sacred squid

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When I was on Fox News with two Republicans last week, they tried to taunt me with “what has the government ever done well?” That’s not hard to answer. NASA put a man on the moon. FEMA does a pretty good job when it’s not being run by George Bush. The government built the interstate highway system. We have public universities (that means, run by the government!) at the top of the rankings, like UC Berkeley where I studied, or Michigan, or SUNY. As for the Post Office, where’s the complaint? Put a 44 cent stamp on a piece of paper and a few days later it will be delivered across the country. And as Bush-lovers have bragged, the government prevented another terror attack on US soil after 9/11.

Closer to health-care relevance, the government inspects the food supply and keeps us from being poisoned. And the National Institutes of Health is at the forefront of medical research, the Food and Drug Administration safeguards the approval of new medication, and the Centers For Disease Control are masters at coping with pandemics. And there are great government-run hospitals. Even the DMV — and I’ve been caught up in their system once or twice — generally hands me a number and takes care of me as quickly as any other line I have to wait on. I could go on.

Peter Feld, Financial writer offers police brutality as argument against a public option for health care reform. (via soupsoup)