The problem with progressive thinking is that it is often lacking in logical or rational reasoning. Instead it tends to be more emotionally driven thought. The right often comes acrossed as lacking in empathy and being more selfcentered and selfish. What we need is a mixture rational and logical thinking tempered with empathy and compassion. The fact is, that humans are by nature a bit selfish and self-centered, but you cant make everything better for everyone through big governemnt.
Any good economics book or course will teach you that decisions on utilizing resources are best made by those who derive the most utility from the expediture of that resource. The fact is, that for most things, the individual is a much better decision maker for spending his/her own resources then the government could ever be. A relatively small group of people can never make Macro decisions that will be as efficient as the millions of individual decisions that would otherwise comprise the sum total of the Macroeconomic decison made by the government (with exception to certain things like national defense). The results of governmet decisons that should be made by individuals will often result in inefficiency (read waste and lost productivity) on a massive scale. Furthermore, in economic terms, seperating the utilizer of a resource from the producer of the resource in its most basic form is similar to a burglar breaking into my house and stealing my valuables. The burglar wants to use as much of the resources as they can. The behavior, if successful and unpunished will usually lead to more of such behavior. The problem with the socialist concept is that it does precisely what my little analogy tries to teach. The resulting disassociation between the producers of a resource and the untilizers of a resource require some governing party to manage the resources utilized and how they are used. Enter big government. This process is not efficient and never can be. In fact, a cycle is created in which programs get bigger, and governemnt in turn gets bigger in order to manage it. Then more government is created to make sure that the government is fairly and adequately managing the programs. Inefficiency is the main enemy here. The waste, and lost productivity tend to build up like amyloid in Alzheimers disease. The system will ultimatley break down. The best decisions makers for utilization of resources are those who derive the most utility from it, but we have to find a way of coupling the utilizers with the producers in an efficient manner, and that is usually most simply by letting the producer and the utilizer be the same entity. In some instances such as national defense and large infrastructure projects pooling of resources is necessary. Anyhow, we are left with the problem of those who are at a disadvantage regarding access to resources. In a perfect world, everyone would be selfless, kind, and compassionate. In such a world the producers of resources would make individual decisions to spend resources to help the disadvantaged and the system would be in equilibrium. This is the answer but is not realistic due to the aforementioned selfcentered/selfish human nature. However, forcing charitable giving (social programs) through massive government programs is not the answer and will not work in the long run. The decisions being made by the government seem to fail in understanding the very basic human behaviors and economic principals that will determine the ultimate success or failure of their programs as well as this country.
he should learn to dodge personal responsibility like some of the professionals that fester among the threads on SDN.
