors and people’s moral beliefs and values.  I actually agree with Obama on this, but I would lean more toward marriage not even being regulated by the government in any way.

When it comes to the issue of marriage, the main reason it is state ordained is for welfare, medicaid, medicare, social organizations etc…Obviously, being a libertarian, I think there should be less social organizations and little to no welfare, etc…but as far as the issue of marriage…If we didn’t have all of these organizations and government assistance, we wouldn’t need government ordained marriages.  Christian could perform their ceremonies, Muslims could perform their ceremonies, etc. and it honestly wouldn’t matter if the state recognized the marriages or not, because they wouldn’t have to know if we didn’t have these social organizations.

Regulation and Drug Laws

I am for a working government system and I don’t believe that our democracy is a working system.  Democracies fail throughout history, they usually last about 200 years, so we have made it further than most, but they always fail.  Too much government leads to an empire that crumbles and we are heading down that path.

This leads me to another social issue, legalization of drugs.  My brother once said that he doesn’t believe marijuana should be legal because two wrongs don’t make a right, and he was referring to alcohol being legal and that doesn’t mean marijuana should be (and he drinks).  I totally agree that two wrongs don’t make a right and I completely see where he was coming from, but once again, should the government control what we can and can’t put into our bodies?  This is a gray area for me, because I don’t know where the line should be drawn.  I am fine with marijuana and hard drugs being illegal, but I also know that the more the government regulates, the more they think they can regulate and things like this are just giving them a foot in the door.  Obviously if these drugs were legal there would still be laws on it(age limit, children exposed to harmful substance, etc…).  I am really not saying all of this should be legal, I am just trying to keep an open mind.

Obama doesn’t think the government has the right to tell gay people they can’t get married, and I probably agree with that, but for some reason he does think the government has the right to regulate almost every other area of people’s lives.  I’m not here just to bash Obama, because I realize that even most of the people that voted for him don’t agree with him now and you can see that in his approval rating.  I am just thinking out loud and Obama did make a good point on that, I just wish he would listen to himself on other government regulations (healthcare, parenting, public education, etc.).

Open Minds are a Necessity

I am talking to myself too when I say that open minds are a necessity.  I have always been for limited government, but I only recently realized that I didn’t always follow my own beliefs on this matter.  The original intent of the government was national defense (military) and then we developed national security (police force, fire department, etc…) and I agree with having both of those, but beyond that I think we have failed.  Social Security was a mistake, Welfare was a mistake and most if not all of the social organizations were or are going to be a mistake.

If you see a list of all of our presidents and their political parties, you will notice that beside George Washington, it will usually say something like “Political Party: None (he opposed political parties)”, and from John Adams on down you will see that everyone else has a specific party.  This should be on Failblog and have a big FAIL stamp on it.  It’s funny that the first president and founder opposed political parties and all of the other presidents had a political party.  I label myself as a Libertarian/Conservative only so people can easily figure out my basic political beliefs, but as a whole political parties have almost turned into a war themselves.  If our country wasn’t so divided, we would be a stronger nation of people and if the government wasn’t already so involved in everyone’s lives, we would have as many people with a victim mentality that are completely dependent on the government.  This is all just something to think about, let me know your thoughts!!!