we’ve got nobody to blame but each other.
The reason man desires government is so that it may protect his individual rights to property and life, without which no other rights can exist. But government is often deluded (or so deludes the public) into believing that it serves other purposes, and can satisfy other needs better than individual actors or groups thereof. The government believes its purpose is to create bureaucracy, as if it were some tangible good, the more of which it produces, the better off we become. Thusly, we are presented with 50,000 page tax codes, and 1,800 page energy bills that nobody can possibly be expected to understand, and an FCC whose power has grown to a level at which it threatens fundamental rights. Our government is in place to protect our rights, not to dilute them. But therein lies the problem. The government believes it is responsible for “remaining in power” and to “create bureaucracy. Do not forget that the constitution, specifically limits the power of the government. It is not to be interpreted subjectively, as one would a poem. It was a deliberate document, chosen of deliberate words, to a deliberate end: minimizing the power of the Federal government, and thusly reducing the likelihood that our rights would be trampled.
It really has become a Leviathan, answering questions that nobody asked, and creating solutions where none are necessary because solutions are nearly tangible, a solution is something to which a politician can point, and proclaim, “I did that!” and garner support. But every “solution” crafted by the government creates new problems, new interest groups who feel their needs outweigh the needs that we are currently subsidizing, or new groups who feel they are being neglected or otherwise left out, ad infinitum. They will hijack the power of the government in order to get others to pay for what they desire, with no regard for the desire of the others. And governments (politicians) will do this, provided they believe they can get away with it with minimal collateral damage with regard to the voting constituents. And they can do this because most people don’t give a damn, despite the fact that it affects them daily, or have just plain given up for lack of faith in our system of government, basis. They passively assent to the violations of our rights that occur constantly, and this assent only leads to further dilution of our rights.
Free speech is free speech. Life, Liberty, and Happiness mean just that, not the portion of which the government decides to let you keep. Coining money is not a right enumerated to allow the government to launch a massive inflationary policy and remove the gold standard. Going off the gold standard was nothing short of highway robbery. Social security is a legalized, monoplized ponzi scheme. Both of which will eventually fail under their own respective burdens. The Interstate commerce clause was not intended to allow the federal government to interfere in every aspect of trade between states and individuals within those states. But such is the case. The clause has been bastardized to the point that the government need only claim that the proposal is somehow relevant to “interstate commerce,” and voila! the matter is something over which congress can regulate.
There exist some tremendous conflicts of interests. The interest of those who believe they are entitled to something simply because they desire it. The interest of the politicians who can be bought. The interests of those be believe they are entitled to their basic liberties. These interests are decidedly irreconcilable. So granted that there will always be those individuals, or groups thereof, who are willing to subvert the government, or to hijack its coercive powers to achieve its own interests, and its own specific ends, and granted the government may always be bought in order to perpetuate its own existence by manufacturing bureaucratic “solutions.” How do we make a difference, how do we get people to give a damn? How do we prevent the government from doing those things its own charter has explicitly forbidden?
I don’t know what to do. So I’m studying Economics, and studying for the LSAT. It will be a wicked-cool combination that will hopefully prove less useless than my Bachelor’s Degree.
