RE: Albuquerque shows they have a heart and a clue!
I really like this post and agree with overall sentiment, but we differ on certain particulars.
"Government is made to bring us together, to help people, to solve problems."
I usually am pretty optimistic in general, but I really don't think this is the goal of government. If this rosy, sunshine and rainbows explanation of government's purpose was ever true I'd wager it's example is centuries behind us if not millennia.
I don't mean to understate the destructiveness of foolishness, but I'm convinced that much of what you speak out against is deliberately perpetrated by capable and intelligent malefactors.
Governments (at least modern iterations) seem to me another tool to enable concentration of wealth, resources, and luxury for those willing to wrest them from the hands of the masses. Taxation, eminent domain, taking from the most vulnerable and stigmatizing the poor are just a handful of examples of mechanisms that enable our demagogic domineers to fulfill that purpose.
It seems to me that the rest (public works, welfare programs, representation and the like) comes only with prolonged struggle and great reluctance from the governing elite, barring some exceptions. This feigned benevolence serves mostly to legitimize rulers and quell their subjects.
Again, I like the post, don't get me wrong.
Didn't you just say you were optimistic? :P Governments might have been created to rule over the people. I don't know why the first happened. But why we need them is for them to organize people to do things together that we all need. But yeah, they don't very often lately. Or they do so much shit that people hate they can't even appreciate the things they do that help.
Totally read this as "Hack the corruption! Hack the homeless!", as in a reference to hacking. I think it would be totally possible to solve this problem by "hacking" it. The government isn't helping enough. They aren't solving the problem. Maybe it's time that people get together and create organizations to help people find work and places to stay. There are small organizations that provide some food and beds...but there needs to be something larger, more widespread, that works with a ton of different people and organizations to help different people.
But I don't think that we can solve healthcare. That's so fucked up and out of control, it needs intervention.