What is your vision of government?

Steve Benen is doing my work for me.

I've already had this idea in mind for months as the idea of doing this blog got more serious, but he puts it on the table in a beautiful way.  It's kind of unfair that Rick "frothy mixture" Santorum is the mouthpiece for stupid, but stupid would speak it's mind anyway.  Why does America exist?  If your answer is "American Exceptionalism," well sorry, but I wanted an answer, not conservative Mad Libs.

The froth was in response to Obama mentioning our social insurance programs and that our commitment to them is part of what makes us great.  Benen turns rightly to the Preamble and its expressed aspiration of making us all better off through government.  You could disagree with the progressive take of the read, but you're left with the inescapable vision of the Constitution: we join in it because we are better off with it than without.

That is the nature of government.  It is a solution to collective action problems.  The questions are who the "we" is, what "our" problems are, and what acceptable means to solve the problems are.  Generally the third question is argued as a rear-guard action when the first two arguments have been lost.  However, the attack on social insurance is part of a rear-guard action that has lasted 75 years, so this is nothing to get too cocky about.