We had Karen Handel and Ray McBerry,
But here’s a post so everyone’s treated fairly.
In case you didn’t see it on the TV Box,
(And here you can watch it in just your socks)
I know a couple of you are ready to throw rocks…
So for equal time, here’s Ox on Fox.
(And yes I did read a lot of Dr. Seuss as a child)
{ 1 trackback }
{ 42 comments }
What I found laughable about it (and trust me, I DO plan on continuing to use it against him), it that he said that “Providing water is a basic function of government”.
Yet the Founding Fathers said that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
The funny thing is that I don’t see providing water anywhere in those couple of sentences…
D.K.B., I’m happy you are the only person on earth that can live without water.
Either that or you live in a rural area where you can drill your own well.
Government provided water sources in urban areas in 1776 just like they do now. So either the Founding Fathers were hypocrits or you’re as clueless to the proper roll of government at each level as I am right now as to how to embed the actual video.
DK,
A few facts: Water is a necessity for life. If you disagree with this, try going without it for 3 days.
If you do not believe that government can provide water more cheaply or more reliably than if thousands of people paid money to dig their own wells, then you’re not being very smart.
What Oxendine said is pretty correct. Unless you’d like to live in the boonies and pump your own water and boil it every time. And, you folks in SW Georgia might like to do that.
Dark Knight Begins
Without water you cannot live. A rational person would understand water is a big issue!
What about Scott? If we are going to be fair let’s go ahead and get them all.
If Scott’s interview is up, I’ll post it as well, but I have to head to class. I’m also waiting for tech support (Chris Farris) to explain to me how to embed the actual video.
The problem is, not a lot rhymes with Scott.
You guys thought you had it wrapped up when Georgia’s best politician Casey Cagle pulled out for medical reasons. Ox is his own worst enemy every time he opens his mouth. Johnson will bury him, I don’t think he can beat Handel either.
Jason, government does not have to supply water to cities, it just does. Probably because it can. If it did not supply the water, I doubt anyone would go without, but I cannot prove it. I only know that government does not supply food to those without garden space, yet everyone seems to eat pretty well, so don’t worry. If the government source drys up due to mismanagement, the evil greedy profiteers will make sure everyone gets a drink.
.
cheers
You can’t prove it, but you assert it. Nice.
Well folks, make yourself heard. Is supplying H2O a basic function of (local) government? Vote in Jeff Sexton’s poll http://networkedblogs.com/p4272466
Batman,
I’ll take you at your word that you will continue to use this against him. Please do. It helps the rest of us better articulate your definition of the word “limited” in limited government.
It also demonstrates that many Libertarians look at the U.S. Constitution as the end all, be all, of defining the scope of government. You neglect to notice that the Constitution only enumerates the powers of the FEDERAL Government. All other powers are reserved to the states.
Please keep up the good work. It helps the rest of us better able to articulate that our party is the one of limited government, and should not be confused with the party of anarchy.
Benjy, you give a false analogy. If food was like water, you’d have fresh food every time you opened the refrigerator door. Also, water, unlike food, is used for much more than ingestion. You wash with it, garden with it, landscape, use it for recreation, and need it to be removed for sanitation purposes. Some cities do provide trash collection and some do not. That service takes away your old food, but you can compost it or take it to the dump (usually owned by the county) yourself.
Also, cities maintain the roads which you drive to the grocery store on and the garbage trucks drive on to take away your old food, just like they supply the infrastructure for bringing in fresh and removing waste water.
Government’s base job is to provide for necessities that the private sector cannot or will not.
Water has proven to be one of those services. When the government has to open a street to repair a water main, they are pay for the repair to both the pipes and the road out of the same pot of money. You have issues of right of way, eminent domain, massive capital funding which the government typically pays for via bonds, which all would make it difficult for a private company to want to invest in such a massive capital venture.
Well Icarus, Georgia did sign the Declaration of Independence. Of course there are 37 other states that did not.
Shep:
1) Ox never said it was a basic function of LOCAL government. The exact quote was noted above – he said GOVERNMENT, not a particular form of it.
2) I MIGHT even be willing to give you that it is an auxilliary function of government. Honestly, like Transportation, I’m not sure exactly what I think at that level.
But to say that it is a BASIC (re: primary) function of government is flat out WRONG. Government’s ONLY BASIC function is to secure the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Furthermore, if you want to argue local level: I’m not going to say there are no local water sources, as I honestly don’t know (though I would assume any of those that exist would be river-based). But I know for a FACT that both Allatoona and Lanier – northern Atlanta’s two primary water sources – are Army Corps of Engineers (a FEDERAL agency) programs.
Icarus:
Your party is for LIMITED government?
Why did your most recent President EXPAND government more than any before him save MAYBE LBJ and FDR?
Sheppie’s nose is so brown he finds it hard to determine if it is the Ox’s flatulence or a turd. He’s about as bad as the dang press releases they send out daily.
Bart, eat my shorts.
Batman, you’re parsing words to fit them to your own spin and agenda.
DKB,
I believe GW Bush put LBJ and FDR to shame, with one Medicare prescription drug bill. The GOP is great for lip service on limited government but when it actually comes to removing departments that had no business being there in the first place, they fail to act. The Georgia GOP Legislature is running around telling everyone that they cut government this year. What a load, Not one department was eliminated. Like David Shafer says in his stump speech, we were spending $1,000 per human in Georgia not all that long ago, we now spend $2000, and his numbers do not include the federal dollars. (20 Billion from the feds this year)
Should we discuss all the female hormones flushed into our water supply thanks to toxic birth control pills that increase breast cancer rates, are abortifacient, and pollute both the environment and the health of those drinking in the tap water, since government purification plants don’t have the ability to remove pharmaceuticals?
Just curious….
Shep:
No, I’m just not letting the GOP parse its own words to fit ITS agenda.
Jason Shepard wrote
>>Government’s base job is to provide for necessities that the private sector cannot or will not.
Water has proven to be one of those services. <<
Can you prove that?
Seriously, Jason, we can only opine as to what government’s “base” job is. I am here to “assert” to you that IMO, government’s job is whatever it chooses to enforce, and that should properly be only the enforcement of a rule of law based on Natural Rights, and nothing else.
I find your idea that there are goods or services which cannot be supplied outside of government to be inconceivable.
Providing water is a government function when the cost of a gallon is so ridiculously subsidized that private entities cannot afford to provide that service.
Chris:
You’re proving my point in a way.
Remove government from the equation, and private organizations will take over.
Because a private organization COULD take over and provide the same service, it is NOT a ‘basic function of government’.
Not particularly interested in eating a man’s shorts. Not keen sniffing their rears either. I know I know John boy is your man but his shorts?
I like a lot of what Oxendine says he stands for. However, if he takes the position that all of Georgia needs to pay for Atlanta’s transportation woes, he has lost already.
The majority of Georgians live outside metro Atlanta (Fulton, Cobb, Decatur, Douglas, Gwinnett), and the majority of Georgia’s gross domestic product is produced outide of metro Atlanta. Though I live in Cherokee county, and used to live in Cobb county, I grew up and lived in south Georgia and I can tell you that there, as well as Cherokee and anywhere that is not “metro Atlanta”, the level of distaste for spending our money to benefit metro Atlanta is quite high.
As to the discussion on water, how about we get government out of the way of the landowner? Anyone should be able to drill a well on their own property and use that water on their own land, but it is government, acting as a monopoly, that prevents that. Deep wells may not give the lowest cost per gallon, but deep wells are a much more reliable source of water than govenrment-run lakes. If the various cities and counties that depend solely on government-run lakes had kept their deep wells running as a backup, they would not have had problems with water shortages. And, for the record, there hasn’t been a real drought in Georgia for some time. The only lakes that are down or hav ebeen down in a long time are government-drained and managed lakes. I live on a 560 acre private lake, fed entirely by underground springs. It was never more than 3 feet below normal last year at the height of the “drought”.
An interview well done Governor-elect Oxendine. Oxendine has proven to be a motivational, smart, effective, and inspiring figure in politics. He is a man everybody should stride to be like. GO OXENDINE!!!
Isn’t Amtrak private?
I don’t even need to watch this to know I’d never vote for him. In one sentence he talks about limited government, and in the next he’s talking about how he’d veto any bill that came across his desk that legalized Sunday alcohol sales. What an idiot.
DK,
Because a private organization COULD take over and provide the same service, it is NOT a ‘basic function of government’.
Water is a basic necessity. A REAL necessity. You really do not want to put a product like water supply into the hands of “private contractors” where they can charge you more money than you can pay for, again, a NECESSITY.
Go check your economics books on goods and services that are necessities for life to be sustained.
AND…while you’re thinkng about that, think about what the “privatization” aspect of what you think would occur: Is it practical to have 2 water pipelines buried in the ground so that each independent company can supply your house with water?
Bill, so if government should provide all things which are necessary, what about health care? Are you proposing that people that need heart surgery to continue to live should be given that by government? What about people that need other sorts of health care to continue to live? After all, your argument is that government should pay for anything that is a necessity for life to be sustained, right?
In one sentence he talks about limited government
So he should.
and in the next he’s talking about how he’d veto any bill that came across his desk that legalized Sunday alcohol sales.
Which is why we all should support him.
What an idiot.
No, you’re an idiot for not liking Ox.
macho,
Amtrack is not private. Amtrak is privately held and government run. That is traditional, classic, economic fascism, and exactly where the Obama/Democrat/Rockefeller Republican’ts want to take us.
Here’s a history lesson: The 1st big government President, Abe Lincoln, pushed for the building of the first transcontenintal railroad in America – a government/private partnership. After the War for Southern Independence
, Great Northern Railroad built a transcontenintal railroad. They did it in less time, over more difficult terrain, without government help or management, for less cost, and without the near-slave labor of the governmnet-run program under Lincoln.
When companies are truly private, when government shows no more favor towards large companies than small ones, then capitalism works. When companies begin to be subject to government management and/or regulation, we get an economy like this one (where government intervention in the private sector caused this current problem).
I agree that in some things, local and state governments have a role, with the agreement of the majority of voters. Water, power, etc. make sense for local and/or state government to act as an arbitor. The problem comes when government exercises a monopoly and prevents people from serving themselves, and when government starts acting in a fascist sense (economically). Being able to drill your own well, put in your own septic tank, and use them is one example of where government currently interferes.
Macho, there is nothing private about Amtrak. GOP administrations have tried to starve it; I suspect this administration will fatten its budget up.
Amtrak is a fine example of government doing what private enterprise could not. Post WWII, no private railroad ever made much money transporting passengers. Most of them bled cash and desperately wished to dump the services offered, but were not allowed to by federal regulations. Amtrak became the solution in ‘71.
If Amtrak is lucky, it covers its operating expenses with fare income. It does not every make enough to invest in new equipment, to add new routes, to hire more employees…congress appropriates funds annually to keep it running.
Private airlines have a devil of a time turning a profit with subsidized airports. Railroads do not have subsidized rights-of way. Given the unequal playing field, I challenge any die-hard libertarian to operate a passenger railroad profitably. I also challenge those libertarians to eliminate those railroads as unnecessary.
The proper function of gummint, beyond the protection of the rights of the individual, are those necessary functions that the private sector cannot do profitably. Passenger rail is one of those things.
Bill,
Food, Shelter and clothing are also considered the basic necessities. Should the government be running kroger and macy’s too? Power, cable and gas all have right-of-way restrictions yet are managed (to a greater or lesser extent) by the various PSCs, etc.
I’m not one who agrees with DKB that water shouldn’t be provided by the local government. I have a big issue with the incompetents at the Federal level and the slightly less incompetents at the state being the ones who control the supplies. It should be Gwinnett county’s problem to make sure it has enough water supply for the growth and building it is doing. Not the Army or State of Georgia.
Ox is pandering again.
Chris:
As I’ve stated, I MAY not have a problem with local government doing it – so long as they do not force even their own citizens to use their service.
I tend to give a great deal of latitude to local governments that I would NEVER consider allowing the State or Federal level to have. But this is assuming that no one’s rights are being violated – which I believe should be the State’s primary function to ensure. (Similarly, I believe the Federal govt’s first and foremost duty is to ensure that the States do not violate the rights of their citizens.)
So if water provisioning is a function basic or otherwise of government because it is life sustaining, then with that the government should provide food and healthcare as a function of government too eh? Oh what a slippery slope….
shotgunjohn said;
>> Given the unequal playing field, I challenge any die-hard libertarian to operate a passenger railroad profitably. I also challenge those libertarians to eliminate those railroads as unnecessary.<<
If something cannot be operated profitably in a free market, then the cost of providing the service is higher than the revenue the enterprize would generate. In other words, it is by definition, unnecessary. No one wants it enough to voluntarily pay for it.
Chris,
Food, Shelter and clothing are also considered the basic necessities.
There are many different types of clothing, food, and shelter. There is only ONE type of potable water.
But, you simply cannot live w
Rain water, cistern, natural resovoir, well water, river water, de-sal , distilled, reverse osmosis, solar collected, recycled water…
If there is one thing in this world that we have plenty of, it is water.
and government
The Roman Empire made sure to design a water supply system and a sewer system. They made sure the basics were in place. They didn’t want sh*t to hit something it wasn’t designed to hit (after all, there was no fan invented yet)…
Ancient Rome had it made when the Government simply built the roads and the aqueducts (basic infrastructure). Then they decided to get into entertainment to destract the people. It was downhill from there. coluseums, amphetheatres, vomitoriums…
Then came the Texas Rangers (the Baseball team)
Vomitoriums! That’s what’s missing from our American culture!
Comments on this entry are closed.