[NEohioPAL] Keep Government out of the Arts

[Marta Perez-Stable]

In response to what Jonathan Giblin wrote, who said that the government is
the only arbiter of standards? Doesn't United Laboratories do a great job
overlooking the quality of electrical appliances? Would you buy a clock
radio that wasn't UL approved? How about the American Heart Association's
seal of approval of processed foods? Don't you think they know how to judge
what food stuffs are healthy for those concerned with heart health? The FDA
held this seal of approval up for years.

The highway system in America began as a for-profit endeavor. Check out the
history of the Lincoln Highway. The FDA, this very second, is holding up a
life saving drug for Crohn's disease and people are dying because of it. How
was my dead sister-in-law being protected? How were her two pre-school aged
sons protected by holding up this new, effective treatment? 

How long do you think any organization would last if it were producing
poisoned water? Look at that peanut processing company down south that's in
the news. Did the government regulators who regularly sited them with
violations protect any of those people who died from eating a Nutter Butter?
If it were a for-profit insurance company guaranteeing the safety of that
peanut butter, you could rest assured that the plant would have either
improved its processes or gone out of business.

Economists have clear, repeatable, evidence that government gets in the way
of prosperity and creates false monopolies, like the utilities, railroads,
and soon the banks. Large, centralized government doesn't work. Just look at
the histories of Russia and China over the past 100 years to see large scale
proof of that. Ask the people in Poland, the Czech Republic, and even Spain
what they think of big government. Ask my relatives in Cuba if they think 50
years of centralized government has helped them? They're just counting the
days until "The Change" happens, and they're not talking about menopause.

Government, especially at the federal level, messes up the workings of human
nature. They make people lazy and unimaginative. Ingenuity falls by the
wayside when money freely comes in instead of having to be earned. The arts
will thrive whether or not they are financially sponsored, they just might
not be produced to your liking.

I think everyone should have rose bushes in their front yards because they
are so beautiful. I think the government should fund the planting of bushes
in everyone's yards, whether or not they want them. I also think that YOU
should be responsible for paying to plant some of those bushes. After all,
it's beautification, it's landscape art, and YOU make so much money. Let's
not forget that the program will be staffed by overpaid workers with better
benefits than you'll ever see. By the way, you don't get to pick the type of
rose that ends up in your front yard or its color. And, since this whole
program was planned by someone who lives in Washington, the roses really
aren't hardy enough for our climate and they'll all die next winter. 

Are you starting to get the picture? Sounds insane doesn't it? That's how
funding the arts sounds to me. I don't want to underwrite car mechanics,
college professors, or farmers either.

Government works best when it's small, sticks to its mandate as put forth in
the Constitution and the Federalist Papers, and leaves people to succeed or
fail on their own. I like to think of government as a large condo
association. Are the people you're voting for folks you would want running
your building or complex? Would you like your condo association spending its
collective pool of money on new gutters to stop the basement from flooding
or on brass door knobs? The arts are brass door knobs.

Just one woman's rant.

Marta Perez-Stable

Marta Perez-Stable