Isn't Gary Johnson Governer Veto? You guys really are crazy over there if you think you need to cut government services. You have the worst government services in the industrialised world and all the problems that go along with that, yet you think government needs to be smaller. You spend more on prisons and police than education and wonder why your crime rate is obscene, you spend more on the military than everything else put together and wonder why the world distrusts you, where is the logic?
That's the general position of Libertarians, actually. A good half of US "criminals" in prison are in there only for drug-related crimes. Legalize drugs, and we have smaller prisons and no more overcrowding. Same goes for prostitution, gambling, etc. Also, we need to cut the military, seriously.
You pay less tax as a % of GDP than most of the industrialised world, yet spend more on the military, again as a % of GDP, than anywhere else, and you want to fund it by cutting government services that maintain a stable society. I gotta say, from the outside, it looks insane. How did they put it on that talk show in the UK? Something like: "You have the Democrats, who stand to the right of every government in the world, and Republicans, who are just insane." Now you have the Tea Party because Republicans aren't crazy enough?
Once again, we want to cut the military.
Your government is tiny. It already fails to provide all of the people it represents with the basic human rights that the rest of us take for granted, but apparently it still isn't Somalian enough for you guys.
Government doesn't "provide" rights. People have them by default. Government only needs to exist to defend rights and its people.
I don't have basic healthcare, or clean water by default, which is exactly my point. We take this stuff for granted, you guys don't acknowledge them as rights, you treat them as commodities. Did you have a go at my questions for libertarians?
I actually think healthcare should be universal, but only because it's way cheaper. Clean water is kind of a state/local government thing, but my position is that it should probably be provided by the government. I'm not quite as far right as most, actually.
Though as far as rights go, I'm waaay up there. Drugs? Fine. Prostitution? Fine. Gambling? Fine. Gay marriage? Fine. Abortions? Keep the government out of it.
http://www.lenconnect.com/news/local_government/x593980584/Norvell-Township-gives-up-fight-over-600-000-sewer-system-debthttp://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2010/04/about_265_wamplers_lake_sewer.htmlhttp://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2008/12/norvell_still_working_to_settl.htmlhttp://www.lenconnect.com/news/x811424498/Sewer-debt-unresolvedThe ones that run basic services like some kind of fief should probably not be trusted. My dad had to fight this tooth and nail, after he won by putting the matter on a local ballot which forced the sewer lord to rethink his strategy and go around his pocket of resistance.
There are definitely residences at the lake a half mile away that would benefit from a sewer, and hypothetically the lake that I had been swimming in at the time would too. (which coincidentally was the reason for the sewer, keeping the hypothetical poop out of the lake)
If I remember correctly someone changed zoning laws so your septic tank can't be within a certain distance from the shore, which made some houses require a sewer. (this was the enabler) Since it wouldn't be fair to make only the people who need it pay for it, they might as well run a sewer system through the whole area and charge the farmers for sewers too. Then, after that you might as well set yourself up as drain commissioner and make your wages a % of whatever is put into the sewer fund. That way, if the system is larger, you make ridiculous amounts of money! Since voting is done township wide, you only need to find loopholes in the system. Such as befriending a trailer park owner via incentives so you can use his right to the land to claim 400 votes. After all it's residences that are voting, not people, in this election.
I suppose I'll request my dad write a book about it someday. Until then I guess I'll keep it to this late night post.
For some reason we were going to be forced to hook up to the sewer. Keep in mind my house didn't need a sewer. If we needed a sewer, then we have 20+ acres to do it on, all of which are comfortably far from the lake in question that was the reason given to go to sewers in the first place. (That being sewage was escaping into the lake),
Anyways though, my dad had to spend a lot of time opposing this, and it's still in the newspapers to this day, about how it continues to cost money, although according to the paper things are looking up. I hope that now it's under more local-er control we'll stop seeing newspaper stories with the word sewer featured prominently.
EDIT: Removed my request for employment at local newspaper.
EDIT2: Also, I should note that I haven't read much in this thread beyond 'politics' and 'sewers' so I made a quote and started yelling.