That's like asking me which breed of Unicorn has the shortest horn. There are no small government countries excepting only Somalia, but that's not fair to talk about since they are actually under foreign rule and constant external terrorism attack.
Since you won't make it easy for me I guess we're going to have to start at the beginning. Here, tell me what you think of this short, simple vid:
George Ought to Help - YouTube
That video is stupid. At about 2 minutes in, we see that "George(?)", already knows the problem with not paying, he will be punished. The punishment in the video's case is stupid; no one is threatened with physical harm. You go to jail for not paying taxes. Secondly, my question for the libertarians, who would have built the road system that we see today for cars, along with public transit, among other tons of things large government has built up for over the years? (Public walkways, national parks, etc.)
Wow.
It's pretty rare to see someone defend the practice of lobbying. Would you like to defend murder and rape while you're at it?
Lobbying may include just talking to a congressman about a cause that concerns you, but even THAT isn't how a republic is supposed to work!
A Democracy and of course a Republic both are supposed to have each congressman reflect his or her own CONSTITUENTS desires. You know, the people that voted for him. They are supposed to represent the wishes of that district's people without any need whatsoever to be lobbied in any way... It's part of the job to find out what his constituents want and serve that interest.
Instead you are defending EXTERNAL PRESSURE AND DESIRES to come in and influence a congressman, which can basically nullify the vote of his or her constituents. That alone is IMMORAL & EVIL.
But it gets Much worse! Lobbying also gives a means to bribery, earmarks, kickbacks, extortion, and everything else that could go wrong with a system. Without the practice of lobbying how else could the bribing party and the congressman officially meet and do business? They should be kept as far apart as possible.
Lobbying is the #1 form of corruption in our government as it allows for those with money (Corps) or power (Unions) to to literally get away with murder and worse on a every-single-fucking-day basis. That's government as usual here though, all thanks to Lobbying.
You're still not getting the point. Lobbying is what everyone does when having a conversation when they want something. You're lobbying me right now to change my idea. I think that lobbying-- WHEN HEAVILY REGULATED (which is what I WROTE.) LOOKING AT YOU, US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, AND OTHER LARGE LOBBY GROUPS), can be good. For example, in my town, students went and lobbied our local congressman to be against SOPA/PIPA, after he has came out declaring that he was in support of it. He changed his mind based on the constituents, and after all of the facts were presented to him. This is an example of lobbying.
What is this? A glimmer of hope?
Nahh, you slipped again here. Dammit.
Don't you realize that it's impossible to solve such problems with money and external aid? Look at what happened in Haiti. Americans sent them so much aid and food after their big quake that we basically created a new warlord class there in charge of the food that persists to this day and 90% of the people that needed it never got any. The survivors are still mostly living in tent cities today... Years later.
All countries need to be educated to fend for themselves. The moment you interfere in any country where the majority of people are uneducated, anywhere, for any reason, you have reduced their sovereignty and caused new problems to spring up. Complete reliance on handouts always Kills more than it helps in the long run.
The only humane solution for third world nations I've ever heard is the One Laptop per Child charity. Others may exist but if the point is to make them voluntary charities, not national efforts. (See the film above for why.)
Yea, I'm curious if you know the history of Haiti, and how exactly the entire situation arose which lead to their current problems. Haiti was ruled by the Spanish until the early 1900s when the Spanish pulled out after the Spanish-American War, which we (America) won. After they pulled out, we basically said to Haiti, "well, we helped you win the war! you're on your own". They had legitimately no infrastructure nor economy to build off of, and basically since then, have been in a huge disparity between the greedy rich, and the poor which can't do anything at all in the state due to the military which defends the government heavily. This is seen all over the world, when we give money to a nation the government doesn't redistribute it into the economy, rather they keep a good portion of it for themselves to help continue the regime. Most of Africa is like this.
To add onto that, the one laptop for one child in Africa recently went broke, due to shitty amount of contributions and through very little help from government and shitty administration.
This part I can agree with; not that we need any taxes in the first place but still it's not that far off from what this country needs right now.
How are we going to fund schools without taxes? And create an educated public, similar to that of Sweden, Norway, and other Nordic/Scandinavian countries?
Wrongo. We make NO assumptions whatsoever in any way that "the people will voluntarily be good." Your mind is creating our need to assume that but it's the furthest thing from the truth. There is NO NEED for "People to behave" with a small or even NO government. You've been fed a myth.
Minarchists and Anarcho-Capitalists agree that if your system is based on Property rights first and foremost, then it's in everyone's best interest to follow the golden rule. If you don't, things get ugly very fast, so nobody wants that.
As it is now, things take a long time to 'blow up' and when they do, they blow up BIG. Not so when property rights are put first.
Also, your other idea that "small government doing great things for the people" is another horrible assumption. We DON'T WANT a government to do anything for us at all. No Roads, no firemen, no medicare, None of it. The private sector, once a government stops tilting the table, ALWAYS does a better job than any government could do in every industry.
This is quite the opposite of your assumption. How did you get such a weird idea of us? Could it have been encouraged by the Mainstream media, perhaps?
LOL, I honestly don't know if you've even studied any history, European or American. When Laissez-Faire was in effect, tons of technology was prevented from moving forward. You know the huge fucking amount of poor living in shitty villages under the government not interacting with the people in America? Just look up the history of the steel mills. When industrialization came to America, it created an entire generation of incredibly poor and uneducated people that were forced to work in terrible conditions, etc. This was the government NOT interfering at all. The EXACT same thing happened in Europe during the industrial revolution, which had people working 16-hour work days because of Adam Smith's concept of "Laissez-Faire". In case you don't know what it is, here's a link:
Laissez-faire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sadly I think you're right that we can't avoid it, not without something drastic like a seastead or moonstead, and perhaps those would only be temp fixes.
...It certainly doesn't make any of this right, however. Mankind's deepest desire is for FREEDOM. Meanwhile, Governments = Slavery.
I'm curious then, when in history has a small government helped the majority of people in a state? I can't think of a small government or no government helping anybody, and as the world becomes globalized, this idea needs to be put down and let people focus on the problems at hand.
