ARTelevision

I'd like to pursue a few questions that I see as integral to how we are governed. I have some views on all of this, of course, but I get a feeling that we often polarize ourselves with positions that seem to be absolute differences when, upon examination, they really are differences of degree.

Governments execute security and defense and they also manage vast resources toward some social aim. Those tasks are carried out by all governments. It seems we differ on details on the manner of execution and not on their basic organizational necessity.

For example, the rhetorical phrase, "redistribution of wealth" is one of the issues toward which people often have extreme responses. Yet, every civilized society in history has exercized some form of taxation for the purpose of communalizing certain resources. So it does seem to me that questions of taxation and the purposes to which paid taxes are put are really differences of degree.

In general, I don't see a need to make a big issue out of many details of how we are governed because I realize I am a single citizen involved in a representative process. Some participation and even activism is advisable from citizens but I don't see that being a particularly nasty business no matter what our individual persuasion may be. We're talking about realistically influencing a titanic superstructure and it doesn't seem sensible to simply tilt at windmills because it gives us an ego boost to do so.


That being said, I'm interested in hearing from folks regarding the role of government today as regards social programs and also as regards national security. Please don't repeat the standard rhetoric here. As stated elsewhere, I'm interested in non-confrontational cooperative discourse and I'm not at all interested in debate for its own sake.

For example, here's a major concern I have - what the heck can we do to reduce the threat of terrorism to us all? Really, it seems we are all on the same side here. If there is any polarization it would be between the terrorists and the rest of the civilized world.

Note: please don't reply here with the shibboleth about the similarities between terrorists and freedom fighters, etc. If you don't agree on the terms of this discussion, you're certainly free to create threads and posts at will elsewhere. But you are a smart bunch and I think we know the difference between flame-baiting and mutually respectful cooperative discourse. I'd really like to see if, in this thread, we can discuss our common human concerns regarding security and prosperity. Perhaps we are not so far apart as we often pump ourselves up to believe.

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