Why should the government support alternative energy research? That's
rightly in the perview of the public, not government.

heh heh who made this intelligent (NOT) remark?




Gould 0738 wrote:
Whose interests should the government represent, if not "the public"?

'zactly.


We need either:

1. A minimalist government that performs *only* those specific functions
outlined in the Constitution. Many people, (self included) would be just fine
with this, but our political system discourages it. The more aspects of life
the government can become invovled with, the more powerful and self
perpetuating a position in that government becomes.

Agreed, but there's a bit more to it than that. Nobody ever went to testify to
Congress that the gov't should spend LESS money on a given problem. There is
supposed to be a check & balance here in that voters can remove fiscally
irresponsible members of the gov't, but with the advent of mass media and
scientific advertising, people vote for whoever has the biggest campaign budget.



OR....

2. We need a government that is not so blatantly for sale every few years. We
have a system where everybody just expects that the government is corrupt

I disagree. Not everybody expects the U.S. gov't to be corrupt, nor the states, in
fact I'd suggest that by comparison to muchof the rest of the world, we have a
very low rate of corruption. And gov't officials do respond to the threat of
public exposure.

I suggest that what we need the most are slightly more intelligent voters (or
perhaps just better informed), with slightly longer memories.

Regards- Doug King