Next time you talk to one of those "Less Government" fanatics...

[garybeck]

tell them to move to Haiti. It's all there waiting for them.

My wife just got back from a week in Haiti and she said the biggest problem there is that there effectively is no government. There are basically no taxes and no government services. While she was telling me this, it occured to me -- isn't this what the tea partiers and neocons have been asking for?

Well they should go to Haiti to see what the promised land might look like for them:

no roads

you have to pay to go to school

no police

no clean drinking water

sporadic electricity

no garbage collection - people just toss their trash everywhere

no sewer system. The rivers are the sewers.

People bathe and drink out of the same rivers that are used as sewers.

Huge health problems exist because of lack of sanitation

No public hospitals - since the earthquake people have been treated for free but soon they will go back to charging people for treatments and turning away people who can't afford it.


Anyone who thinks "Less government is better government" should go spend a few days in Haiti for a reality check. We need government. We need taxation. We need government services. We need government regulation. Unless you like drinking out of the same river you just took a crap into.

[grantcart]

1. Ask them what agencies do they want eliminated

Coast Guard? No more sea rescues?

CDC? bring back Measles?

FAA? too much regulation of airline pilots?

USDA? stop checking the beef in the food chain?

[Echo In Light]

3. The ones not keeping tabs on anti-war groups i.e. "terrorists"

[Echo In Light]

2. The 'smaller govt' cons only apply that to social safety nets yet LOVE a vast Big Bro police $tate

[MineralMan]

4. They should go to Haiti....period.

And stay there.

[EFerrari]

5. I've been pointing this out for weeks.

And it goes for the privatizing geniuses, too, not only the teahadists.

[Initech]

6. The teabaggers live in fantasy land - they don't want a reality check.

[MagCynic]

7. What happens when they say "Less government does not equal no government"?

[Johnyawl]

8. Ask them how much less...

...and demand answers as to what they want to get rid of. The rank and file amongst the "less gov't" crowd haven't really given it that much thought, other then to get rid of any program that doesn't benefit them personally.

Ask Grover Nordquist, the idealogical father of the "less gov't" movement, and he'll give you an answer that brings Haiti to mind.

[garybeck]

9. they don't have no government in Haiti, just a lot less.

ask them exactly which programs they would like to cut. Police? CDC? ask them which regulations they'd like to cut. NRC? see reply #1.

[Festivito]

11. They might want to check out Somalia or Chile.

Somalia for none, except the rule of pirates off the coast.

Chile for the fact they had an earthquake, larger, nearer large cities, with tsunami, and all they requested after we spent tens of thousands of dollars to take Secretary of State over there was 70 satellite cell phones the probably sent off to low level rescue workers in rural areas.

The rest they had in the bank since they are a bit on the socialist side after that intervening fascism with Pinochet that saw to a new pension system that quickly fell apart.

Furthermore, their building codes came from 1972 when they had the socialist government of Salvatore Allende, whom we had killed and tortured and killed his supporters in 1973 and on.

Thanks to socialism, they had good building codes and money in the bank. Dang fiscally conservative socialism! We the US could have had another military base there by now under the pretense of helping rescue them.

They just aren't needy enough yet. We'll have to mess up their government again and when things are bad enough, they'll let us steal their land for a base. Can't wait, can ya? BTW, that's where your big government spending goes.

[mzmolly]

10. I've thought that too. Haiti should be a xanadu for these neanderthals.

No offense to neanderthals intended. ;)