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I do not allow ANYONE to tell me what I can put into my body. >>
Live on your own island, eh? Live in the US and you do allow someone to tell you what you can and cannot put into your body. Try to find thalidamide. Oh, you can't find this....the FDA outlawed its use here in the US........guess the birth defects were cause enough.
Removing all the departments from the federal government would indeed drop taxes......federal taxes that is. But most of those functions would drop into the states' lap, and the states would most definitely increase their tax rates to do those jobs. It certainly is trendy to bray about no agriculture dept., no FCC, etc.....yet give no consideration to the long term consequences of these actions.
To completely decentralize almost all the governmental agencies you talk of would throw us back to the days of the states acting like independent countries. Each setting its own standards, no uniformity between them. Importation/exportation of goods, for one example, would drastically change.
Imagine Toyota facing 50 different clean air standards, or sets of safety regulations. Further imagine each state with "border tarriffs" that must be satisfied before goods move across their state lines. That in itself would drive up the cost of doing business more in some states vs. others. This could have the effect of making some states quite unattractive to live in (very high taxes but broad state government services) as opposed to others (low taxes but few government services). But buying a car across state lines might be impossible, unless that car meets your particular state's requirements.
This is not as far fetched as it may sound. California already requires stricter pollution controls as compared to the other 49 states. It doesn't take too much vision to imagine let loose, state governments run amok with well intentioned but poorly thought out laws. The Florida legislature wanted exhaust pipes of cars to have a minimum exit height of 32". This was supposed to help in air pollution, but was nothing more than a dumb idea. It was only prevented from becoming state law by the DOT, the federal one. There are numerous other laws states produce that are as onerous as any the feds produce, maybe more. Georgia's anti-sodomy laws are one example. Good ole conservative values being enforced in your bedroom......
I'm tired, but I just cannot believe people are so naive to think that the Civil war was never fought........because it did already settle this issue. Strong states rights and a weak federal government vs. weak states and a strong centralized federal government. But I suppose it's too attractive to rail against something big, especially when one knows it will not disappear, today or tomorrow.
The fact remains this country has had and will have a strong federal government because sometimes things run better with some centralized control and organization.
I know.....privatize everything........that always seems to be the answer bandied around these days. Sometimes it makes sense, but in many cases it doesn't. I would prefer the regulations of the FDS, for example, to continue to assure our food safety. Some say privatize this function and have each state do it. I shudder to think that the same care devoted to making tires (Firestone) or cars (Ford and the exploding Pinto) or properly disposing of toxic waste (Love Canal) would be given to food inspection by a private company. As I remember it, the function of a private company is to make a profit, nothing else. And most companies will do the most to maximize their profits...and will cut expenses to the bone, no matter what.
And to the surprise of many, most companies would love to control their employees' lives......much like was done at the turn of the 20th century. Ford, for instance, had strict requirements for employment......signing pledges for no drinking, etc. Of course, this was before the advent of labor unions, unions that fought for fair treatment of workers, decent hours, and produced the beginnings of the benefits we have today. Now imagine the arm of the federal government being removed, the states having to take up the inspection and regulation of the workplaces.......a nightmare waiting to be started.
Well, it's late and I'm tired. I jsut still am amazed that people chase after pipe dreams, such as the Libertarian party. If the energy that they put into decrying the size of government and its evils were spent trying to produce somethign constructive, maybe some changes would happen. But tilting at windmills is just that, an exercise in futility. I guess it is easier to stand around criticizing instead of getting ut and doing something, but that's jsut some people's way. C'est la vie.
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