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In One Sentence: What is the Role of Government?

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Stevendsmith Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 10:56 AM
Original message
In One Sentence: What is the Role of Government?
This is a fundamental question that divides the left and right. I'd love to hear your responses.
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KittyWampus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 10:56 AM
Response to Original message
1. Promote and Protect The Common Good
Edited on Fri Sep-23-05 10:58 AM by cryingshame
edit- also, more specifically, establishing and maintaining order. Providing EXECUTIVE Leadership.
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astonamous Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 11:02 AM
Response to Reply #1
12. That's what I was going to say...
Protect and promote the general welfare of it's citizens.
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tgnyc Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 10:57 AM
Response to Original message
2. Do what needs to be done and that can't be done by individuals
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tk2kewl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 10:57 AM
Response to Original message
3. Protect the health, safety and welfare of the people
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Cerridwen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 10:57 AM
Response to Original message
4. To serve "We the People"
not as was once said "the business of government is business"

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trof Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 10:58 AM
Response to Original message
5. Secure the people's inalienable rights to life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness.
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ikri Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 10:58 AM
Response to Original message
6. To protect the minority from the majority n/t
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Ron Green Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 10:59 AM
Response to Original message
7. To keep the market in check.
Markets (absolutely necessary for human happiness) are driven by natural greed, and it takes some "higher-minded" legislatin' to maintain a proper balance.
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smartvoter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 10:59 AM
Response to Original message
8. To pepper the masses with God's hatred and vengeance. nt
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sendero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 11:03 AM
Response to Reply #8
13. Ooohhh......
.... good one. :)
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Mutley Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 11:00 AM
Response to Original message
9. To protect its citizens.
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Enraged_Ape Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 11:01 AM
Response to Original message
10. The framers of the Constitution said it best:
"Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity..."

It worked pretty well for 200 years, at least. Then a bunch of criminals took power.
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sui generis Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 11:07 AM
Response to Reply #10
15. right on!
WE are the government. It is not separate from our consent.
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KyndCulture Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 11:11 AM
Response to Reply #10
18. Ding ding!! that gets my vote!
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Uncle Joe Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 05:05 PM
Response to Reply #10
28. I agree, I think they said it well enough to cover all the bases n/t
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MadAsHellNewYorker Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 05:10 PM
Response to Reply #10
31. Exactly!!!! n/t
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Zynx Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 05:27 PM
Response to Reply #10
34. There we are. I was trying to figure out a better way of saying it.
However, I couldn't.
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Xipe Totec Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 11:02 AM
Response to Original message
11. To accomplish collectively what we can't achieve as individuals n/t
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blossomstar Donating Member (772 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 11:05 AM
Response to Original message
14. To protect the civil rights and personal safety of its citizens.
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MannyGoldstein Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 11:09 AM
Response to Original message
16. To Do What Governments Do Best
As a practical matter, it's impossible to pigeonhole this in one concise sound bite, such as "protect the citizenry". Certain jobs are much better done by governments than by other entities (building and maintainng roads, health care, and so forth). Thus, to maximize human happiness, The People should pick and choose those things that the Government should do.

Hopefully they'll choose wisely.
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newyawker99 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 04:06 PM
Response to Reply #16
26. Hi MannyGoldstein!!
Welcome to DU!! :toast:
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MannyGoldstein Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 05:21 PM
Response to Reply #26
32. Well Thank You
Your welcome is welcome - and supports my view that New Yorkers are the warmest and friendliest people on Earth.
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warrior1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 11:10 AM
Response to Original message
17. William Pitt: 7/22/2005
A History of the Bush Administration in One Sentence (updated)
Just because the Supreme Court set a poison precedent and appointed Bush, who brought in his crowd of neocon yahoos that no one discussed during the 2000 campaign because we 'Muricans vote for the man and not the mob of frothing dogs that come in his wake, just because the twin bill of unreasonably massive tax cuts was combined with the economic depth-charge that was the Enron/Arthur Andersen scandal that was umbilically connected to the White House, just because the economy (not to mention our whole psyche) absorbed another blow when four airplanes somehow managed to pierce the most impenetrable air defense system in the history of the universe, fooling the entire intelligence community as well if you believe what you hear on Fox despite a blizzard of warnings and a raft of information from the previous administration, just because a bunch of anthrax got mailed to Democrats by the Ashcroft wing of the Republican Party in what were obvious assassination attempts and yet nothing but nothing has been done about it, just because the 9/11 attack was immediately and I mean the day after immediately grasped as an excuse to invade Iraq, just because virtually everyone in the administration lied with their bare faces hanging out about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, terrorism ties in Iraq, so break out the plastic sheeting and duct tape because we're all gonna die, just because they did this in no small part to win the 2002 midterms by any means necessary, just because 1,773 American soldiers have been killed looking for the 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons (which is 1,000,00 lbs.) of sarin and mustard and VX nerve agent, 30,000 munitions to deliver the stuff, mobile biological weapons labs, arial drones to spray the aforementioned stuff, and let's not forget the uranium from Niger for use in Iraq's robust nukular program, all of which was described to the letter by Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address, all of which remains on the White House website on a page titled 'Disarm Saddam Hussein,' just because the decision to unleash this wretched war was made in April of 2002 before any public discussion was brought forth, just because all Bush’s talk about avoiding war and working with the international community and sending in inspectors has been exposed as lies bigger than death by the Downing Street Minutes, just because tens and tens and tens and tens and tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens have been killed as well in the war to get at this stuff that wasn’t there, none of the stuff was there, and by the way none of the stuff was there, and did I mention that none of the stuff was there, just because the idea that Hussein was allied with bin Laden was laughable because Osama has wanted Saddam's head on his battle standard for decades, just because one of the central sources of world terrorism, which is Wahabbist extremism in Saudi Arabia, goes completely unaddressed because the Houses of Bush and Saud have been partnered for decades, just because so much of 9/11 and this 'War on Terra' has to do with business arrangements going awry between these two Houses, just because a deep-cover CIA agent who was working to track any person or nation or group that would give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists got her cover and her network blown by Administration officials named Rove and Libby, who wanted to shut her husband and any other potential whistleblowers the hell up, just because the front company she was working out of called Brewster Jennings and Associates was likewise blown, thus torpedoing other agents and their networks, just because absolutely all of this went virtually unreported by the mainstream media until it was too late, if it was reported at all, just because dangerous spies like Ahmad Chalabi used Judy Miller and the New York Times to disseminate the lie that Iraq was riddled with weapons, thus opening the floodgates for the rest of the media to repeat the lie because once the Times says it, it must be true, just because this lack of reporting combined with an astounding level of cheerleading from the aforementioned media combined with some good old-fashioned vote fraud in places like Ohio, Florida and New Mexico gave the aforementioned group of yahoos four more years and a congressional majority in both houses of congress, just because this means the Iraq war will drag on and on and on and Iran will probably be next and draconian legislation further restricting our rights will get passed along with things like the Bankruptcy bill, just because media reform of any kind will be nowhere on the menu, just because more Justices on the Supreme Court are sure to step down or die soon and Bush will be able to recraft that high court for the next 20 years, just because Christian Reconstructionist Triumphalist fundamentalist evangelical Talibanical nutbags have gone mainstream with their goal of having every American singing "Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me" in a droning monochromatic hypnotized voice all day every day, doesn't mean anyone should be worried or anything.

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Lindacooks Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 11:11 AM
Response to Original message
19. The preamble of the Constitution:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Notice there's nothing in it about making the rich richer and screwing the poor.
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Mr_Spock Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 11:11 AM
Response to Original message
20. To keep minorities and poor folks in their places
Oh, I thought you meant the Republican definition. Ooops! :D
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txaslftist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 11:12 AM
Response to Original message
21. To steal your money, throw crapola back at you and tell you to shut up
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Shine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 11:14 AM
Response to Reply #21
23. HA!! Good one!
:rofl:
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readmylips Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 11:13 AM
Response to Original message
22. Main role: To protect Capitalism.....
You are a bunch of dreamers....Only elite capitalists are protected by government. When TV talks about the Economy, it's talking about the big elites making billions or losing billions. It's not about us the little people.
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Enraged_Ape Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 02:24 PM
Response to Reply #22
25. Well, if we're a bunch of dreamers, so were Jefferson, Franklin...
Madison, Washington, and all the other dudes that started this country. Notice that you will not find anything in either the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence that mentions aiding, abetting, and promoting multinational corporations. That all came later, as more and more palms were greased, and big international money did whatever it could to twist our own government toward its own greedy ends.

If I could go back in time, I would warn the framers of the Constitution about the future power of multinational corporations that exist far above the law, and I would plead with them to put safeguards into the Constitution to prevent that. And they would have done it, happily. The concept of multinational interests controlling U.S. public policy did not exist at that time, nor did it even seem possible.
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malaise Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 05:23 PM
Response to Reply #22
33. Representation
but sadly most citizens don't realize that the Lockean constitution speaks to representing those with property and to hell with everyone else.
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mattclearing Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 11:15 AM
Response to Original message
24. To provide basic services not already provided by the free market.
I look at it as fulfilling need. If the free market fails to build roads, the government builds roads. If the free market fails to provide affordable health care, the government makes health care more accessible through legislation.
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leftofthedial Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 04:29 PM
Response to Original message
27. to fund the campaigning efforts of repuke presidents
and to facilitate his access to photo ops.
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nadinbrzezinski Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 05:07 PM
Response to Original message
29. From the preamble
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America

Could not be clearer
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Oeditpus Rex Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-23-05 05:09 PM
Response to Original message
30. 'To preserve, protect and defend
the Constitution of the United States."

And its people.

So help me dog.

(Shit. That's three sentences. Shoot me.)
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