What's the draw to having the government take care of you?

Thanks a lot for the replies leadslinger and Neo. INteresting points to ponder for sure. Also raises some new questions. Neo doesn't the country provide you with constant protection already no matter if you serve or not? After all there is an active military ready 24/7. If only those who served were to be protected in return wouldn't that basically reduce or eliminate protection for all considering there would be no efficient way to check who is who?

I'm not sure I follow how paying taxes keeps the lights on. I'm sure you will explain what you mean but until then I'll have to reserve comment. Well except one thing. We do not pay the government to develop energy efficient utilities nor should we. As soon as we come to rely on government for things like this I feel the country will be screwed. History has proven the best inventions come from the private sector.

I feel the government is to serve two basic services. First and foremost is protection. Protection from all things internally and externally. A broad description I know. External protection includes, obviously, acts of war primarily but should also include safety nets on imported products. Think Chinese lead paint. The second service would be as "banker". Think Monopoly. The banker on Monopoly holds the money of the people and only spends it when needed. Now that is an over simplified version of course but it begins the point. Our government collects trillions of dollars in taxes and spends them, seemingly, without "our" input. That is wrong. Somehow we need to get things under control and more directly involve the people. I think liberalism and socialism began by accident to be honest. At least when referred to in the negative context most of us use. How by accident? People continued to give up their tax money and in more convenient ways such as allowing it to be taken from our paychecks. When is the last time you've actually seen a revenuer out collecting? While we allowed for easier and more convenient ways to give the government our tax money we've also been involved less and less in the decision making by not going to localized meetings or writing and calling our local elected. We've sent the message, likely by accident, that we will give you our money and trust you to do the rest. The problem is obvious. The federal government cannot be trusted in private with our money. Now with nearly no citizen input billions and billions of our tax dollars are spent every year. Who controls cost of services the government buys? Who decides what it gets spent on? Who decides how much tax is collected? Not us! That seems very wrong.

Fundamentally it is possible, I suppose, for liberalism and socialism to have a place in a well balanced society. Maybe it is even necessary. But under the current definition and execution I want nothing to do with it. If I had my druthers I'd prefer everyone be able to support themselves financially and eliminate the need for any government intervention. But at the very base the problem is people. Singularly a person is smart. But beyond that "people" are one of the dumbest beasts capable of logical thinking that exist.

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