The citizens of Georgia just don't know it. In part that's because "social" has been turned into a dysphemism for "national," referring to the nation of which they want to be proud but by which they don't want to be controlled. Local control, however, is good, especially from the perspective of politicians who get to run things without putting their own fortunes at risk.
Control without risk or obligation. That's the ticket. Certainly an improvement over the plantation system set up under the British crown and beholden to bankers that drove owners into bankruptcy. Until very recently, it was an article of faith that bankruptcy was not something taxing authorities faced.
Want some evidence? Step past the curlicue.
Today's evidence comes from Georgia's Department of Natural Resources, which, among other things, controls the "harvesting" of shrimp from Mother Nature's store:
Commissioner Mark Williams has announced that Georgia waters will open for commercial and recreational harvest of food shrimp at 8:00 am on Tuesday, June 10, 2014. Effective that date, commercial food shrimp trawlers can operate in Georgia’s territorial waters open to power-drawn trawls. Commercial and recreational cast netters, as well as persons using a beach seine, can harvest food shrimp from waters open to the use of these gears.
It's a man-centric enterprise that puts the lie to the notion that government should stay out of business.
The Coastal Resources Division is the state agency entrusted to manage Georgia's coastal marshes, beaches, waters, and marine fisheries resources for the benefit of present and future generations.
Note there is no mention of preserving the environment for any creatures that aren't a "resource" for man.
What does Coastal Management involve? It certainly isn't about leaving things well enough alone.
The Georgia Coastal Management Program seeks to balance economic development in Georgia's coastal zone with preservation of natural, environmental, historic, archaeological, and recreational resources for the benefit of Georgia's present and future generations.
What comes first? Economic development -- i.e. exchanging natural resources, including people's labor, for cash and profit. If just caring and sharing was all that's involved in economic behavior, by households, "development" would not be an issue. To develop is to devolve what is to someone else. It's an exploitative process and, as such, has to be coerced. We could say that the profit motive requires the use of force and, from the perspective of the profiteer, that's what governments are for -- to coerce under the umbrella of the rule of law.
We call it capitalism. But what it really is is virtual or sublimated predation/exploitation. That is, what we have here is organisms (humans) taking sustenance from their environment, including their own species, without giving, intentionally or inadvertently, anything back. One man's waste can't be another's treasure, if he puts out nothing but crap.
How do humans get away with being pure takers? Apparently, some/many humans don't mind being took. And some, for whatever psychological reason, even like being abused. We even have a name for them. They're called masochists.
Nevertheless, one of the main reasons we set up authorized wielders of force is to counter the sadists. Some people aren't content to just take what comes to hand; some are into coercion and theft.
Money makes thieving easy, but theft is theft. And money also makes it easy to identify the thieves, if we bother to look.