Download or read book Everything the Government Does is Bad For Us written by Ryan Aleckszander and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2021-08-18 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I often find myself going easy on the government. I let them off the hook by attributing the consequences of their actions to a failure. In this book, I will not be so kind. I believe that the results of government policies and actions are more than mere failure. Whichever country we are talking about, I believe all government policies and actions are actively harmful. Yes, all of them. Failure presumes a level of innocence, ignorance, or accident. I do not believe these excuses are justified. Governments do know what they are doing. Modern policies all have long histories and precedents. We are not experimenting - these are tried and true procedures. They haven't just failed us, they have harmed us. And they will continue to do so unless we make dramatic changes in our government systems. We have had more than enough time to see the consequences of every government policy. There is no longer any excuse for the pain and suffering these policies continue to cause. All policy derives first from ideology. The people who comprise governments believe certain things, and they form policies around these beliefs. I will argue that these ideologies are flawed at the core, and so any policies derived from them will also be flawed. There are two parts to my grievances with the government. First, we do not need the government to do the things it does. The useful functions we supposedly need the government to oversee can be handled by private enterprises. Often, these functions are already contracted privately. Roads are built and maintained by private companies, schools can be run privately just as effectively as by the government, and every other aspect of the amenities that comprise our modern life can be designed, built, and regulated by private industries. The second grievance is that governments tend to do things that do not need to be done at all. In the first case, the harm is a simple waste of resources. We do not need the middleman to contract private businesses. In the second case, the harm is much greater. When governments take it upon themselves to impose unnecessary rules, infrastructure, propaganda campaigns, and wars, we are all harmed. In my lifetime I have considered myself both a liberal and a conservative. I have voted for both left and right parties in my home country. I am now convinced that the distinction between left and right is a false dichotomy. These are two heads of the same serpent. I will not make the case that we should abolish government outright. We have a society deeply structured around an existing control system. Removing the system completely, I do believe would be chaos. I think there is a way out, but we must first understand the problem before we can really talk about a solution.
Download or read book The Forgotten Americans written by Isabel Sawhill and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sobering account of a disenfranchised American working class and important policy solutions to the nation's economic inequalities One of the country's leading scholars on economics and social policy, Isabel Sawhill addresses the enormous divisions in American society--economic, cultural, and political--and what might be done to bridge them. Widening inequality and the loss of jobs to trade and technology has left a significant portion of the American workforce disenfranchised and skeptical of governments and corporations alike. And yet both have a role to play in improving the country for all. Sawhill argues for a policy agenda based on mainstream values, such as family, education, and work. Although many have lost faith in government programs designed to help them, there are still trusted institutions on both the local and the federal level that can deliver better job opportunities and higher wages to those who have been left behind. At the same time, the private sector needs to reexamine how it trains and rewards employees. This book provides a clear-headed and middle-way path to a better-functioning society in which personal responsibility is honored and inclusive capitalism and more broadly shared growth are once more the norm.
Download or read book Polling Matters written by Frank Newport and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2004-07-30 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From The Gallup Organization-the most respected source on the subject-comes a fascinating look at the importance of measuring public opinion in modern society. For years, public-opinion polls have been a valuable tool for gauging the positions of American citizens on a wide variety of topics. Polling applies scientific principles to understanding and anticipating the insights, emotions, and attitudes of society. Now in POLLING MATTERS: Why Leaders Must Listen to the Wisdom of the People, The Gallup Organization reveals: What polls really are and how they are conducted Why the information polls provide is so vitally important to modern society today How this valuable information can be used more effectively and more...
Download or read book Good Enough for Government Work written by Amy E. Lerman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-06-14 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American government is in the midst of a reputation crisis. An overwhelming majority of citizens—Republicans and Democrats alike—hold negative perceptions of the government and believe it is wasteful, inefficient, and doing a generally poor job managing public programs and providing public services. When social problems arise, Americans are therefore skeptical that the government has the ability to respond effectively. It’s a serious problem, argues Amy E. Lerman, and it will not be a simple one to fix. With Good Enough for Government Work, Lerman uses surveys, experiments, and public opinion data to argue persuasively that the reputation of government is itself an impediment to government’s ability to achieve the common good. In addition to improving its efficiency and effectiveness, government therefore has an equally critical task: countering the belief that the public sector is mired in incompetence. Lerman takes readers through the main challenges. Negative perceptions are highly resistant to change, she shows, because we tend to perceive the world in a way that confirms our negative stereotypes of government—even in the face of new information. Those who hold particularly negative perceptions also begin to “opt out” in favor of private alternatives, such as sending their children to private schools, living in gated communities, and refusing to participate in public health insurance programs. When sufficient numbers of people opt out of public services, the result can be a decline in the objective quality of public provision. In this way, citizens’ beliefs about government can quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy, with consequences for all. Lerman concludes with practical solutions for how the government might improve its reputation and roll back current efforts to eliminate or privatize even some of the most critical public services.
Download or read book Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places written by Emily Zackin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-21 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike many national constitutions, which contain explicit positive rights to such things as education, a living wage, and a healthful environment, the U.S. Bill of Rights appears to contain only a long list of prohibitions on government. American constitutional rights, we are often told, protect people only from an overbearing government, but give no explicit guarantees of governmental help. Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places argues that we have fundamentally misunderstood the American rights tradition. The United States actually has a long history of enshrining positive rights in its constitutional law, but these rights have been overlooked simply because they are not in the federal Constitution. Emily Zackin shows how they instead have been included in America's state constitutions, in large part because state governments, not the federal government, have long been primarily responsible for crafting American social policy. Although state constitutions, seemingly mired in trivial detail, can look like pale imitations of their federal counterpart, they have been sites of serious debate, reflect national concerns, and enshrine choices about fundamental values. Zackin looks in depth at the history of education, labor, and environmental reform, explaining why America's activists targeted state constitutions in their struggles for government protection from the hazards of life under capitalism. Shedding much-needed light on the variety of reasons that activists pursued the creation of new state-level rights, Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places challenges us to rethink our most basic assumptions about the American constitutional tradition.
Download or read book Lies My Gov t Told Me written by Robert W. Malone and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-11-15 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A WALL STREET JOURNALNATIONAL BESTSELLER *AS SEEN ON TUCKER CARLSON TODAY AND THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE* A guide for the times—breaking down the lies about COVID-19 and shedding light on why we came to believe them. When he invented the original mRNA vaccine technology as a medical and graduate student in the late 1980s, Robert Malone could not have imagined that he would become a leader in a movement to expose the dangers of mRNA vaccines that billions of people have received—too often without being informed of the risks. For voicing opposition to the “mainstream” narrative, Dr. Robert Malone was censored by Big Tech and vilified by the media. But he continues to speak out and alert the world to the web of lies that we have all experienced. From vaccine safety and effectiveness to early treatments like ivermectin, to lockdowns, masks, and more, Dr. Malone is the signature dissident voice telling the other side of the story about COVID, the role of corporate media, censorship, propaganda, and the brave new world of transhumanism promoted by the World Economic Forum and its acolytes. What effect did the COVID policies have on lives, livelihoods, and democracies? How is it possible that the lies spread by governments would persist, and that our institutions would fail to correct them? Lies My Gov’t Told Me takes a hard look at these questions and illustrates how data, information, and psychology have been distorted during the pandemic. Governments intentionally weaponized fear to mold behavior. The media smeared anyone who objected to the narrative. And Big Pharma—aligned with larger globalist interests exemplified by the likes of Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum—had captured the agencies that are supposed to regulate it long before the pandemic began. Dr. Malone explores these perverse connections between Pharma, government, and media, and tells us what can be done about it. With contributed chapters from other leading thinkers, such as Dr. Paul Marik and Professor Mattias Desmet, and drawing upon history, psychology, and economics, Lies My Gov’t Told Me looks at COVID from numerous angles. Never satisfied with a simple answer or easy solution, Dr. Malone proposes multiple action plans for a better future. Dr. Malone calls on each of us to find our own solutions, our own ways to resist the control of fascist, corporatist, and totalitarian overlords. If we are to step out of the darkness—toward a world that defends the principles of the Constitution, upholds individual rights, and honors free speech—we all must play a part in the transition.
Download or read book Government s Greatest Achievements written by Paul C. Light and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2010-12-01 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an era of promises to create smaller, more limited government, Americans often forget that the federal government has amassed an extraordinary record of successes over the past half century. Despite seemingly insurmountable odds, it helped rebuild Europe after World War II, conquered polio and other life-threatening diseases, faced down communism, attacked racial discrimination, reduced poverty among the elderly, and put men on the moon. In Government's Greatest Achievements, Paul C. Light explores the federal government's most successful accomplishments over the previous five decades and anticipates the most significant challenges of the next half century. While some successes have come through major legislation such as the 1965 Medicare Act, or large-scale efforts like the Apollo space program, most have been achieved through collections of smaller, often unheralded statutes. Drawing on survey responses from 230 historians and 220 political scientists at colleges and universities nationwide, Light ranks and summarizes the fifty greatest government achievements from 1944 to 1999. The achievements were ranked based on difficulty, importance, and degree of success. Through a series of twenty vignettes, he paints a vivid picture of the most intense government efforts to improve the quality of life both at home and abroad—from enhancing health care and workplace safety, to expanding home ownership, to improving education, to protecting endangered species, to strengthening the national defense. The book also examines how Americans perceive government's greatest achievements, and reveals what they consider to be its most significant failures. America is now calling on the government to resolve another complex, difficult problem: the defeat of terrorism. Light concludes by discussing this enormous task, as well as government's other greatest priorities for the next fifty years.
Download or read book The Federalist Papers written by Alexander Hamilton and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2018-08-20 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Classic Books Library presents this brand new edition of “The Federalist Papers”, a collection of separate essays and articles compiled in 1788 by Alexander Hamilton. Following the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776, the governing doctrines and policies of the States lacked cohesion. “The Federalist”, as it was previously known, was constructed by American statesman Alexander Hamilton, and was intended to catalyse the ratification of the United States Constitution. Hamilton recruited fellow statesmen James Madison Jr., and John Jay to write papers for the compendium, and the three are known as some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804) was an American lawyer, journalist and highly influential government official. He also served as a Senior Officer in the Army between 1799-1800 and founded the Federalist Party, the system that governed the nation’s finances. His contributions to the Constitution and leadership made a significant and lasting impact on the early development of the nation of the United States.
Download or read book How Constitutional Rights Matter written by Adam Chilton and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does constitutionalizing rights improve respect for those rights in practice? Drawing on statistical analyses, survey experiments, and case studies from around the world, this book argues that enforcing constitutional rights is not easy, but that some rights are harder to repress than others. First, enshrining rights in constitutions does not automatically ensure that those rights will be respected. For rights to matter, rights violations need to be politically costly. But this is difficult to accomplish for unconnected groups of citizens. Second, some rights are easier to enforce than others, especially those with natural constituencies that can mobilize for their enforcement. This is the case for rights that are practiced by and within organizations, such as the rights to religious freedom, to unionize, and to form political parties. Because religious groups, trade unions and parties are highly organized, they are well-equipped to use the constitution to resist rights violations. As a result, these rights are systematically associated with better practices. By contrast, rights that are practiced on an individual basis, such as free speech or the prohibition of torture, often lack natural constituencies to enforce them, which makes it easier for governments to violate these rights. Third, even highly organized groups armed with the constitution may not be able to stop governments dedicated to rights-repression. When constitutional rights are enforced by dedicated organizations, they are thus best understood as speed bumps that slow down attempts at repression. An important contribution to comparative constitutional law, this book provides a comprehensive picture of the spread of constitutional rights, and their enforcement, around the world.
Download or read book Why Government Is the Problem written by Milton Friedman and published by Hoover Press. This book was released on 2013-09-01 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Friedman discusses a government system that is no longer controlled by "we, the people." Instead of Lincoln's government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," we now have a government "of the people, by the bureaucrats, for the bureaucrats," including the elected representatives who have become bureaucrats.
Download or read book They Knew written by James Gustave Speth and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-08-24 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A devastating, play-by-play account of the federal government's leading role in bringing about today's climate crisis. In 2015, a group of twenty-one young people sued the federal government for violating their constitutional rights by promoting the climate catastrophe, depriving them of life, liberty, and property without due process of law. They Knew offers evidence for their claims, presenting a devastating, play-by-play account of the federal government's role in bringing about today's climate crisis. James Speth, tapped by the plaintiffs as an expert on climate, documents how administrations from Carter to Trump--despite having information about climate change and the connection to fossil fuels--continued aggressive support of a fossil fuel based energy system. What did the federal government know and when did it know it? Speth asks, echoing another famous cover up. What did the federal government do and what did it not do? They Knew (an updated version of the Expert Report Speth prepared for the lawsuit) presents the most compelling indictment yet of the government's role in the climate crisis, showing a forty-year failure to take action. Since Juliana v. United States was filed, the federal government has repeatedly delayed the case. Yet even in legal limbo, it has helped inspire a generation of youthful climate activists. An Our Children’s Trust Book
Download or read book American Amnesia written by Jacob S. Hacker and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “provocative” (Kirkus Reviews), timely, and topical work that examines what’s good for American business and what’s good for Americans—and why those interests are misaligned. In American Amnesia, bestselling political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson trace the economic and political history of the United States over the last century and show how a viable mixed economy has long been the dominant engine of America’s prosperity. We have largely forgotten this reliance, as many political circles and corporate actors have come to mistakenly see government as a hindrance rather than the propeller it once was. “American Amnesia” is more than a rhetorical phrase; elites have literally forgotten, or at least forgotten to talk about, the essential role of public authority in achieving big positive-sum bargains in advanced societies. The mixed economy was the most important social innovation of the twentieth century. It spread a previously unimaginable level of broad prosperity. It enabled steep increases in education, health, longevity, and economic security. And yet, extraordinarily, it is anathema to many current economic and political elites. Looking at this record of remarkable accomplishment, they recoil in horror. And as the advocates of anti-government free market fundamentalist have gained power, they are hell-bent on scrapping the instrument of nearly a century of unprecedented economic and social progress. In the American Amnesia, Hacker and Pierson explain the full “story of how government helped make America great, how the enthusiasm for bashing government is behind its current malaise, and how a return to effective government is the answer the nation is looking for” (The New York Times).
Download or read book The Increasingly United States written by Daniel J. Hopkins and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-05-30 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a campaign for state or local office these days, you’re as likely today to hear accusations that an opponent advanced Obamacare or supported Donald Trump as you are to hear about issues affecting the state or local community. This is because American political behavior has become substantially more nationalized. American voters are far more engaged with and knowledgeable about what’s happening in Washington, DC, than in similar messages whether they are in the South, the Northeast, or the Midwest. Gone are the days when all politics was local. With The Increasingly United States, Daniel J. Hopkins explores this trend and its implications for the American political system. The change is significant in part because it works against a key rationale of America’s federalist system, which was built on the assumption that citizens would be more strongly attached to their states and localities. It also has profound implications for how voters are represented. If voters are well informed about state politics, for example, the governor has an incentive to deliver what voters—or at least a pivotal segment of them—want. But if voters are likely to back the same party in gubernatorial as in presidential elections irrespective of the governor’s actions in office, governors may instead come to see their ambitions as tethered more closely to their status in the national party.
Download or read book U S Health in International Perspective written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-04-12 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.
Download or read book How Rights Went Wrong written by Jamal Greene and published by Houghton Mifflin. This book was released on 2021 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eminent constitutional scholar reveals how our approach to rights is dividing America, and shows how we can build a better system of justice.
Download or read book Saving the News written by Martha Minow and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As traditional for-profit news media in the United States declines in economic viability and sheer numbers of outlets and staff, what does and what should the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press mean? The book examines the current news ecosystem in the U.S. and chronicles historical developments in government involvement in shaping the industry. It argues that initiatives by the government and by private-sector actors are not only permitted but called for as transformations in technology, economics, and communications jeopardize the production and distribution of and trust in news and the very existence of local news reporting. It presents ten proposals for change to help preserve the free press essential to our democratic society"--
