No more power for a failed government.

Whereas in the present context, government has exhibited behaviors such that they have completely eroded my trust, I am opposed to any legislation that even minimally empowers them. Some might (and have) with knee-jerk style justification, concluded that I’m something of an anarchist. That, or at the very least a laissez faire capitalist longing for the days of sweat shops, pollution and the company store. The truth is of course that there is a rightful role of government, and it is only about the excesses that I object. When the individual motivations or business incentives of various decisions are such that they are detrimental to the society, and to the extent that polite words from a neighbor are insufficient to remedy a situation, laws and government play a vital role. When the private incentives to embark a goal are insufficient to accomplish an important objective for the preservation and furtherance of the nation and its citizens, government plays a role.

When it comes to implementing an extensive and punitive set of regulations and providing funds to create or impose a subjective vision of “utopia” neither the government, nor any individual or organization is within it’s rightful power to do so. Our government’s fundamental mission should be to ensure that such imposition never happens, and to create the conditions conducive to maximizing the ability of the citizenry to exercise their liberties. It is therefore abhorrent for the government itself to become the imposer or to create conditions which facilitate such imposition, be it by foreign powers or selectively chosen private organizations inside the nation. The nation that this government is sworn to preserve, protect and defend.

On issues with which specific rules, laws and procedures might come into conflict with individual liberty, it is incumbent upon our elected leaders to approach the idea with the utmost consideration for the latter. Fallibility is an inherent to the human condition, and even the most intelligent and well intentioned people or groups cannot escape the fact. It is therefore even more critical that government approach its role with the perspective of a minimalist. Their goals and activities should mirror broad support, while resisting the temptation to be simply populist, thereby ensuring to the utmost the protection of the individual from tyranny, including the tyranny of the majority. Government should not be doing ONE SINGLE THING to make a decent, law abiding, taxpaying citizen greatly concerned, upset or otherwise seriously troubled. Not one law should impose upon the freedom of the individual, including financial freedom, without the most logical and most important justification.

When I look at the litany of activities with which our government has failed in this mission, it should be of little doubt to anyone that a patriotic citizen should seek to prevent the accumulation of power by that institution, and to endeavor to strip it of the assumed authority which it is presently abusing so willfully and maliciously.