And not the problem of responsiveness, no. Because government, at least at the Federal level is not designed to be responsive. The "gridlock" in D.C. is, at least a fundamental level, by design. The problem you have is more ammo for the blockheads who argue "See, the market works! We should privatize everything and we'd get a more responsive government." Which of course is stupid, but I'll bet a dollar that someone at the National Review Online, or some other repository of reactionary foolishness will have that article up before the end of the week.
[slight directional change here] I mean, they already have this delusional rant up about Steve Jobs. This idiocy is the crux:
Mr. Jobs’s contribution to the world is Apple and its products, along with Pixar and his other enterprises, his 338 patented inventions — his work — not some Steve Jobs Memorial Foundation for Giving Stuff to Poor People in Exotic Lands and Making Me Feel Good About Myself. Because he already did that: He gave them better computers, better telephones, better music players, etc.Aside from snide dismissal of charity (compassionate conservationism in a nutshell there), the fact is Jobs did not give them anything. That would be the charity that the author so disdains. He sold them those things, and I am pretty sure those who would have befitted from the charity Jobs did not set up are not able to afford his products. Furthermore, the idea that he gave them better jobs is laughable, considering the horrendous conditions that people work in to make his stuff. When your choice is starvation or horrible work, you don't have "free labor," you have wage slavery. And the inability of reactionaries like this guy to tell the difference (as if he'd care if he understood it) is part of why the loudest champions of free enterprise are often the most ignorant about what free enterprise actually means.
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