Why does the fascist left always seek to deprive individuals of their liberty? Is it some sort of mental disease convincing them they must dominate and enslave all life on the planet? Your desire to subjugate the masses and your complete disregard for the founding principles of the United States which you quaintly describe as "idealism" is what makes the left anti-American and the enemy of all Americans. You spit out "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" as if it offended you personally. Such vehement hatred for life and liberty is why the insane left will always lose.
I think we're operating under a misunderstanding here and it is fairly possible that I did not express myself sufficiently clearly.
To be entirely fair, I understand why my comments might be read in the way you did. It's not the most charitable way to read them, but given the kind of comments that come out of the media or from some top figures in the Democratic party over the last few years, it's not completely unfair either. The thing is that you're missing some information about the views I hold on the founding principles of the United States of America. You're operating here on the presumption that I am attacking those principles head on in large part because this is usually how people on the left proceed. So, instead of letting you make assumptions about what I think, let me clear things up:
I profoundly admire the Declaration of Independance and the American Constitution and one of the most beautiful statement ever made about the purpose of government probably is the second sentence of the Declaration of Independance.
So, no, I do not spit on those ideals, quite the contrary. The essence of my comment is that we might have to concede
limited violations of those ideals in order to secure them. Throw some crumbs at people who might want some intervention to preserve peace and faith in the system. You have to realize that this argument treats the power we use to do just that as
a necessary evil, as something dangerous that we have to use with care. Some people think we should use the power of government to alleviate some problems and giving them some leeway means they stand to loose something if they overreach. I don't think you can do away with this dispute over the role of government and I think it's more productive to think about a suitable compromise than about holding a hard line you will never be able to get.
You can disagree, but you can't call me a fascist over it. I'm really not saying we should condone a unique social vision and use all the might of the government to enforce it -- that is fascism proper. I'm clearly biased toward using the least invasive methods possible. Ideally, I'd prefer private organizations to solve problems, but if the population is too disatisfied and we need to give up some ground, I'd rather give authority to local governments instead of state governments and to state governments instead of the federal governments.
Depriving people of their liberty never works, in any degree, and is always morally wrong.
First of all, "working" is far too vague because it does not lend itself to measurement. You need a clear statement of the objectives of a policy so that unambiguous measurements can be taken. Second of all, you're taking stance about the causal impacts of
all policies involving some measure of coercion that have ever been implemented everywhere and at all times. That is an awfully radical statement to make. Did you even bother looking into the massive empirical litterature on economics that seeks to estimate the causal impacts of those policies?
You might have anecdotal evidence on problematic governmental programs and agencies and you certainly hate them, but this is not the same thing as carefully looking into the fine details and combing through heaps of data to check if your statement holds up. The real world is always considerably more subtle and messier than what you have in mind. Often, the advantages of a policy are mixed in with disadvantages. For example, Quebec (Canada) introduced a low-cost daycare policy in 1997. Since other provinces did not have it, we can exploit the difference to look at how it influences outcomes for children, parents, etc. Here is one of a few paper dealing with this issue:
Brodeur and Connolly (2013). It's behind a paywall, but the results are in the abstract. Essentially, it seems to be helping out less educated parents at the expense of more educated parents.