At some point, a politician promised to make this neighborhood prosperous and thriving.
With the GOP candidates campaigning for a presidential bid, the economy still faltering, U.S. troops actively fighting in several countries and Occupy Wall Street protests still going on…there’s a huge amount of political and economic talk going on. People are mostly sharing opinions and complaining about the state of things in America. Some are offering solutions, as well.
Unfortunately, most of the solutions I hear proposed are misguided, uninformed or immoral. In fact, in many cases the solution would be worse than the problem.
One disturbing tendency is to do the lazy thing. Have a problem? The solution is easy! Government.
Government is the lazy man’s solution.
It’s an excuse to not think or act, but to offload responsibility & accept dependence in exchange.
Benjamin Franklin cautioned people about sacrificing liberty for security. He said if people did that they would get neither. People didn’t heed that warning. He’s been proven correct.
That isn’t enough for some people. They are willing to sacrifice their liberty for the promise of convenience (notice I said promise). There are plenty of problems with this, but here are the 2 big problems.
- There are people who place a higher value on convenience than liberty. Liberty is what allows people to realize all of the good things in life. Sure, liberty also allows people to experience pain and hardship if people make bad decisions, but that is life. Are we such small minded creatures that we will cower from reality because we are afraid take ownership of our lives? Or will we embrace the liberty we have, own our lives and appreciate the freedom is provides? With liberty you are free to live as you choose as long as you do not harm other people or their property. When you give up your liberty, you place part ownership of your life in government’s hands. That is foolish.
- They are willing to give up their liberty for a promise from politicians. They are willing to sell their liberty pretty cheaply, if you ask me. Politicians are the people who lie so much there is a universal joke about it. (How do you tell if a politician is lying? There mouths are moving.) So, you think giving up your liberty in an exchange for a promise from politicians is a good deal or a bad deal?
People are conditioned to act this way. It’s pathetic.
Do you question the effectiveness of the Department of Education? Think people could do better than government? You are labeled as someone who is “against education”.
Do you question the FDA? Think it might do more harm than good? You are immediately painted as a person who “doesn’t care about food safety”.
Think government welfare programs for individuals and corporations are not effective and individuals could collaborate in a free economy to provide a healthier economy? Then you are said to “hate poor people”
Since these government “solutions” were instituted, there have been no solutions. More often than not things get worse. What do we get in return? We forfeit our a portion of control of our own lives to the government and the cost of the problem rises substantially. In short, we become poorer and less free.
People can do better. Businesses and individuals, not government can revive the economy.
Just look at what happens when the government gets involved. They play favorites with their cronies. They allow them to play fast and loose. Then when they fail they bail them out with our taxes. They institute all sorts of rules and regulations to favor these cronies and hurt their competition. They’ve created a government-corporate cartel system that has acted in a very questionable way and has cost the tax payers of the country trillions of dollars.
The free market, on the other hand, regulates properly. Look at NetFlix. They made some moves. Many of their customers were unhappy and voted with their wallets. They cancelled their services. Since June 800,000 customers have left NetFlix. Do the math. 800,000 x $10 = $8 million per month. Over a year that is $64 million. This doesn’t take into consideration negative effects to their stock. When left to the free market (people), businesses face real consequences for decisions that don’t meet the needs of the customer.
Now, if NetFlix were a big bank, the government would have called them too big too fail and bailed them out with your money.
A whole book could be written about this. Case after case of people doing things better than government. Case after case of people jumping to propose government as the solution and it going horribly wrong.
The government won’t make you rich (unless you are an insider). The government won’t make you thin. The government will not protect you. The government can’t do a whole lot. We have been made to believe they can, but that is an illusion.
The future of America may very well be decided by this question.
Will people choose to be strong principled individuals who take ownership of their own lives or will they lazily turn to government’s false promises of making their lives better?
