Event: Government is Good

What: For the past year or so, the reading club has studied reasons for supporting less government intervention in our lives. We have read Bastiat and Spencer, along with many others. We have compared Machiavelli’s The Prince to The Politics of Obedience by Etiene de la Boetie.

Knowing how important it is to keep an active mind, the following essays clearly articulate the opposing view for expanding the scope and power of government.

The author is professor Douglas J. Amy of Mount Holyoke College, the proprietor of the website “Government is Good.”

He has many more articles on the site, but the two of focus here are “Why We Need More, Not Less, Government” and “Taxes are Good.”

They should take about 30 minutes to read.

For this discussion, we can practice debating these issues since at first it might be easier to do with a friendly face than a complete stranger. That way it helps to build confidence in our arguments and make them more persuasive.

Where: In the past we have used Skype for the online discussion. Instead, we can use a more user-friendly online application called Tinychat. No download or registration is required, but the call is limited to 12 “broadcasters,” though more may listen in if they like. The URL chosen at random for this chat is http://tinychat.com/uieni83284908.

If someone would like to arrange a meeting place, that would be great too.

When: Monday, Sept. 20, from 7 to 9 p.m.