I think we have to come to the realization we see the world differently.  Government is certainly not the solution to all things but unless God decides enough is enough, we need a central governing authority to maintain our infrastructure, make sure our food supply exists and is safe, and that our basic utilities work and provide for us. In almost every complicated endeavor whether it be health or climate or flooding or distribution, it is government that provide that stuff. No one makes safe bridges because it is profitable. They make them because it they were not safe that all important government under law will take then to task. There is a fascinating site that may challenge you over government and its purpose. Personally I can't figure out why government has become the modern bogeyman?  Would you rather autocracy, like China or Russia under Putin?  No, those governments would be too primitive for my taste.

https://governmentisgood.com/

Also I have read Howard Zinn and personally I consider him an interesting historian and a moral thinker, he criticizes democrats same as republicans. He is a tough critic for the interested reader.

Last thought, I often find today's conservatives think of themselves in a libertarian framework. I find libertarian thought plain silly. But that's me.  See this conservative writer and the piece below that, if interested.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/marxism-of-the-right/

This guy is tough.

http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/libertarian.html

Quote from: midcan5 on May 29, 2020, 07:49:20 AM
I think we have to come to the realization we see the world differently.  Government is certainly not the solution to all things but unless God decides enough is enough, we need a central governing authority to maintain our infrastructure, make sure our food supply exists and is safe, and that our basic utilities work and provide for us. In almost every complicated endeavor whether it be health or climate or flooding or distribution, it is government that provide that stuff. No one makes safe bridges because it is profitable. They make them because it they were not safe that all important government under law will take then to task. There is a fascinating site that may challenge you over government and its purpose. Personally I can't figure out why government has become the modern bogeyman?  Would you rather autocracy, like China or Russia under Putin?  No, those governments would be too primitive for my taste.

https://governmentisgood.com/

Also I have read Howard Zinn and personally I consider him an interesting historian and a moral thinker, he criticizes democrats same as republicans. He is a tough critic for the interested reader.

Last thought, I often find today's conservatives think of themselves in a libertarian framework. I find libertarian thought plain silly. But that's me.  See this conservative writer and the piece below that, if interested.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/marxism-of-the-right/

This guy is tough.

http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/libertarian.html

"Personally I can't figure out why government has become the modern bogeyman?"

Because in too many cases, especially those governments run by democrats, desire to go beyond the worthy endeavors you point out. Nowhere in your statement did you suggest government has the right to take away our freedoms and the pursuit of happiness.

Quote from: midcan5 on May 29, 2020, 07:49:20 AM
I think we have to come to the realization we see the world differently.  Government is certainly not the solution to all things but unless God decides enough is enough, we need a central governing authority to maintain our infrastructure, make sure our food supply exists and is safe, and that our basic utilities work and provide for us. In almost every complicated endeavor whether it be health or climate or flooding or distribution, it is government that provide that stuff. No one makes safe bridges because it is profitable. They make them because it they were not safe that all important government under law will take then to task. There is a fascinating site that may challenge you over government and its purpose. Personally I can't figure out why government has become the modern bogeyman?  Would you rather autocracy, like China or Russia under Putin?  No, those governments would be too primitive for my taste.

https://governmentisgood.com/

Also I have read Howard Zinn and personally I consider him an interesting historian and a moral thinker, he criticizes democrats same as republicans. He is a tough critic for the interested reader.

Last thought, I often find today's conservatives think of themselves in a libertarian framework. I find libertarian thought plain silly. But that's me.  See this conservative writer and the piece below that, if interested.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/marxism-of-the-right/

This guy is tough.

http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/libertarian.html

Have you ever once actually read our Founding Documents? Our Founders hated Govt, that's why they tied it hands with a Republican Govt, not a democracy.
The Right to this day still despises govt, it's the Marxist left that want to dictate what Freedoms and Liberties we should be allowed to have.

When in fact, if you actually understood our Bill of Rights, you'd know why no one trusts the left, including all the bull shit you post!

Quote from: midcan5 on May 29, 2020, 07:49:20 AM
I think we have to come to the realization we see the world differently.  Government is certainly not the solution to all things but unless God decides enough is enough, we need a central governing authority to maintain our infrastructure, make sure our food supply exists and is safe, and that our basic utilities work and provide for us. In almost every complicated endeavor whether it be health or climate or flooding or distribution, it is government that provide that stuff. No one makes safe bridges because it is profitable. They make them because it they were not safe that all important government under law will take then to task. There is a fascinating site that may challenge you over government and its purpose. Personally I can't figure out why government has become the modern bogeyman?  Would you rather autocracy, like China or Russia under Putin?  No, those governments would be too primitive for my taste.

https://governmentisgood.com/

Also I have read Howard Zinn and personally I consider him an interesting historian and a moral thinker, he criticizes democrats same as republicans. He is a tough critic for the interested reader.

Last thought, I often find today's conservatives think of themselves in a libertarian framework. I find libertarian thought plain silly. But that's me.  See this conservative writer and the piece below that, if interested.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/marxism-of-the-right/

This guy is tough.

http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/libertarian.html

From the  "government is good" Web site you recommend, it is obvious from first inspection that the writer does not base his positions on the Founding documents, Constitution, and Bill of Rights of our Republic, but on his last 20 years of teaching government politics as it was when he started, with Government as the central authority and controller. Government today is much more than the Founders ever intended wrt education, social and moral issues, and such. Those were always intended to be dealt with by the individual States. We need to have some "national laws" that are to be determined by Legislative branch, constitutionally sound as determined by the Supreme Court, and enforced by the Executive branch; but within the framework of a Constitutionally limited national Government and sovereign States in a Republic, NOT a Democracy, and certainly not from a Libertarian position.

I'm currently reading The Color of Law and Why We're Polarized. Good stuff.

Without good government you have anarchy you see that now on our streets, and while I consider myself an independent, the democrats have done things that actually help all Americans and not just the privileged. Labor laws and Social Security as well as Medicare are examples. We are not a third world nation because our government from the beginning worked to solve the issues of community in a complex world. And I've read lots. Just pulled Bailyn's book on our origins from my bookcase to glance at now.

For the serious Idea reader check out Peter Watson's books on ideas and history.  The books quoted below will challenge you too.

I've read too much I could bore you with my many lists of readings.

'That's Not What They Meant!: Reclaiming the Founding Fathers from America's Right Wing'  by Michael Austin
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15897043-that-s-not-what-they-meant

'Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted'  Ian Millhiser
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22715946-injustices

'The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America'  Greg Grandin


"Corporatism reappeared in the 1960s in such places as the British union movement, the American business group known as the Round Table and its imitative Canadian equivalent, the Business Council on National Issues. The last two can claim to have set much of their countries' contemporary economic and social agendas. The banding together of citizens into interest groups becomes corporatist, that is to say dangerous, only when the interest group loses its specific focus and seeks to override the democratic system. In the case of the British unions and the North American business councils, their every intervention into public affairs has been intended to undermine the democratic participation of individual citizens."  p472 'Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West' John Ralston Saul 


[I find I am censored on conservative sites as my opinions are mine, I follow no ideology, hopefully some readers and are challenged to think on their own.]

Quote from: midcan5 on June 01, 2020, 04:31:54 AM
Without good government you have anarchy you see that now on our streets, and while I consider myself an independent, the democrats have done things that actually help all Americans and not just the privileged. Labor laws and Social Security as well as Medicare are examples. We are not a third world nation because our government from the beginning worked to solve the issues of community in a complex world. And I've read lots. Just pulled Bailyn's book on our origins from my bookcase to glance at now.

For the serious Idea reader check out Peter Watson's books on ideas and history.  The books quoted below will challenge you too.

I've read too much I could bore you with my many lists of readings.

'That's Not What They Meant!: Reclaiming the Founding Fathers from America's Right Wing'  by Michael Austin
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15897043-that-s-not-what-they-meant

'Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted'  Ian Millhiser
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22715946-injustices

'The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America'  Greg Grandin


"Corporatism reappeared in the 1960s in such places as the British union movement, the American business group known as the Round Table and its imitative Canadian equivalent, the Business Council on National Issues. The last two can claim to have set much of their countries' contemporary economic and social agendas. The banding together of citizens into interest groups becomes corporatist, that is to say dangerous, only when the interest group loses its specific focus and seeks to override the democratic system. In the case of the British unions and the North American business councils, their every intervention into public affairs has been intended to undermine the democratic participation of individual citizens."  p472 'Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West' John Ralston Saul 


[I find I am censored on conservative sites as my opinions are mine, I follow no ideology, hopefully some readers and are challenged to think on their own.]

Here's a thought. Read and understand our Founding Documents, then research why they came to write them. Then read things that oppose your own bias, it's this contradiction that allows you to expand your mind.
All the shit you post that you've read, only affirms your own biases, proving you are far more ignorant than you want to believe.

Quote from: Solar on June 01, 2020, 05:10:05 AM
Here's a thought. Read and understand our Founding Documents, then research why they came to write them. Then read things that oppose your own bias, it's this contradiction that allows you to expand your mind.
All the shit you post that you've read, only affirms your own biases, proving you are far more ignorant than you want to believe.

These founding documents you keep reffing to are not Holy Writ. Some of the authors were  tax cheats, smugglers, and deadbeats. Adams owed creditors in Britain ten thousand pounds and walked away from his debts. Hancock owed ten times as much, plus he was a smuggler. The rebellion grew out of the Seven Years War which was fought on behalf of American merchants. The British felt it was unfair that the British should bear the burden and the Americans should get a free ride.
In the aftermath, the rebels behaved like the looters we see in the riots going on now. They attacked and robbed law abiding neighbours and stole their property and drove them into exile. "They gave up everything save honour."
While his troops were reduced to eating their boots at Valley Forge, General Washington's main complaint regarding the cuisine was he had to drink watered rum in place of wine with his meals.

I am looking forward to reading David Brooks new book, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life. I watched an interview with Mr. Brooks over the weekend and he was lamenting the decline in civility and descency in American political discourse.

Quote from: Tory Potter on June 01, 2020, 07:19:57 AM
These founding documents you keep reffing to are not Holy Writ. Some of the authors were  tax cheats, smugglers, and deadbeats. Adams owed creditors in Britain ten thousand pounds and walked away from his debts. Hancock owed ten times as much, plus he was a smuggler. The rebellion grew out of the Seven Years War which was fought on behalf of American merchants. The British felt it was unfair that the British should bear the burden and the Americans should get a free ride.
In the aftermath, the rebels behaved like the looters we see in the riots going on now. They attacked and robbed law abiding neighbours and stole their property and drove them into exile. "They gave up everything save honour."
While his troops were reduced to eating their boots at Valley Forge, General Washington's main complaint regarding the cuisine was he had to drink watered rum in place of wine with his meals.

So that's the bull shit they taught you in the Canadian school system? Son, there is by far a lot more to the story, as to why they rebelled against England, hence our Declaration of Independence, and how the British Crown was trying to destroy a movement that actually wanted to stay loyal to Britain.
In the end, the Brits were taxing a people they were suppressing and imprisoning, hence the revolution.

The leftist spin you were taught is of no real surprise considering Canada is still loyal to the Crown.

The Price of Freedom

But the price of freedom can be dear, as it was to many of those who dared sign their names to the document declaring this a free land. Below is an accounting of what their signatures cost some of our founding fathers.

Francis Lewis, New York: His wife was captured by the British in 1776 and later died as a result of her captivity. Lewis himself lived out his years in relative poverty, having sacrificed his independent fortune to the cause of patriotism during the War of Independence.

Phillip Livingston, New York: He and his family had to flee their home to escape the British army and never returned.

Lewis Morris, New York: His family fled the approaching British army, which plundered his estate, destroyed hundreds of acres of crops, and took his livestock.

John Hart, New Jersey: Hessians destroyed Hart's farm, livestock, and other property. The hardships brought on by the destruction caused Hart's wife to become sick, and she died as her husband was trying to reach her. Hart was forced to flee into the woods and slept in caves when the British troops invaded New Jersey. His children were forced into hiding and sought refuge with family and friends.

Richard Stockton, New Jersey: He was dragged from his bed by a group of royalists and imprisoned in New York, where he was denied basic necessities. He was finally released, but he had endured so much suffering that he never fully recovered. His fortune was nearly wiped out, his lands ruined, his papers and library were burned, and his livestock seized. For a while, he was forced to depend on the good will of his friends for survival.

George Clymer, Pennsylvania: His family eluded British soldiers who ransacked their house. Clymer was in Philadelphia during this time. When British troops arrived there, they found where he lived and started to tear the building down and only stopped when told the house didn't belong to Clymer.

William Ellery, Rhode Island: His house was burned down and the rest of his property was destroyed while the British army occupied Newport.

Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, and Thomas Heyward, South Carolina: All three were imprisoned at St. Augustine, Fla., for almost a year.

Thomas Nelson Jr., Virginia: He lost his fortune aiding the war effort and died a poor man.

John Morton, Pennsylvania: On his deathbed, he asked those in attendance to tell his enemies—those who didn't forgive him for voting in favor of independence—that one day it would be acknowledged that casting his vote was the most important act of his life.

Abraham Clark, New Jersey: Two of Clark's sons were officers in the army. They were captured by the British and confined to the prison ship Jersey, where thousands of American captives died. One was held in solitary confinement and given no food. Reportedly, Clark still refused to change his position and support the crown when the British offered to spare his sons' lives if he did so. His headstone reads:

Firm and decided as a patriot,
zealous and faithful as a friend to the public,
he loved his country, and adhered to her cause
in the darkest hours of her struggles
against oppression.

https://americanprofile.com/articles/the-fate-of-our-founding-fathers/

Rebelling against the lawful government is an act of Treason. The mistreatment of prisoners and especially the families of the rebels was an atrocity.
Where you stand on any issue depends on where you are sitting. It could be argued that the loyalists were the patriots. They were law abiding citizens who should not have been made to suffer for their love of their country. They made up a majority of the people in the colonies. Those who wilfully acted to overthrow the government by violence were subject to imprisonment, if not execution, as proscribed by law. They knew or should have known the risks they were taking. However, their families should not have been made to suffer. The US government applied these principles a few years later in the Civil War.
The main issues that led to the rebellion should have been dealt with legally. There was no tyranny, especially by the King. The decisions were made by Parliament. When you don't like the decision of the government, you lobby to reverse it, not overthrow it. The violent overthrow of the legitamate government is treason and the antisithis of conservatism.
This was a different time with different values. Slavery was an acceptable part of society, except for the slaves that is. There were no rules governing the treatment of prisoners. This was universal. The rebels may have lost were it not for the alliance with France which, ironically was a real tyranny.

The colonists tried that route for 13 years.

Quote from: Tory Potter on June 01, 2020, 07:38:18 AM
I am looking forward to reading David Brooks new book, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life. I watched an interview with Mr. Brooks over the weekend and he was lamenting the decline in civility and descency in American political discourse.

which he himself is responsible for bringing much of that incivility and indecency on.

Quote from: Tory Potter on June 01, 2020, 08:46:39 AM
Rebelling against the lawful government is an act of Treason. The mistreatment of prisoners and especially the families of the rebels was an atrocity.
Where you stand on any issue depends on where you are sitting. It could be argued that the loyalists were the patriots. They were law abiding citizens who should not have been made to suffer for their love of their country. They made up a majority of the people in the colonies. Those who wilfully acted to overthrow the government by violence were subject to imprisonment, if not execution, as proscribed by law. They knew or should have known the risks they were taking. However, their families should not have been made to suffer. The US government applied these principles a few years later in the Civil War.
The main issues that led to the rebellion should have been dealt with legally. There was no tyranny, especially by the King. The decisions were made by Parliament. When you don't like the decision of the government, you lobby to reverse it, not overthrow it. The violent overthrow of the legitamate government is treason and the antisithis of conservatism.
This was a different time with different values. Slavery was an acceptable part of society, except for the slaves that is. There were no rules governing the treatment of prisoners. This was universal. The rebels may have lost were it not for the alliance with France which, ironically was a real tyranny.

How is it possible that 13 tiny colonies could ever conceive of overthrowing England? Sad, your education has failed you.

One other point, overthrowing an oppressive govt is at the very core of Conservatism!!!

Quote from: Tory Potter on June 01, 2020, 08:46:39 AM
Rebelling against the lawful government is an act of Treason. The mistreatment of prisoners and especially the families of the rebels was an atrocity.
Where you stand on any issue depends on where you are sitting. It could be argued that the loyalists were the patriots. They were law abiding citizens who should not have been made to suffer for their love of their country. They made up a majority of the people in the colonies. Those who wilfully acted to overthrow the government by violence were subject to imprisonment, if not execution, as proscribed by law. They knew or should have known the risks they were taking. However, their families should not have been made to suffer. The US government applied these principles a few years later in the Civil War.
The main issues that led to the rebellion should have been dealt with legally. There was no tyranny, especially by the King. The decisions were made by Parliament. When you don't like the decision of the government, you lobby to reverse it, not overthrow it. The violent overthrow of the legitamate government is treason and the antisithis of conservatism.
This was a different time with different values. Slavery was an acceptable part of society, except for the slaves that is. There were no rules governing the treatment of prisoners. This was universal. The rebels may have lost were it not for the alliance with France which, ironically was a real tyranny.

Thanks for describing what it was - a revolution.