Last night – and this actually happened, it’s not just a story I’m making up to dramatize a point – I was drinking some water out of the tap, and it occurred to me what a remarkable thing this really is. There it was, immediate and clean. And, I thought to myself, “people who believe they don’t have any use for government really aren’t thinking it through.” I had a similar thought earlier in the day when NPR had a story about the current government in Somalia. I thought sarcastically, “now there’s a place with limited government.”
I’ve made similar comments here in the past but wasn’t going to belabor the point. The inevitable response from self-described champions of limited government is that, of course they’d keep the useful bits. But, then, this morning, I read a (probably offhand) facebook status from Abdul:
Is is my imagination or do the only people who don’t understand the government is broke tend to be people who [work?] for the government?
There it is, just an unblinking, unqualified assertion that “the government is broke.” I’m picking on Abdul here because he’s close to hand (and likes it), but I see this kind of thing all the time. Not some nuanced assertion about some aspect of government that the person doesn’t like, but a blanket assertion that “government is bad.” But, consider how the government assists you with water – from clean water laws, to either running the water company or at least giving it the tools it needs to acquire rights of way and keep the system running, to a fairly elaborate system for drainage that takes the water away pretty effectively when the snows melt or the heavy rains come.
The best parts of government are the parts we notice the least – the parts that work in the background and are taken for granted. Since the “government is bad” rhetoric tends toward the simplistic, we probably need to pipe up from time to time to acknowledge that there are aspects of government that are hugely beneficial.
If we don’t allow the leftist loons to tax and spend us into oblivion, we’ll run out of drinking water?
Seriously, Doug. You can do better.
Take a trip to China.
Note the absence of clean drinking water.
Take notice of the guy who mug shot reside on the Yuan.
It was limited gov’t that allowed free markets to introduce humanity to the technological explosion that gave us abundant drinking water.
You also realize that some futurists have predicted that in 40 to 50 years
the world will have wars over access to clean water instead of fighting over oil.
Abdul might have meant “out of money”, not broken. Of course, he might have meant to insinuate both.
“If we don’t allow the leftist loons to tax and spend us into oblivion, we’ll run out of drinking water?”
False dichotomy? Seriously, Bart. You can do better.
Dude, you’re killing me. Shooting fish in a barrel…
Are you familiar with Indiana American Water? There is no law of the universe that water utilities shall be government owned entities.
Even wastewater treatment need not be provided by a government owned entity. The Gary Sanitary District is run by a private contractor (albeit the facility is still government owned).
Drainage? I agree that that is most likely at least a government planning function. Your property development and zoning regulations need to be engineering based, so that the impervious area increase doesn’t cause a problem.
You also are once again confirming my suspicion that liberalism is all about making liberals feel good about themselves.
And finally, you continually fail to understand that conservatives are not anarchists that don’t want any government. They want constitutionally limited government with federalism, and not have the government do things that could be better provided by the private sector, charities, or private associations.
Just becuase private companies are involved in water distrubution doesn’t mean goverment could be taken out of the equation.
Conservatives just want us all to be scared and fearful.
I loved this post. It isn’t all doom and gloom. I can sometimes sort of feel good about our local government here in Tippecanoe County.
If I can be critical of you on another point, Masson, you often express your opposition to consolidated government.
How can you possess the tools needed to acquire rights of way and keep the system running if you don’t have a government which covers large sections of territory and has jurisdiction over many aspects of the law?
1. True of false:
The nice thing about ante-bellum South is that masters were compelled to provide their slaves with fresh drinking water. They also provided durable wood-constructed housing, food, clothing, employment, medical provisions and a relative low mortality rate. Meanwhile their cousins in East Africa (Somalia) had none of those.
2. True of false:
Abolitionists just wanted slaves to be scared and fearful.
3. True of false:
Even into the 20th century, surviving former slaves reminisced about the advantages of being slaves and the burden of self reliance that accompanies freedom.
Answers:
1. True.
2. False.
3. True.
http://www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/mcmilln.htm
Good read: currently a part of “Indiana Economic Review” Eye on the Pie, Morton J. Marcus–his weeking commentary deals with a view of the “terrible thing” of unions and government personnel. With his usual “tongue in cheek” way of commenting he covers some thoughts that seem to currently be sweeping the nation. It seems there must be a bunch of villians out there and when government paid people say anything back —it just shows how intolerate they are—or it might seem that way to some. As said before –with all the put downs of education and elected public officials –why would anyone put themselves in a position for such attacks.
wait… slave owners provided their slaves with “employment”?!?
Just becuase private companies are involved in water distrubution doesn’t mean goverment could be taken out of the equation.
Indiana American Water is a government regulated monopoly. My guess is that nobody would want two or more water systems laid on top of one another, so perhaps this is an example of a “natural monopoly”, and government regulation would perhaps be warranted.
I am a bit out of my league here. Your regulation approach seems reasonable. Still, providing drinking water seems like a pretty basic service that has been provided by our municipal governement safely and cheaply for many years. Why do we have to fiddle with it?
Haven’t some small towns in the South been devestated and actually abandoned by a majority of their residents after signing up for water privatization deals that overreached?
@stAllio!
wait… slave owners provided their slaves with “employment”?!?
So said liberals, er uh, slave owners.
i don’t know any liberals who go around talking about how great slaves used to have it… southern conservatives have a monopoly on that. for that matter, i don’t know what any of this has to do with the subject of doug’s post, either.
Of course, st.Allio failes to mention that those people who had a monopoly on supporting Jim Crow were Southern Democrats. Facts are stubborn things. It’s so much easier to say “conservatives” while ignoring the fact they were Democrats.
Um, those Southern Democrats later essentially became the Republican party. Strom Thurmond while a Southern Democrat defected to the GOP.
Hell, Eisenhower, Goldwater and Reagan would be bounced out of the current GOP for there liberal views.
But to focus on the point of the post that there are certain things seem have run well as a government run monopoly (electricity and water). It doesn’t need to make a profit, just cover cost of the service.
Back home, Montana Power was a very well run electric utility until it was allowed to become privatized and just raided/plundered/destroyed/whatever you want to call it.
I would rather drink tap water than bottled water. There are very strict, defined and reasonable regulations regarding tap water. There are no such things for bottled water even though most of it comes from municipal water sources. That is until the regulating agencies are hamstrung or otherwise made ineffective.
@stAllio!
Let me prod your memory.
Michael Moore made a movie boasting of the high life Cubans live in Castro’s slave nation. We should be so lucky, he suggested. And liberals nodded the hollowed, er uh, hallowed heads in unison.
And now for a few quotes from leftist icon Che’ Guevera . . .
“The blacks, those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of an affinity with bathing, have seen their territory invaded by a new kind of slave: the Portuguese.”
“The black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations.”
“The episode upset us a little because the poor man, apart from being homosexual and a first-rate bore, had been very nice to us, giving us 10 soles each, bringing our total to 479 for me and 163 1/2 to Alberto.”
[Ok. That was homophobic. But it still counts.]
“The first person we hit on was the mayor, someone called Cohen; we had heard a lot about him, that he was Jewish as far as money was concerned but a good sort.”
“Mexicans are a band of illiterate Indians.”
@gizmomathboy
You miss the point.
I’ve never met a conservative or libertarian who fussed over government-run infrastructure.
The bone of contention here is Mr. Masson’s derivative that [somehow] tap water is evidence that big gov’t is the crux of what ails us.
I wonder how the water is in Cuba? Venezuela?
Let’s paraphrase Milton Friedman.
“If you put the federal government in charge of the Pacific Ocean, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of water”.
(Guevara; not Guevera.)
i suppose if someone were truly curious about how the water is in cuba and venezuela, then one might, say, look it up. but, someone who looked it up would discover that the water is actually pretty good there, and that wouldn’t do much to support bart’s argument.
on the other hand, michael moore is fat and che guevara was a jerk, which proves that liberals are stupid.
paul: i don’t know any liberals who were alive before the civil war, either, but maybe i’m just hanging with the wrong circle.
The actual taxes we pay the Federal, State and City government through our work place is usually a pittance (especially if you have kids) considering the services that the governments supply. What I object to are the extra taxes that are levied for projects that truly (all sports arenas, hotels and shopping malls) that should be finanaced by the private sector. I want my government to monitor my drinking water and provide police , fire protection and vironmental protection. Throw in well paved, plowed, and lighted streets and highways, libraries and nice greenways and parks. Throw in all the inspectors for building, remodeling, business practices, etc, etc,etc… The list goes on. We still are getting a real good bang for our buck.
If I was king for a day I would set up a government accounting and audit division. Every purchase would have to under go a through a process to assure that we were getting fair market prices for the goods and services. Any cost overruns would be absored by the cleient and not by the government. No more crazy million dollar fees for law and bond firms. Hire some government lawyers and bond people and do them in house. Heck the State of Indiana could hire these guys and have them supply their serivces to every city in Indiana for a pittance of what it cost to pay the big law firms to do them.
Oh well pipe dreams never do come true!
Black Bart, where have you been during the whole Network neutrality debate? Libertarians and Conservatives are both misunderstanding the idea (thinking this has to do with neutral speech), and then crying out that the FCC is overstepping its bounds.
While it might not be as vital as clean drinking water for most, for many, it is essential to have broadband and have it be unbiased. It is also a natural monopoly, as the cost to put in proper broadband usually results in each area having only one clear choice.
So, are you saying you’ll support making broadband a public utility, with local government providing the “pipe” and private companies selling access to the Internet over it?