What was the legacy of the 1960s?

[Bricktop]

Bureaucracies are the tool of corrupt governments.



It provides jobs for many who would be unemployable in a private, competitive market environment, and many bureaucracies exist merely to assist governments steal your money for NO net benefit to the community.



As an example, registering cars and renewing drivers licences. Collecting duties, tariffs and other imposts. Collecting taxes. Issuing licences and permits for normal activities such as camping, parking or indeed accessing government services.

[Anonymous]

Bureaucracies are the tool of corrupt governments.



It provides jobs for many who would be unemployable in a private, competitive market environment, and many bureaucracies exist merely to assist governments steal your money for NO net benefit to the community.



As an example, registering cars and renewing drivers licences. Collecting duties, tariffs and other imposts. Collecting taxes. Issuing licences and permits for normal activities such as camping, parking or indeed accessing government services.

Thanks.

 :001_rolleyes:

[Bricktop]

You misread my comment. The fact that many public servants are incompetent and lack initiative does not mean that ALL do.



Any public servant reading this...please don't take it personally. I am generalising from my own experience in the Australian Taxation Office, where I believe 20% of the workforce could have been removed with no net loss of operating efficiency.

[Anonymous]

You misread my comment. The fact that many public servants are incompetent and lack initiative does not mean that ALL do.



Any public servant reading this...please don't take it personally. I am generalising from my own experience in the Australian Taxation Office, where I believe 20% of the workforce could have been removed with no net loss of operating efficiency.

While we are on that subject, I read that nurses in my province spend more than half their time at work, not helping patients.

[Bricktop]

Same as all health services.

[Anonymous]

Bureaucracies are the tool of corrupt governments.



It provides jobs for many who would be unemployable in a private, competitive market environment, and many bureaucracies exist merely to assist governments steal your money for NO net benefit to the community.



As an example, registering cars and renewing drivers licences. Collecting duties, tariffs and other imposts. Collecting taxes. Issuing licences and permits for normal activities such as camping, parking or indeed accessing government services.

And yet, all these taxes and licenses are enacted by the legislature as statutes.  Surely you don't question their validity?

[Anonymous]

You misread my comment. The fact that many public servants are incompetent and lack initiative does not mean that ALL do.



Any public servant reading this...please don't take it personally. I am generalising from my own experience in the Australian Taxation Office, where I believe 20% of the workforce could have been removed with no net loss of operating efficiency.

While we are on that subject, I read that nurses in my province spend more than half their time at work, not helping patients.

This is not just a problem in nursing.  It's also a problem here in human services generally, in education especially at the elementary and secondary levels, and even to a degree in the private sector (particularly if there is a government contract involved.)  It would make a good topic in its own right, because there's more than one reason for it.

[Anonymous]

Bureaucracies are the tool of corrupt governments.



It provides jobs for many who would be unemployable in a private, competitive market environment, and many bureaucracies exist merely to assist governments steal your money for NO net benefit to the community.



As an example, registering cars and renewing drivers licences. Collecting duties, tariffs and other imposts. Collecting taxes. Issuing licences and permits for normal activities such as camping, parking or indeed accessing government services.

And yet, all these taxes and licenses are enacted by the legislature as statutes.  Surely you don't question their validity?

Ya Bricktop thinks big government can spend his money more prudently than he can. In fact, he wishes they would extort more money from him and his family.

[Anonymous]

You misread my comment. The fact that many public servants are incompetent and lack initiative does not mean that ALL do.



Any public servant reading this...please don't take it personally. I am generalising from my own experience in the Australian Taxation Office, where I believe 20% of the workforce could have been removed with no net loss of operating efficiency.

While we are on that subject, I read that nurses in my province spend more than half their time at work, not helping patients.

This is not just a problem in nursing.  It's also a problem here in human services generally, in education especially at the elementary and secondary levels, and even to a degree in the private sector (particularly if there is a government contract involved.)  It would make a good topic in its own right, because there's more than one reason for it.

No, actually there isn't..



In our public health care system we are told more is always better..



So we have more nurses not working in actual health care delivery.

[JOE]

However, there is no connection between the social upheaval and fiscal expenditure.



The 60's revolution was about social change to address inherent injustices in society, not financial inequity.



For the most part, the post war period was a period of economic growth, and almost full employment.



The 60's revolution was far more focussed on irrational wars, social injustices, government control and institutionalised conformity of dress standards and acceptable behaviour. For example, people were turned away from court hearings if their hair was too long...or they were denied employment if they did not wear a dark suit, white shirt and black tie.



Socialist driven resistance and armed uprisings were more a product of the 70's.

I am not saying all of the spending programs created in the sixties were bad, but most of the welfare state in Canada was introduced in that decade. They all have huge expensive bureaucracies that are sacred cows to those on the left and cowardly conservatives.

The welfare State was created in Britain long before 1960.



In fact, handing out welfare, or providing "alms to the poor" was known in medieval times, usually administered by the great Catholic monasteries before Henry began the program of Church reform that saw the end of Catholicism in Britain.



Social welfare programs did not arise as a result of the 60's. At the risk of being repetitive, the upheaval and turbulence was more about social change than fiscal reform. Whilst it cannot be denied that "socialism" was a key player, we must be careful not to equate ALL socialism with tyranny and ruin. Creating a more equal, fairer and just society is not a bad thing. And the post war period up until the 60's was far from fair, equal or just, with it's arrogant dictatorial excess peaking when it conscripted young men to go to war in a country no-one knew anything about, purportedly to halt the advance of communism - the flawed and irrational "Domino Theory" that underpinned America's foreign policy.



This disgrace alone was enough to ignite rage and realisation in western countries; that our governments acted as if they were gods, and sending people to die was rational and right.



The 60's revolution was ignited by popular culture that rejected the stifled and benign 50's conformity, and once the youth realised it had the power to make real changes to our world, they realised that this could be converted into political power that saw the end of the Vietnam War, equal rights and pay for women and non-whites, an end to dictatorial government policies, a more rational justice system, and a recognition of the rights of the individual to choose their own lifestyle which rejected the choking constraints of "normality".



This political power eventually gave the far left courage to become more militant and aggressive in implementing socialism...but this became more a phenomenon of the 70's.

I was very young then, but even I remember that there was a huge and dramatic cultural shift during the 1960s which ultimately transformed & shaped the world we live today for better or worse which there was no going back. It's almost as if Western society went from the 19th century to the 20th overnight.



I remember the people born before 1945 all seemed like they belonged to a completely different century.



I think 1960 was the true start of the 20th although there had been 'false starts' in an attempt to create one such as the roaring 20s which ultimately failed & led to economic collapse, world peace and the Second World War.

[JOE]

Most of Canada's social welfare programs were created in the sixties.Welfare state, is a term that was apparently first used in the English language in 1941 in a book written by William Temple, Archbishop of York, England. For many years after, postwar British society was frequently characterized (often pejoratively) as a "welfare state," but by the 1960s the term commonly denoted an industrial capitalist society in which state power was "deliberately used (through politics and administration) in an effort to modify the play of market forces." For Asa Briggs, the author of this definition in an article appearing in The Welfare State (1967), there are three types of welfare state activities: provision of minimum income, provision for the reduction of economic insecurity resulting from such "contingencies" as sickness, old age and unemployment, and provision to all members of society of a range of social services. Under this definition, Canada became a welfare state after the passage of the social welfare reforms of the 1960s.

You are correct in your analysis of how Canada changed during the 1960s.



Prior to 1960, Canada was largely White, conservative, religious and heavily controlled by the Protestant & Catholic Churches in both English & French Canada.



The 1960s was a real game changer & greatly diminished the power of these institutions.



Additionally, the influx of American 'political refugees' & New Deal Democrats migrating/escaping the Communist witch hunts in the 1950s and the Vietnam War in the sixties had an impact on the social and political institutions in Canada. As a result, Canada became more 'liberal' because of them. They became lawyers and ran for political offices. Thats a large reason why a country like Australia is today more politically and socially conservative than Canada today. Other influences were Leftist labour party members from the UK immigrating to Canada which shaped government policies here too.



Australia  was not as influenced by them because it didnt receive such an influx of these outside liberal social thinkers as Canada did. Otherwise Canada would be more like Australia is today.

[Bricktop]

Bureaucracies are the tool of corrupt governments.



It provides jobs for many who would be unemployable in a private, competitive market environment, and many bureaucracies exist merely to assist governments steal your money for NO net benefit to the community.



As an example, registering cars and renewing drivers licences. Collecting duties, tariffs and other imposts. Collecting taxes. Issuing licences and permits for normal activities such as camping, parking or indeed accessing government services.

And yet, all these taxes and licenses are enacted by the legislature as statutes.  Surely you don't question their validity?

Not at all. The fact that I regard them as unconscionable does not mean I have a right to disobey them. It is an essential element of a democratic system of governance, even one as perverted as ours, that we accept and recognise the rule of law. The fact that I disagree with a law does not entitle me to disobey it, as this again is the road to anarchy.



However, even though I believe our system of government is broken, I still accept the rule of law. There has to be a better way, but violence and civil insurrection takes us nowhere but chaos.

[Anonymous]

You misread my comment. The fact that many public servants are incompetent and lack initiative does not mean that ALL do.



Any public servant reading this...please don't take it personally. I am generalising from my own experience in the Australian Taxation Office, where I believe 20% of the workforce could have been removed with no net loss of operating efficiency.

While we are on that subject, I read that nurses in my province spend more than half their time at work, not helping patients.

This is not just a problem in nursing.  It's also a problem here in human services generally, in education especially at the elementary and secondary levels, and even to a degree in the private sector (particularly if there is a government contract involved.)  It would make a good topic in its own right, because there's more than one reason for it.

No, actually there isn't..



In our public health care system we are told more is always better..



So we have more nurses not working in actual health care delivery.

Oh, I see.  I'm afraid I misunderstood your comment.  And I agree with your point -- in fact, I have two friends in health care who work for the state (an MD and an RN) both of whom work behind a desk doing paperwork for the state ABOUT health care, but who never see an actual patient.



But the lens I was looking through, sleepy as I was, is still clear to me this morning.  Thus I see (as a medical patient) that when I see my "primary" doctor the appointment might take half an hour, but he will spend a goodly portion of that time looking at a monitor and typing on a keyboard.  And from my experience in human services, I know that there is a similar paperwork load.  And at the other end of all that data creation are the state employees, insurance company employees, and sometimes also lawyers, whose jobs begin and end with that data.

[Anonymous]

Bureaucracies are the tool of corrupt governments.



It provides jobs for many who would be unemployable in a private, competitive market environment, and many bureaucracies exist merely to assist governments steal your money for NO net benefit to the community.



As an example, registering cars and renewing drivers licences. Collecting duties, tariffs and other imposts. Collecting taxes. Issuing licences and permits for normal activities such as camping, parking or indeed accessing government services.

And yet, all these taxes and licenses are enacted by the legislature as statutes.  Surely you don't question their validity?

Not at all. The fact that I regard them as unconscionable does not mean I have a right to disobey them. It is an essential element of a democratic system of governance, even one as perverted as ours, that we accept and recognise the rule of law. The fact that I disagree with a law does not entitle me to disobey it, as this again is [size=150]the road to anarchy.[/size]



However, even though I believe our system of government is broken, I still accept the rule of law. There has to be a better way, but violence and civil insurrection takes us nowhere but chaos.

As Joe has pointed out above, you lot Down Under are somewhat more conservative in style than Canadians or Yankees.  But despite this generality, I find that in the BC population you yourself are in many respects "less hidebound" by this conservative bent than many of the Canadian posters.



Still, you seem to have a knee-jerk abhorrence of anything that might hint of anarchy, and since you and I are debating that idea in another thread I'll not go further with it here.   I might end up wanting to quote you again from here, on that other thread.

[Anonymous]

Bureaucracies are the tool of corrupt governments.



It provides jobs for many who would be unemployable in a private, competitive market environment, and many bureaucracies exist merely to assist governments steal your money for NO net benefit to the community.



As an example, registering cars and renewing drivers licences. Collecting duties, tariffs and other imposts. Collecting taxes. Issuing licences and permits for normal activities such as camping, parking or indeed accessing government services.

And yet, all these taxes and licenses are enacted by the legislature as statutes.  Surely you don't question their validity?

Not at all. The fact that I regard them as unconscionable does not mean I have a right to disobey them. It is an essential element of a democratic system of governance, even one as perverted as ours, that we accept and recognise the rule of law. The fact that I disagree with a law does not entitle me to disobey it, as this again is the road to anarchy.



However, even though I believe our system of government is broken, I still accept the rule of law. There has to be a better way, but violence and civil insurrection takes us nowhere but chaos.

If a government brings in unjust taxation, like our carbon tax, replace them in the next election.