Government a non-conservative force?

[Jasongreat]

I am continually more and more astounded by the applications of Physics to all the different forces in the universe. I am now on chapter 8 of physics for dummies(had to find a text on my level) and it is talking about conservative and non-conservative forces. Could this even apply to the biggest negative force on earth, government. It seems to me that at the founding of our country, we had a country based on conservative force. We were free to follow any path(as long as it didnt destroy someone elses path) and it made no difference to our kinetic energy,it could keep carrying us forward. As time has gone by our government has become a non-conservative force, where now we are affected by which path we follow. If we don't follow these certain paths then we encounter friction(or the governmental equivilent), as we travel along we are continually having our energy dissipated through taxes, social pressures, fines, licensing etc,etc;, so that we lose our energy(or we atleast have to expend more energy to continue). Good thing we as humans have unlimited potential. Do you agree that this applies or am I way off?

 

[WhoWee]

I look at this way. When you're in your late teens and early 20's, the world has no bounds. You can be young and free and foolish and idealistic and (you get the idea). You can fall in love every week and sleep on a friends couch - life is simple - as long as you meet the few responsibilities that come along - like your studies.

Then you graduate and start a career. You have a boss and work responsibilities - maybe quotas. You're expected to wear better clothes, drive a better car and sleep in a bed.

Next, you get married and buy a home. Kids come along (sometimes lot's of them) and maybe even a few pets and in-laws.

Now you're in debt, you have more responsibilities than anyone ever warned you about and you start thinking about investing for (your kid's educations) and retirement. At the same time, you realize vacations cost a lot of money, insurance is expensive, and kids need braces and eat a LOT.

Now, you're still free. You probably earn more money than you ever dreamed. You live in a nice house, have a great wife, spoiled kids, and great neighbors. But you are less "free" than you were at 18 years of age.

This is what has happened to our country. When it was young, anything was possible. Then, we expanded, infrastructure expanded, technology advanced, population grew, as did Government.. Laws were expanded. A social conscience developed. We became involved in world affairs. Our military became the world's largest and we expanded into space. I could go on for another 1,000 words, but you get the point.

The longer you live, the more complicated life becomes.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Jason, how do you figure that government is the biggest negative force on earth?

You are taking words that have a specific meaning and applying them loosely to another concept entirely. That makes it more rather than less difficult to figure out what you mean. For example, by friction, do you mean that we prevent monopolies, jungle law, and the subjugation of the population by the rich and powerful? Are you talking about defining a black man to be an entire person, and not just 3/5 of a person?

 

[WhoWee]

On the first day of Physics class you learn something very basic. As time passes, the lessons become more complicated and you begin to see the inter-connected relationships. At the graduate level and beyond, you search for more and apply your knowledge to advance (or at least comprehend or explain) the world.

There are a lot of forces acting upon our freedoms - some good and some bad. The good and bad vary with your perspective.

 

[Pengwuino]

If Government were a conservative force, there would be a potential we could take the gradient of to find the government-field, or G-Field. Does Government obey Gauss' Law?

 

[Jasongreat]

Jason, how do you figure that government is the biggest negative force on earth?

You are taking words that have a specific meaning and applying them loosely to another concept entirely. That makes it more rather than less difficult to figure out what you mean. For example, by friction, do you mean that we prevent monopolies, jungle law, and the subjugation of the population by the rich and powerful? Are you talking about defining a black man to be an entire person, and not just 3/5 of a person?

I figure government is the biggest negative force on earth, since government cannot create, it can only take. Ok, so it can create(a program), but only by taking(money) from someone else.

Name one monopoly that has happened without the consent of the government(they absolutely cannot happen without the backing of government), by jungle law do you mean natural law(what our constitution was based on) or do you mean survival of the fittest, and didnt we just get subjugated by the rich and powerful(bailout) through the government? And wasnt it the government that defined a black man as 3/5 of a person, and that was after a government first considered them only property?

 

[Jasongreat]

I look at this way. When you're in your late teens and early 20's, the world has no bounds. You can be young and free and foolish and idealistic and (you get the idea). You can fall in love every week and sleep on a friends couch - life is simple - as long as you meet the few responsibilities that come along - like your studies.

Then you graduate and start a career. You have a boss and work responsibilities - maybe quotas. You're expected to wear better clothes, drive a better car and sleep in a bed.

Next, you get married and buy a home. Kids come along (sometimes lot's of them) and maybe even a few pets and in-laws.

Now you're in debt, you have more responsibilities than anyone ever warned you about and you start thinking about investing for (your kid's educations) and retirement. At the same time, you realize vacations cost a lot of money, insurance is expensive, and kids need braces and eat a LOT.

Now, you're still free. You probably earn more money than you ever dreamed. You live in a nice house, have a great wife, spoiled kids, and great neighbors. But you are less "free" than you were at 18 years of age.

This is what has happened to our country. When it was young, anything was possible. Then, we expanded, infrastructure expanded, technology advanced, population grew, as did Government.. Laws were expanded. A social conscience developed. We became involved in world affairs. Our military became the world's largest and we expanded into space. I could go on for another 1,000 words, but you get the point.

The longer you live, the more complicated life becomes.

I would disagree, I think it starts earlier, like in your early teens. I believe teenage rebellion is caused by the hypocricy of society. While young and growing up your horizons are closer to home, so parents can tell their kids all sort of promises, "you can be what ever you want to be", "you can do what ever you want to do, as long as you don't hurt others" and so on. Then you get old enough and independent enough to strike out on your own and you start to find that there are tons of exceptions to what you were told was the truth not many yrs. earlier. Even though you can't see(I understand at that age you don't have complete information, and therefore your reasoning is incomplete) how what you are doing is hurting anyone else, you are told you still can't do that, and that's where the rebellion begins with the famous "oh, yah". I am not saying that the kids are right or wrong, only that they have gotten conflicting information. Rebellion, I believe can be a wonderful thing, as well it can be abused, but without rebellion there would be no advancement. einstein had to rebel against "common knowledge" of the day, if he didnt would we have his theories?

All of the responsibilities you list are of your own making, are they not? You don't need to go to college, and even if you do choose to go to college, you chose to do it by running up student loans. It would of been harder but couldn't you pay for your college as you went by working, and therefore reducing your student loan responsibilties? Probably would take longer too, but at the end of college, not only would you have a degree but also a trade you could fall back on if need be, making you more independent instead of dependent on finding a job in one specialized field, but you would'nt have the slavery of debt to contend with either.

I think you may have a solid point though, maybe its not that government is the non-conservative force, but that it is us that are our own non-conservative force by what we believe to be important or not in life. But I still think without government taking 50% of our money every year we would have more freedom, or at least more resources to buy our freedom back from our creditors.

Your last paragraph I don't understand, "when we were young anything was possible", and then you list a bunch of things that should of expanded our freedom instead of narrowing it.
Technology advanced(should make us free'er), population grew(should've given us more resources ie more freedom), then you help to make my point. Government grew, the military grew and we started getting embroiled in the european worlds problems. So even though we had loads of freedom generating advances, we had more freedom destroying advances, so we ended with a net loss of freedom.