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Poll: Do you trust politicians to keep their promises?
- Thread starter glenn1
- Start date
You need to add "I am not" to the last three questions.
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Depends what trust means. I trust businesses to act in their own interest and in many ways this is beneficial. But fundamentally there are more independent controls and monitoring of and management of government so I "trust" it more. Doesn't mean I hate businesses or anything or prefer that government make my consumer electronics.
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Depends what trust means. I trust businesses to act in their own interest and in many ways this is beneficial. But fundamentally there are more independent controls and monitoring of and management of government so I "trust" it more. Doesn't mean I hate businesses or anything or prefer that government make my consumer electronics.
glenn1
Lifer
My question was purposely designed to be generic. If I asked you "do you like girls," would you need me to specify which girls before you were able to answer the question? (no, I'm not questioning your sexual preferences, I'm just making a point).
Likewise since individual politicians by nature are a class of people and a single component part of an integrated larger body such as Congress or a state legislature it doesn't make sense to try to reduce it to the individual level.
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
Governments exist to keep themselves in power, and companies to satisfy the stockholders.
On the whole, there is nothing to trust.
On the whole, there is nothing to trust.
Zebo
Elite Member
Can't believe you did'nt include power. Oh well that's the biggest modivator almost unbritled power of privelidge, money, VIP status ...hell congress even exempts itself form laws they create.
As far as trusting? In a word no, I think Theodore Roosevelt was greatest president ever and a great philosopher so I'll quote him,
"A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad. "
Dissipate
Diamond Member
Yes, in some cases we can. For instance, take a look at the elimination of Gray Davis in California. However, due to the very nature of government itself, who takes office is of secondary importance. The very nature of government is coercion, which inevitably leads to corruption. Once an office is created along with all of the social engineering and wealth expropriation powers that go with it, it does not really matter who fills it to the extent that we know that whoever fills the office is inevitably going to become a social engineer and wealth expropriator.
The real question is, can we eliminate an entire political office on a whim? The answer is no. The extreme arrogance and pomp of government and bureaucracy is the assumption that it must exist in the first place. For instance, if you ever look on a ballot you will undoubtedly never see an option that says: "Eliminate this office."
What would you actually define 'trusting' big business vs 'trusting' government as ?
I'd trust an goverment funded study of, say, the health risks of smoking as opposed to a corporate statement by a tobacco company.
Corporate advertising and political campaigning are at about an equal level of trustworthiness - i.e. none.
On the other hand, I would generally expect a large corporate to act in line with it's shareholder's expectations considerably more than I would expect any particular politician to act in his/her constituent's best interests, if for no other reason than in many cases half of them want contradictory things to the other half.
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
Another thing is what constitutes "trust" I trust a hungry lion. I trust it to eat someone.
I think it was Cornelius Vanderbilt who said in effect "The public be damned. I work for the stockholders."
The "free market" is about making money. Sometimes making money is not what society needs. A whole lot of publically funded research has benefited business. Because a need suddenly develops doesn't mean it will be filled in a timely fashion. We should have been researching for alternatives to oil after the Embargo, but there was no money in it. Consequently we are tied to an unstable region of the world. We are in a war because of oil. Not that we are trying to get Iraqi resources, but that we are hypersensitive to what happens there. If oil were not an issue, then Kuwait would not have been attacked because of Saddams belief that they were slant drilling, and Saddam may not have been in power at all, though that isn't certain.
All it would have taken was a fraction of what this war is costing. Even today, we are asked for yet another 80 billion and another and another. And we will say yes every time. We are poor at planning beyond the next fiscal quarter.
I think it was Cornelius Vanderbilt who said in effect "The public be damned. I work for the stockholders."
The "free market" is about making money. Sometimes making money is not what society needs. A whole lot of publically funded research has benefited business. Because a need suddenly develops doesn't mean it will be filled in a timely fashion. We should have been researching for alternatives to oil after the Embargo, but there was no money in it. Consequently we are tied to an unstable region of the world. We are in a war because of oil. Not that we are trying to get Iraqi resources, but that we are hypersensitive to what happens there. If oil were not an issue, then Kuwait would not have been attacked because of Saddams belief that they were slant drilling, and Saddam may not have been in power at all, though that isn't certain.
All it would have taken was a fraction of what this war is costing. Even today, we are asked for yet another 80 billion and another and another. And we will say yes every time. We are poor at planning beyond the next fiscal quarter.
Dissipate
Diamond Member
The main point that alot of you are missing is that no you cannot trust big business or big government. The main distinction, however, is the fact that you must do business with the politicians while on the other hand, with business you can choose not to. Furthermore, the government is monopolistic, and has an extreme amount of centralized power. Business has a much more spread out and equitable amount of power. Hence, it is not really a matter of trust, it is a matter of who can force you to business with it and who monopolizes force, and the only entity that fits that bill is Big Government.
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