For progressives looking for a counterpoint to the hypocritical, anti-government mantra of the right, here’s a great source: Government is Good<\/a>, a website offering “an unapologetic defense of a vital institution.”<\/p>\n

Douglas J. Amy<\/a>, professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College<\/a>, created the site and describes it this way:<\/p>\n

This website is a response to this one-sided, distorted, and misleading depiction of government.\u00a0 It makes the case that government \u2013 despite its flaws \u2013 plays a valuable and indispensable role in promoting the public good.\u00a0 Most government programs are working well<\/a> and are actually improving the lives of all Americans in innumerable ways.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The site includes myth-busting sections such as “A Day in Your Life with Government,” “What Americans Really Think About Government<\/a>,” and “Unsung Government Heroes,” a reasoned and impassioned defense of the government workers–too often vilified as “bureaucrats”–whose mostly unnoticed work enhances our quality of life in everyday ways.<\/p>\n

We Americans need to get over this knee-jerk antagonism toward our government and its employees. We need to acknowledge that our public agencies and our public servants have a vital role to play in society, protecting us from the numerous risks and threats that surround us in a modern world. And we need to ungrudgingly pay the taxes that make this important work possible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The work of these public heroes often goes unappreciated because it goes unseen. When a firefighter saves someone from a burning building, it is front-page news. But when the everyday heroes in our government save us from harm, few people notice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why? Because when they do their jobs well, nothing happens to us. We don’t get sick from a disease, we aren’t poisoned by the water we drink, we aren’t electrocuted by a faulty appliance, and so on. With nothing bad happening, it is easy to go throughout our lives ignorant of how they are being made much safer by government workers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Definitely worth checking out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For progressives looking for a counterpoint to the hypocritical, anti-government mantra of the right, here’s a great source: Government is Good, a website offering<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,128,715],"tags":[171,169,884],"yoast_head":"\n