Bankrupt California city to vote on sales tax hike

Since Zaphod chooses to reply with links which may be great reference footnotes but unrealistic for most to use in a format like this, I will try to summarize at least one point.

Some of the things you list are false impressions — created by a bombardment of media attention to whatever current outrage can be found in the world. Modern news media output seems to be expanding exponentially and they need to fill their coverage with grabbing stories to survive. The internet in particular makes this easy. Crimes about which you would not have heard unless they occurred locally 40 years ago are now made into national media circuses (i.e. George Zimmerman trial.)

Rape reporting is way up but I suspect that actual rapes aren’t — and may be down. There have always been crooked politicians. If they are worse now (a point with which I agree), it is because they have been so successful at legalizing their corruption.

I think government is a mixed blessing. It does some good things that wouldn’t get done if left to the private sector such as fighting discrimination and protecting the environment.

It is often imperfect in how it goes about these actions and can often become excessively controlling due to the fact that imperfect people create and manage such programs. (The APCD may be a fine example of bureaucrats with a huge incentive — their funding — to make mountains out of molehills as a form of job protection.) What we can and should do is watch for abuses of power and take the time to think realistically about consequences of proposed actions.

Still, I remember when the air quality in LA was worse than today despite a much smaller population and I haven’t heard of any rivers in Ohio catching on fire recently. While discrimination still exists, it is far less prevalent and far more suppressed than when I was a kid. The National Center for Disease Control and government funding for research has helped greatly with many diseases — although ones related to lifestyle choices remain a challenge. The internet and GPS came from Defense Dept. programs.

There have been failures too and some of them are due to bureaucratic greed and failure to correctly foresee consequences. But, in the balance, if life today is worse than it was a generation or three back, it is also better in some ways. Where the balance lies is largely a matter of values and perception. I am as concerned about excessive expansion of government as you are but more because of its use in creating increasing economic disparity than because of its costs. (Compare upper income tax rates with the 1950’s — a period of American prosperity — and you will see what I mean.)