<Political and social policy is group action.

Wrong. In a free society it's individuals doing things. Everything else is a smoke screen. Anyone talking "group action" is usually talking coercing other people do what he thinks ought to be done. Beware of politicians using collective terms like "society," or any other term that lumps people into masses.



OK, so maybe I was unduly influenced at an impressionable age by Hari Seldon... but what I was talking about is the result of all of those individuals doing things, and advocating things. By the time they're noticed, they've become trends, not individual random acts of kindness. Or, in the case of advocacy, they've become constituent pressure on legislators. That's why I used the word policy. I wasn't talking about despotism, though "the tyrrany of the majority" is not an inappropriate phrase, at times.

Interesting. When you boil it down, both you and Mary Anne imply that government assistance in some ways really was and is "your money or your life." Bread and circuses to keep the mobs away from the gates. Maybe I'm just being cynical.

I won't presume to speak for Mary Anne, though we certainly agree about this issue... but: Think of all those individual molecules in the Ideal Gas Law, and how their random Brownian motion results in pressure on the container walls. Now make the analogy to aggregate societal needs/wants/demands from their government. Nothing wrong with being cynical about bread and circuses - nevertheless, they worked in the Roman Empire and they still do. Think of it as lowering the pressure by reducing the temperature. (It hasn't been possible to increase the volume since, basically, the Louisiana Purchase; as for reducing 'n'... not a chance).

Also interesting is that everyone seems to be avoiding one of my main points, which is the government's self interest in using the mechanism of wealth redistribution to gain and keep political power. It goes without saying that those who favor the government's position are going to paint a picture of the private sector as impotent in solving these problems.

Not really ignoring it - it's moot. Power is government's self-interest, period. We still disagree about where and how that power is exercised, and to what ends, but no one with a realistic idea of government as practiced in the mundane world (as opposed to theory) will disagree that any conceivable ends are achieved by the same means: the acquisition and use of power. Those who gain it seldom wish to relinquish it.

Again, you all seem to see right through a corporation telling a story to fit its own needs and ulterior motives. Where's the skepticism when government is involved?

Alive, healthy, and within reach of the grains of salt taken with every new pronouncement, no matter who's making one. After all, if we hadn't seen the ulterior motive of public assistance keeping the mobs off the streets and the mortality rates down, would we have pointed it out in this thread?