David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

If we are reaching for government power, then we have encountered a problem which has not or cannot be solved by the free market as is. I have not seen many people saying "hey, we should socialize the software industry, Google just isn't doing well enough." It already is a last resort.

> Government force is always going to result in unintended, negative consequences.

I rarely use the word always because all it takes is a single counterexample to disprove the point, and I can name a few: Firefighters, police, military, are all "markets" that would not be easily regulated by the free market and the government has done instead (and done so quite well, in most cases.)

> Those socialistic programs you laud, with the high taxes, intrusive regulations, and government debt, are a net drag on the economy.

Lumping ALL those programs together (again) invalidates your point. There are some programs that work very well and have more benefits than costs. I agree that this is not true for all programs/regulations, thus my point: Fix what's broken.

> Working together voluntarily is vastly superior to being compelled by force, however well intentioned.

This argument could be used to support ANY form of government. Communism would work wonderfully if we all worked together voluntarily! Fact is we live in a world of game theory. Sometimes people work together, sometimes they don't. Capitalism works because in theory, even if you are working only for yourself, you are working for society as well. But that is not always true, and so we need to pull together to make sure that those who would abuse the system can't. We need to pull together so that everyone, or at least the majority, benefits from our society.

I disagree. Right or wrong, it is the document against which we supposedly make all laws. I'm not suggesting that we appeal to it as it is, rather, appeal to its defined measures for ensuring that it is kept current. Put simply, in football, they have a rule book. That rule book is what we consult on matters of the rules. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong, and sometimes the rules need updating -- but suggesting that we disregard the rule book while playing football seems naive. The rules are necessary.

The Constitution is that rule book. Either follow the rules or write new ones. Why is that so untenable?

> The Constitution isn't the Bible. It cannot, and should not, prescribe morality, which is what should drive law-making;

I disagree that law-making should be driven by morals. The Constitution, in theory at least, should work as a bulwark ensuring that minority opinions are upheld. Just as homosexuals are fighting for equal rights under the law because their moral values aren't shared by enough people, the Constitution is their prescriptive measure. They have equal rights because they are people, and deserving of equal rights, regardless of their or others' morals. We're still niggling over the details of it, but ultimately, I have hope and faith that gay rights will eventually achieve parity in law that the rest of us enjoy.

> nor should any part of it, including the Bill of Rights, be sacrosanct.

... until it is ratified, I disagree.

> The Constitution, and its derivates the US Code and state constitutions, are authoritative only to the point that they usefully represent their constituents' morality.

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting the statement, but by your argument, gays shouldn't have rights if the majority of constituents agree they shouldn't? I disagree here, and I would expect that every minority group should. It's very possible that I've misconstrued your intent though, so please feel free to correct me if I'm in error.

Compare the state of law and law enforcement in US, say to Russia, and you will see that by this standard things aren't that bad here. No doubt they can be better, but at least I have some recourse under the law here, whereas bribes and political connections mean everything here.

Also, that is no anecdote, but very real personal experience and not in the "hood", but a relatively modest part of Los Angeles.

I think this question is frankly naïve. Humans have functional limitations on how much we can care about other people, aka Dunbar's number. This is not something you can improve (maybe by .0001%) or create policy around, it's a hard limit.

The fact that, at least in the United States, virtually everyone lives in a place with more than a few thousand people in it, ensures that there will be a conflict between the needs of the group of people around us and our own reactions to those needs.

Add on to that the reality of scarcity of both needs and desires and you have a clear answer: No we are not all in it together.