No one stands up and says, Government is necessary. Government is a requirement of a civil and modern society. Instead the t-baggers and Reaganites have the bullhorn, and most Democrats go meekly along.

JFK made the case that the Government was here to help the USA do great things, end injustice, etc., etc. Who does that now?

I don't understand the TPP defenders on this site. They fall all over themselves to trust a deal negotiated in secret, that Congress must vote on with limited debate and no amendments? What's that weirdness all about?

And here is a critical reason why:

Governments keep giving away their power to corporations. Willing. Have you heard of ISDS?

An "investor-to-state dispute settlement" (ISDS) is a special legal right that only those who invest in a foreign country can use to challenge a law, regulation, judicial or administrative ruling or any other government decision. Investors are those who buy property—whether it’s an acre of land, a factory or stocks and bonds.

ISDS allows the foreign property owner to skip domestic courts, administrative procedures, city hall hearings and the like (all the processes that home-grown property owners use) and sue the host-country government before a panel of private “arbitrators” (like judges, arbitrators have the power to make decisions in cases, but they are not democratically elected or appointed, and they are not subject to stringent conflict of interest rules). Not only that but the foreign property owners don’t lose access to the domestic U.S. processes—they can “double dip” to get what they want.

Read more here: http://www.aflcio.org/Issues/Trade/What-Is-ISDS

When the corporation wins, it can get millions, or even billions of dollars. And if the government settles the case by with drawing the disputed regulation or repealing the law in question -- it is the citizens who lose. And learn once again that their own governments are not truly under democratic rule. When citizen preferences do not matter, why should anyone trust democracy? It is a recipe for fascism -- I could easily see the 30s happening all over again.