The Role of Government: Part 1

I started writing a post about the roles that government should play and what solutions I think we need for our major problems.  I thought that it would be lengthy, but I didn't know just how lengthy.  Rather than post one loooooong post, I'm going to break it into three or four shorter ones that I'll post over the next few days.  Why a few days?  Because I can.

Also, it's a bit of a mess.  It's a little rambling and disorganized.  Since I just chopped it into pieces for posting purposes, it will end abruptly.  I don't care.  Enjoy, and I'm curious to read any comments or thoughts you have.

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It has been several weeks since I've written anything, but I've thought a lot about what I want to say here. With the debates and direction of the government and politics, I really want to lay out my view of what the American government ought to be and do. One quote that I keep coming back to is from Woodrow Wilson:  ""the business of government is to organize the common interest against the special interests." This is not a pro-business or anti-business statement, simply a pro-citizen statement. And it guides my views in significant ways.

The cornerstone of my view is the idea that the government can and should be the guarantor of rights and a reasonable quality of life, as well as keeping the long term health of the country in mind.  The three go together hand in hand, but when lawmakers have to be elected in the short term, it is easy to see how the long term gets put on the back burner.  Regardless, long-term health has got to be the first priority, and with that view, things start to fall into place pretty easily.

First, any government's top duty is to protect its citizens from exterior threats.  During a few expeditionary binges, America has created a vast empire (Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands, Florida, thousands of military bases and naval power worldwide).  Enough is enough.  I do not want to see an isolationist America--I think the 1920-30s showed the folly of that route--but instead a nation that engages the world in a variety of ways, using the military as a tool of last resort.  We've spent the last 120 years or so showing the world that we're willing to create and use the most powerful weapons ever designed.  At this point, we don't really have to convince anyone that we are willing to fight when provoked, so we shouldn't actually have to do it very often.  Combine our military might with our economic and cultural might, and what this it is that we're in a better position than almost any country in history to be a global force without constantly being at war.  I know I strayed from my original point, but the point that I'm attempting to make is that our military is capable of great good, and yet it's used for other purposes.  If we had spent 5% of the resources in Darfur that we spent in Iraq or Afghanistan, we could have had a profound impact, and without the tremendous loss of life and international prestige.

I want to see a military policy truly based on defense and support.  Defense needs to be true defense, not "Saddam didn't like us and had bombs and stuff."  The reasons not to be continually at war and why we should not need to be stated, but the last ten years clearly indicate that is not true, so here's my belief about the folly of war:

1. The staggering human toll is the most obvious.  How many Americans, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, English, had to die during the last decade?  How many kids have lost parents, or how many parents have lost kids?  More lives are affected than just the soldiers' and victims'.
2. The lifelong cost of taking care of soldiers injured in war is rarely discussed, but how much does it cost to provide high-quality physical and emotional care for returning veterans?  Here's a great way to cut down on VA medical costs:  stop sending soldiers to dangerous places without a good reason.
3. Economically, war doesn't make tremendous sense.  I know that war is great for business, but that's not true for all businesses.  Studies show that a given amount of money spent on a highway project will produce two to three times as many jobs as the same amount of money spent on the military.  Additionally, it's not as though ordering fewer fighter planes is going to cause a major problem in the long-term--the people at Boeing or Lockheed or wherever are highly skilled engineers, accountants, managers, and craftsmen.  I think that, long-term, they would land on their feet.  Not enough jobs available?  Gee, if only they had the brains to start a business.  Short-term, there would be a major problem with this economically, or perhaps these companies could diversify.  I would imagine that a company like Boeing could find another field they could have some success in.  I can't imagine a set of  companies in better shape to enter high-tech manufacturing fields at volume.
4. I'm not convinced that our national security is greatly enhanced through our military adventures across the globe.  I'm not doubting that the world is safer without a powerful al-Queda, but the largest grievance they had was American meddling in their part of the world.  I'm not arguing for giving in to the terrorists, but what did we gain by meddling?  We have over 1,000 military bases spread worldwide, and I find it hard to believe that we can't manage with half or a quarter that number.  Just how many servicemen do we need in Germany these days?  For the record, I counted 57 Army bases there.  I've never been the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, but I'm pretty confident that we could close 50 of those bases and still feel pretty good about our standing in the region.  (Especially with two bases in Belgium, four in Bulgaria, one in Greece, seven in Italy, one in Kosovo, two in the Netherlands, two in Spain, two in Turkey, and six in the United Kingdom.)

Once defense is taken care of, the second role of our government should be to function as the guarantor of rights for individuals.  From the time of the Declaration of Independence, through the Civil War Amendments and the Progressive Era, the one of the major themes in the American story is the expansion of rights and liberties to mistreated and downtrodden groups.  There is also a theme in American history, though, of groups working to enforce their views of the world on others.  Prohibition is the textbook example.  It's actually a similar movement, philosophically, that concerns me today.  The religious right has spent twenty years attempting to force itself on others.  The Establishment Clause and Free-Exercise Clause of the First Amendment are meant to protect the minority, the government, and the religious organizations themselves.  It's interesting to me, and scary, that those on the right who speak so highly of religious freedom claim that their right to exercise freely is damaged when city hall doesn't put up a Christmas tree, or when a gay couple marries.  

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Tomorrow, I'll add my thoughts on education, infrastructure and the environment.