Government is Good?
Government
is good, in the right hands. As citizens go to the polls isn't that
their assumption? That the person or party they are voting for will
wield the reins of power for the benefit of all. That in the right
hands government will put a chicken in every pot, every person in a
home, stop the rise of the oceans and bring us all to nirvana. If we
just have the right people in charge, peace and harmony would flow
like milk and honey throughout the land.
“A
government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong
enough to take
everything you have.”-Thomas Jefferson
It
is an idea, a base political philosophy, that people in all countries
all over the world believe, and it has produced nothing but misery
and slavery. From western democratic socialism to muslim theocracy
to communism to lone despots, the philosophy is the same. People
assume that it is the task of government to make them happy,
prosperous and safe and the right government has the ability to do
so. So through vote or revolution they place men and women far above
them, giving them the power to play God with their lives.
“It
is had to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making
decision than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who
pay no price for being wrong.”
Thomas
Sowell
How
dehumanizing. A few are elevated in the belief that they are smarter
and more capable of running the lives of the masses than the
individuals themselves. Somehow they are endowed with the wisdom to
know what is best for each and every individual under their rule.
The masses look to them expectantly, hope and fealty in their
uplifted faces. When placed in such a position, of course the ruler
will come to believe in his or her own infallibility, assume any
restraints on the actions of government are detrimental to their
ability to carry out their task and that any and all means justify
the end goal they themselves have determined is worthy.
“The trade of government has always
been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally
individuals of mankind” Thomas Paine
The masses believe they cannot be
trusted to run their own lives and their decision making is suspect
at best. They are to assume the best of government while those in
government assume the worst of them. The masses are ignorant, unable
to be trusted to make decisions about their lives, property or
safety. The people reduced to sheep, to be sheared or slaughtered
according to the wishes of the rulers. Neither leaders or led are
human any more. The rulers have become gods and the ruled mere
chattel.
We have forgotten the foundation for
all government, coercion, the use of force to compel behavior.
The use of force by an individual is only moral when it is in self
defense, protecting ones life or property. Government, legitimate
government, is an extension of that individual right to self defense.
If an individual uses force against another to kill or steal, we
label it wrong and rightly so. However, when government uses force
to kill or steal, somehow we see it as different. We don't see the
equivalence between the mugger who steals our wallet and the IRS
stealing our paycheck.
People who put government on a
pedestal will soon find themselves under its heel. Too many believe
that progress consists of extending the realm of government
compulsion. This is the antithesis of liberty. As Americans go to
the polls over the next few months, and any time any man or woman has
the opportunity to vote, seek not an active government of gifts and
threats, seek only those who will protect rights, no less and no
more.
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