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Posted on 06/16/2011 11:02:36 AM PDT by JSDude1
Belgium has now gone for more than a year without a government and, you know what? Life is carrying on as normal. The crops are growing, the wheels are turning in the factories, the civil servants (there are lots of these) are lingering over their coffee and speculoos biscuits. A lighter than normal legislative agenda has given the country something of a boost: growth forecasts keep being upwardly revised, and the economy is expected to expand by 2.3 per cent this year.
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We sometimes talk as if, left to itself, the state will grow. And, in some senses, it will: bureaucracies will always seek to extend their competences beyond whatever was was originally laid down. At the same time, though, regulations that are not replaced eventually become redundant. Who cares, these days, about directives on steam ships or telegraphs or analogue telephones? Governments are forever seeking to catch up with new technologies – witness the current attempts to regulate the Internet. Simply by passing no new laws, we allow the private sector to outpace the public. The state is eventually left like some ruined jungle temple, its slabs broken by roots, its columns snarled by creepers, its outlines swallowed up by the spray of green.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
Anarchy is a non-starter. There have to be basic laws and a minimum role of standards.
Which is a far, far cry from obamunism.
We ran out of things to legislate almost a hundred years ago...
-————We ran out of things to legislate almost a hundred years ago...—————
which is probably why the founders didn’t want ‘politician’ to be a full time job.
All they’re doing at this point is legislating against us.
Belgium has a govt, just not one that represents the people or even cares what they do.
Anyway, the key thing to note is the US government could easily be 50% of what it is today. That wouldn't be anarchy, but it would be a very limited government and we would all be better off. As we look around the world, if we see places that are doing pretty well with "no government", it should give us courage that freezing the debt ceiling and really (truly) cutting back on spending will not be the end of the world.
True, and it’s not really accurate to say Belgium has “no” government...but eventually I wouldn’t be surprised if it broke up into 2 or 3 very small countries or some type of federation.
Having no government cranking out new and odious legislation has nothing to do with the rule of existing law.
10 Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle[c] and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you in that day.”
1 Samuel 8:10-18
God doesn’t seem to like government much either.
We need to get back to a pre-New Deal style of FedGov if we want to survive as a Nation. Unnecessary and arbitrary crap serves only to lessen people respect for the Law and erodes any sense that true "justice" can be had through the system.
LOL, no govt???!? What a putz and half. Its called SELF govt which is the basis for all stable societies. Gee, the Belgians are able to conduct themselves properly in public going about their business w/o exploding. What a concept. I strongly suspect something like that would work just fine here too. I’m sure tho our self important pols have a diff view.
They have a government, they just don’t have a marjority colition in the legislation, such a colition being refered to in parlimentary countries as “the government”. It’s sort of like the U.S., when the House and Senate are under control of different parties or the Congress and President are from different parties. It’s what we call “gridlock” in the U.S. Actually the media calls it gridlock when a Democratic President can’t get his way and “checks and balances” when it’s a Republican President.
One disadvantage of a parlimentary system is fewer checks and balances and more power vested in the bureaucracy.
Simple solution. Stop voting for any candidates that are lawyers. Period. It will take a long time and will require a serious grass roots movement but "regular" people need to start getting involved...first locally and then working upwards. Or maybe just launching a Senate campaign and letting the MSM do the advertising.
if the government merely enforced the basic laws required for society, i would be happy. So much of the legislation is aimed at fixing problems the government itself causes.
“At the stage between apathy and dependency, men always turn in fear to economic and political
panaceas. New conditions, it is claimed, require new remedies. Under such circumstances,
the competent citizen is certainly not a fool if he insists upon using the compass of history
when forced to sail uncharted seas. Usually so-called new remedies are not new at all.
Compulsory planned economy, for example, was tried by the Chinese some three milleniums ago,
and by the Romans in the early centuries of the Christian era. It was applied in Germany, Italy
and Russia long before the present war broke out. Yet it is being seriously advocated today as a
solution of our economic problems in the United States. Its proponents confidently assert that
government can successfully plan and control all major business activity in the nation, and still
not interfere with our political freedom and our hard-won civil and religious liberties. The
lessons of history all point in exactly the reverse direction.”
- Henning W. Prentis, Industrial Management in a Republic, p. 22 The Fatal Sequence -1943
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That would be a good start, but there is no rational reason that the % shouldn't get down to 8-10% of GDP. Defense aside, the Federal government should be so small as to not be seen or felt.
I always tell people that if we had the Republic our Founders wanted us to have, we would all be vacationing on the Moon and Mars. True freedom would have allowed such progress; we would be much more advanced in all ways.
Governments are mostly filled with sadistic parasites who , if they had their way, would gleefully rule over us with an iron fist.
“I only worry about my rights, when Congress is in session.” — Mark Twain
I just have to note that it becomes an epic struggle when the GOP tries to cut the budget by $38B! I want massive, massive cuts, but I despair of ever seeing them.
We were given the absolute smallest possible government structure, based on natural rights and an immensely strong philosophical and experiential foundation, the the genius Founders of our country.
Since then, usurpers have declared everyone agents, employees and literally incorporated dependents of the administration of the corporatized federal government, and replaced out constitution with a massive system of administrative policies called statutes and regulations and codes.
And to keep us from figuring this out, they've pulled every deceptive trick in the book.
Now we sit like stone age people, around a small fire in the chill of winter, at the base of a gigantice spacecraft, unable to get back in, and only dreaming of a better cave, having utterly forgotten our political birthright.
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