6/4/2010
The US is truly a unique country. I can honestly say that without the freedoms accorded to the people here, the freedom the inventions and profit from their inventions, the whole world would be a poorer place. One only needs to look overseas to see whole groups of people starving because a dictator spends the country’s money overseas for luxuries not available in his own country. Relief ships sent to some African countries were refused docking privileges and food for the starving citizens rotted in the holds. Not only was America flourishing without the boot of the government on business’s neck, but charity flourished. Americans looked around, grateful for their riches and wanted to share. We wanted everyone in the world to have our freedom to prosper. Charities went overseas with improved grain and farming methods that reduced erosion. We gave items of technology away or sold at low prices, taught less technological countries how to manufacture for themselves.
We frequently were praised and welcomed by grateful peoples. But often we got kicked in the teeth. Authorities in those countries feared loss of power. They feared the democracy that limited powers and kept it in the hands of the people. And so they stirred up their people, accusing America of arrogance and of trying to impose our culture on them. Such ignorance. When cultures meet whether for trade or war (The US was the first to send overseas aid to another country), they tend to mingle, exchange styles and technologies. If other cultures adopted styles of dress and eating from the US, it’s because they found these things attractive. It’s because they found freedom attractive. And authorities in these countries found it threatening. They were forced to adopt some semblance of allowing people freedom as time went on and that, they found terrifying.
And it didn’t take much to make oppressed people happy. Some ability to work and keep what you make, some freedom to speak, some freedom from unfair police arrests. Look at China. After decades of government mismanagement of business and agriculture co-ops, they finally allowed some limited private enterprise. The standard of living immediately went up. Think about what might have been had they totally disbanded government ownership, even never became socialist inf the first place. Lot’s of people would be alive now that aren’t.
All of this doesn’t apply to communism and most dictators. Communism is a way to gather power by promising some kind of utopia to the common people. Everyone should share and share alike. Give me the power, and I promise such prosperity. All will work and all will have enough to live on. No one will be rich and no one will be poor. We’ll all be alike. Take from those who have and give it to those who have not. Trouble is, this doesn’t fit with human nature. In this system, money must be stored somewhere. Someone must be in charge of giving it out. Several someones. And each of these have friends. And so it goes.
Socialism and Communism as ideals will never work because of human greed. Capitalism doesn’t have the options on greed. EVERYBODY who handles disbursement of money can be greedy and, as prisoners prove time and time again in finding ways to gain weapons, greedy people find a way to divert money to themselves and their pals. Sociopaths naturally gravitate to positions of power and money and if they can’t earn it mostly legally, they’ll take it illegally. At least, in capitalism, these guys create jobs and do good, providing they don’t raid pension plans, etc.
No one argues that oversight isn’t necessary, just make it simple and light, don’t micromanage. With proper regulation, capitalism takes advantage of the best in people. You want money, you work. However, the goal of regulation shouldn’t be to expect to NEVER EVER have an incident of cheating. That’s unrealistic. It may seem cold when cheating is uncovered to shrug and say, “Que sera, sera”, but that’s basically all one can do other than finding out who dropped the ball and firing them. Enforce the regs we have, don’t make more. Currently, Wall Street is dropping like a rock with all this talk of, “We’ll fix those greedy, nasty, capitalists and tax the living daylights out of them.” Few jobs are being created in the creative part of our economy, the part that makes money as it grows, not in the government, which spends money it doesn’t have. Currently most of the jobs being created are in the government and even those are temporary. And false, as it turns out. One census worker reports that she’s been laid off and rehired five times and each time, it was counted as a new job. Her supervisor confirmed it. So the reports of the new jobs are bogus. Basically, the census is almost over with and hiring should be minimal. I worked in the census in 1990, when it was going door to door, not mail and it was done by the end of June. I finished up the routes of people who’d quit.
I just don’t understand this attack on capitalism and democracy, except the mindset is getting to be getting something for nothing. Excelling is frowned upon. We’re all becoming equal. Equally mediocre.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
The Default Government
June 3, 2010
Mexico is a good example of a society in flux, yearning for freedom while still under the bondage of age-old societal governance of dominance and slavery. It almost seems like mankind, as a whole, just invites this kind society. We don’t know how to be free. If an extra-terrestrial or a god came down, ended all hunger, everybody treated exactly the same, get the same house, the same toys and hardly any work, would we be happy? No. There’s always something to be twisted and turned into an argument. You see in the movies the standard Utopia, where father and son talk about how good it is to share and how it’s their privilege to work for the benefit of all. They’re cheerful and hardworking and usually handsome. Trouble is it has existed—briefly. We’re most familiar with the communes of the sixties. The whole era purported to be one of peace and for most of the young people, that was genuine. Summer of Love, yeah. Turned into a nightmare of rioting and hate. Some of those people broke off and formed communes. They quickly found that human nature doesn’t function well under the share and share alike system. One person might hoard, another has to be prodded to do his fair share of work. After a while, fighting breaks out, division occurs.
The US is an anomaly. For the whole history of the world, it’s been a top down kind of government. First hunter-gatherers, allied themselves with a strong warrior type who demonstrated leadership traits. And so when the wildebeest came down, the warrior-king got first and most, his best friends got the next best, then the other hunters and finally women and children got what was left. This is humanity’s naturally occurring social structure. You can extrapolate from there, the king and the nobility, the dictator and his execution squad… none of it’s been fair. It is just humanity.
The founders were marvelous. Many consider them divinely inspired. Certainly they were geniuses. They understood all the clichés, power corrupts and all that. They understood that freedom was a difficult concept for man and there was a dangerous tendency to follow the crowd like a sheep. They set up the government with all of mankind’s flaws taken into account. And those flaws haven’t changed and never will until the millennium and they feared that even with all that, the country could still slide back into default mode. When I was in school, I was taught how smart they were, creating checks and balances, listing various freedoms guaranteed the people by virtue of just being human. This included the right to manage your own business, work hard and build something without interference by the government. That wouldn’t have happened in feudal societies. There, the minute something good is built up, in comes the king’s men, announcing that this business henceforth belongs to the king and heavy taxes are imposed. (Wait! Isn’t that what’s going on now?) Sometimes they’d just break it up and discourage anyone from being productive again. People can be so shortsighted. That’s why America was set up with the idea being to limit government. Giving power to a few is dicey at best. You might start out with a very intelligent and nice person in power, but what happens when Hitler,or Mao or Stalin gets the power? Murder in the Millions. Stalin starved millions of Russians by taking all their grain, selling it and buying up weapons. Look up Cyrus the Great of Persia. He took power in ways that would make the average American cringe, but respected the talents, arts and religion of each. At some point, cities would just come out and surrender to him. Many kings would have raped and pillaged just to set an example, but he didn’t. He brought together people of many talents to build, to learn from one another. That’s as close as the world came to a free trade society, where good things were valued. Unfortunately, his descendents weren’t as enlightened. I believe his son and maybe grandson continued this policy; one named Darius sent the Jews home with supplies to rebuild their temple. You can have it good for 20-30 years with power given to a few. But it doesn’t last
Once given, power is difficult to take back. In the meantime, we are growing the Gimme State, those who want the power given by socialism are making use of anything they can and they’re using mankind’s tendency to be lazy and grab for free things and stirring it up, promising a kind of utopia. Yeah, we might all be equal, equally mediocre and uninspired to work hard. When you depend on government for everything, there’s no reason to work.
Mexico is a good example of a society in flux, yearning for freedom while still under the bondage of age-old societal governance of dominance and slavery. It almost seems like mankind, as a whole, just invites this kind society. We don’t know how to be free. If an extra-terrestrial or a god came down, ended all hunger, everybody treated exactly the same, get the same house, the same toys and hardly any work, would we be happy? No. There’s always something to be twisted and turned into an argument. You see in the movies the standard Utopia, where father and son talk about how good it is to share and how it’s their privilege to work for the benefit of all. They’re cheerful and hardworking and usually handsome. Trouble is it has existed—briefly. We’re most familiar with the communes of the sixties. The whole era purported to be one of peace and for most of the young people, that was genuine. Summer of Love, yeah. Turned into a nightmare of rioting and hate. Some of those people broke off and formed communes. They quickly found that human nature doesn’t function well under the share and share alike system. One person might hoard, another has to be prodded to do his fair share of work. After a while, fighting breaks out, division occurs.
The US is an anomaly. For the whole history of the world, it’s been a top down kind of government. First hunter-gatherers, allied themselves with a strong warrior type who demonstrated leadership traits. And so when the wildebeest came down, the warrior-king got first and most, his best friends got the next best, then the other hunters and finally women and children got what was left. This is humanity’s naturally occurring social structure. You can extrapolate from there, the king and the nobility, the dictator and his execution squad… none of it’s been fair. It is just humanity.
The founders were marvelous. Many consider them divinely inspired. Certainly they were geniuses. They understood all the clichés, power corrupts and all that. They understood that freedom was a difficult concept for man and there was a dangerous tendency to follow the crowd like a sheep. They set up the government with all of mankind’s flaws taken into account. And those flaws haven’t changed and never will until the millennium and they feared that even with all that, the country could still slide back into default mode. When I was in school, I was taught how smart they were, creating checks and balances, listing various freedoms guaranteed the people by virtue of just being human. This included the right to manage your own business, work hard and build something without interference by the government. That wouldn’t have happened in feudal societies. There, the minute something good is built up, in comes the king’s men, announcing that this business henceforth belongs to the king and heavy taxes are imposed. (Wait! Isn’t that what’s going on now?) Sometimes they’d just break it up and discourage anyone from being productive again. People can be so shortsighted. That’s why America was set up with the idea being to limit government. Giving power to a few is dicey at best. You might start out with a very intelligent and nice person in power, but what happens when Hitler,or Mao or Stalin gets the power? Murder in the Millions. Stalin starved millions of Russians by taking all their grain, selling it and buying up weapons. Look up Cyrus the Great of Persia. He took power in ways that would make the average American cringe, but respected the talents, arts and religion of each. At some point, cities would just come out and surrender to him. Many kings would have raped and pillaged just to set an example, but he didn’t. He brought together people of many talents to build, to learn from one another. That’s as close as the world came to a free trade society, where good things were valued. Unfortunately, his descendents weren’t as enlightened. I believe his son and maybe grandson continued this policy; one named Darius sent the Jews home with supplies to rebuild their temple. You can have it good for 20-30 years with power given to a few. But it doesn’t last
Once given, power is difficult to take back. In the meantime, we are growing the Gimme State, those who want the power given by socialism are making use of anything they can and they’re using mankind’s tendency to be lazy and grab for free things and stirring it up, promising a kind of utopia. Yeah, we might all be equal, equally mediocre and uninspired to work hard. When you depend on government for everything, there’s no reason to work.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Is Obama Robin Hood
Robin Hood is a wonderfully romantic story. It’s got everything, romance, action, villains. And the backdrop of thirteenth century is fascinating to those of us who get tired of daily routine in the twenty-first century. Never mind that no indoor plumbing existed, making fleas man’s number one pal. But the biggest attraction of the Robin Hood story is the tale of an everyday man standing up to the rich and powerful. He robbed them of their riches and instead of keeping it himself, drinking and wenching away the spoils, he gave it to the poor and needy. What a hero!
It was particularly heroic in that day and age, when stealing a loaf of bread would get your hand cut off and highway robbery would get you hanged or worse, drawn and quartered. They definitely weren’t soft on crime. And the poor in those days weren’t anything like the poor we have now, especially in the developed countries. In the dark ages of Europe, (and for much of the rest of the world) the poor were lucky to get a crust of bread everyday and maybe once a month got a taste of pork, or an egg. If they were lucky. Someone coming along with pennies to hand out was a downright miracle. (Back then a penny would feed a family for a week) With such largesse, did they sit back thinking it was their right to get a penny a week? No, they kept working. A windfall was nice, but if you want to eat, you have to work.
Today’s poor are the polar opposite. They have housing for the most part with indoor plumbing to boot. Most have televisions with cable. A huge proportion of the poor have cell phones, computers and video games. I define poor as someone making a little above minimum wage, often the only wage earner in the house. I’ve worked a lot with these people, as nursing assistants generally fall into the poor category. (I’m an RN) I have also been poor early in my marriage. My husband enjoyed his job, but it didn’t pay much, so I know all about juggling bills, e.g. who do I pay this month and who do I postpone? We qualified for food stamps and I became familiar with all the ways one could obtain assistance, which is why all these stories about people who couldn’t find assistance to get needed medical therapies puzzle me. I also have a brother-in-law who had 2 hospital stays mostly written off. My sister was given a free biopsy she needed to diagnose the cancer that killed her, just by someone calling around and asking. Providence Hospital in Portland OR came through.
What’s going on is the sense of entitlement is increasing. Like the commercial says, “It’s my money and I need it now.” We’re sounding like spoiled brats and when government starts to cut back because of huge deficit spending, people throw tantrums, protesting and rioting. At the moment it’s in Arizona, rioting as though it was the Hispanics right to come flooding over our borders without proper clearance. Excuuuse me? It’s not racist to ask a Hispanic who can’t speak English if they have their papers. Everyday, we use some form of profiling to negotiate through our life. If someone comes up who is black, to talk to a white person, you can bet that that Caucasian is very careful of what they say, just in case this particular person is overly sensitive. If an office mate comes up to you with an angry look on her face, you profile that she’s angry and plan your response accordingly. If a man comes stumbling along, unshaven and unkempt, you profile that he’s probably a drunk. Every one looks at people approaching just in case a response is needed and goes by what information they have to make first assumptions, then proceed from there as actions and speech further informs them. I used to look down when I saw Hispanic men approaching, since when I met their eyes, they’d grin and try to touch me. I got caught out on that once when a friend who happens to be Hispanic American had to say, “Yoo-hoo, earth to JoAnn” when I didn’t see him right off.
Looking around, it is obvious that those in power are encouraging the infantilizing of America. Cloward & Piven laid out this strategy in the sixties by proposing that socialism would be easier to accomplish if America was swamped by overwhelming debt. To that end, they started out with welfare. Not just content with making it available, workers were sent door to door in poor neighborhood encouraging families to sign up. It took a while, but in time the attitude of ‘gimme’ perfused through society. I DESERVE it. I HAVE A RIGHT to free stuff. Hard work is beneath me. Free this and that should be a ‘right’. That includes citizen benefits without taking the trouble to become a citizen. Oh, I know, how about staying in Mexico and working to make Mexico a better place? What is to become of it without it’s best hardworking citizens?
The sense of entitlement seems to be catching. It’s just easier to sneak over the border than to sacrifice to change their country. And believe me, I’m aware of how hard it is to sneak over with predators waiting to rob them or overcharge for leading them over. Things must be bad down there. But it won’t get better if the honest citizens leave. Also, the US sets a poor example with the right to money attitude. They look at their nation and shoulders sag at the thought of trying to get the something for nothing thing going down there. They have to realize that America didn’t start there either and shouldn’t be there now. A free country starts with the freedom to work and retain what is earned, so that it may be invested into business expansion, which leads to hiring more people. The key difference between the US when it first started and other countries throughout history was low taxes and the right to build ones own livelihood and a government limited in its intrusion into people’s lives. Where DO people get the idea that high taxes and big government is good?
It was particularly heroic in that day and age, when stealing a loaf of bread would get your hand cut off and highway robbery would get you hanged or worse, drawn and quartered. They definitely weren’t soft on crime. And the poor in those days weren’t anything like the poor we have now, especially in the developed countries. In the dark ages of Europe, (and for much of the rest of the world) the poor were lucky to get a crust of bread everyday and maybe once a month got a taste of pork, or an egg. If they were lucky. Someone coming along with pennies to hand out was a downright miracle. (Back then a penny would feed a family for a week) With such largesse, did they sit back thinking it was their right to get a penny a week? No, they kept working. A windfall was nice, but if you want to eat, you have to work.
Today’s poor are the polar opposite. They have housing for the most part with indoor plumbing to boot. Most have televisions with cable. A huge proportion of the poor have cell phones, computers and video games. I define poor as someone making a little above minimum wage, often the only wage earner in the house. I’ve worked a lot with these people, as nursing assistants generally fall into the poor category. (I’m an RN) I have also been poor early in my marriage. My husband enjoyed his job, but it didn’t pay much, so I know all about juggling bills, e.g. who do I pay this month and who do I postpone? We qualified for food stamps and I became familiar with all the ways one could obtain assistance, which is why all these stories about people who couldn’t find assistance to get needed medical therapies puzzle me. I also have a brother-in-law who had 2 hospital stays mostly written off. My sister was given a free biopsy she needed to diagnose the cancer that killed her, just by someone calling around and asking. Providence Hospital in Portland OR came through.
What’s going on is the sense of entitlement is increasing. Like the commercial says, “It’s my money and I need it now.” We’re sounding like spoiled brats and when government starts to cut back because of huge deficit spending, people throw tantrums, protesting and rioting. At the moment it’s in Arizona, rioting as though it was the Hispanics right to come flooding over our borders without proper clearance. Excuuuse me? It’s not racist to ask a Hispanic who can’t speak English if they have their papers. Everyday, we use some form of profiling to negotiate through our life. If someone comes up who is black, to talk to a white person, you can bet that that Caucasian is very careful of what they say, just in case this particular person is overly sensitive. If an office mate comes up to you with an angry look on her face, you profile that she’s angry and plan your response accordingly. If a man comes stumbling along, unshaven and unkempt, you profile that he’s probably a drunk. Every one looks at people approaching just in case a response is needed and goes by what information they have to make first assumptions, then proceed from there as actions and speech further informs them. I used to look down when I saw Hispanic men approaching, since when I met their eyes, they’d grin and try to touch me. I got caught out on that once when a friend who happens to be Hispanic American had to say, “Yoo-hoo, earth to JoAnn” when I didn’t see him right off.
Looking around, it is obvious that those in power are encouraging the infantilizing of America. Cloward & Piven laid out this strategy in the sixties by proposing that socialism would be easier to accomplish if America was swamped by overwhelming debt. To that end, they started out with welfare. Not just content with making it available, workers were sent door to door in poor neighborhood encouraging families to sign up. It took a while, but in time the attitude of ‘gimme’ perfused through society. I DESERVE it. I HAVE A RIGHT to free stuff. Hard work is beneath me. Free this and that should be a ‘right’. That includes citizen benefits without taking the trouble to become a citizen. Oh, I know, how about staying in Mexico and working to make Mexico a better place? What is to become of it without it’s best hardworking citizens?
The sense of entitlement seems to be catching. It’s just easier to sneak over the border than to sacrifice to change their country. And believe me, I’m aware of how hard it is to sneak over with predators waiting to rob them or overcharge for leading them over. Things must be bad down there. But it won’t get better if the honest citizens leave. Also, the US sets a poor example with the right to money attitude. They look at their nation and shoulders sag at the thought of trying to get the something for nothing thing going down there. They have to realize that America didn’t start there either and shouldn’t be there now. A free country starts with the freedom to work and retain what is earned, so that it may be invested into business expansion, which leads to hiring more people. The key difference between the US when it first started and other countries throughout history was low taxes and the right to build ones own livelihood and a government limited in its intrusion into people’s lives. Where DO people get the idea that high taxes and big government is good?
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Obama's Utopia?
We all have ideas about the ideal society. It gives us a warm feeling to think of this wonderful culture where everyone works hard and bring all their harvest & goods to a central authority for sharing. If someone gets injured, sick or old & infirm, the common wealth is shared with them and one of the workers gladly and willingly takes care of them. There’s beautiful statuary in the town squares, with wonderful colorful murals on the walls and flowers surrounding soothing waterfalls. The rulers are these beautiful people, a handsome king with his beautiful wife and children, dressed in glittering gold and jeweled clothing walking around the peaceful capital, giving away presents to the adoring people that surround them respectfully. I don’t know why, but when this particular fantasy plays out in my mind, I give it Egyptian style. In this utopia, no one is poor and all work willingly, glad to do their fair share. I first dreamed this up when I was about nine.
As I got older, I realized why this could never work in real life. People are lazy! People are greedy! People are selfish and just plain mean at times. Not everybody, not any one person all the time, but enough to make my dream of utopia unworkable.
I came to this conclusion when I tried to structure a system of laws for my gleaming city. I would watch about crime on the news programs of tv. Fellow classmates teased me. My sisters would whine about doing chores and I watched a neighbor walk back and forth in front of our house going to buy cases of beer. The reality is, human nature won’t allow for a share and share alike system or society.
Not too long after that, I learned about communism & socialism, how it was supposed to be like my utopia, but somehow it just didn’t work out. Considering human nature, what a surprise. Sharing the wealth and giving a government control of how it’s to be distributed is like posting a notice: Greedy and power hungry people wanted for wealth redistribution. Good perks. Time and again through all of human history, it’s been shown that power corrupts and wealth breeds greed. Even when a ruler rises that turns out to be a good and conscientious man, his son usually turns out to be a pig, instituting repressive changes. Hence all the bread lines in Russia, people waiting 18 hours to buy a couple of rutabagas. Fields weren’t planted or if they were, weren’t harvested because always, somewhere along the line, someone didn’t do their job and everyone else figured, why bother to work if no one else does. East Germany was a miserable gray country until the wall was torn down and they rejoined their brothers in the west. The world was appalled. Damage from WWII hadn’t been repaired. Factories suffered from high absenteeism because everyone was paid the same whether they worked or not and turned out abysmal products. Manufacturing equipment was decades old, since there wasn’t enough money to upgrade.
Governments have never done anything efficiently. Time and again, experiments with privatization, primarily prisons, have shown that the private sector can weed out waste more efficiently than government. And yet our president and those who surround him think that putting the government in charge of everything is good. Currently, Obama is working on the deficit by striking out at the very people who make the jobs for the people who pay the taxes. If the people in charge of what drives our very economy are scared of what might come next, they are going to hold off on the business expansions that create new jobs and probably close down some of what they’re already doing. Regulating free enterprise makes a very un-free enterprise indeed.
Our founders set up our government to be small for a reason. They knew that men could not be trusted with extreme power. Overseas you see it when things are budgeted taking bribery and graft into account. In the US, missions over seas are budgeted the same. Over here, you see it in government programs like medicare where doctors bill for services not performed, or nonexistent patients. Undoubtedly, officials higher in the food chain find a way to extort some for themselves. It’s like prisoners in prison, as soon as you catch on to one trick, they devise another. It’s crazy. If those men put half the ingenuity and work into something legitimate, they’d be well off legally. In other areas where money isn’t as involved, graft still finds a way, as in the superintendent who makes up a new management job and puts his favorite nephew into the position
Not only is government expanded with a stroke of the pen signing in health care mandates, the IRS is put in charge of “enforcing” this law. Why isn’t that sending a shiver down the spine of Americans? How often have innocent Americans been tortured by this agency? It is a perfect example of power corrupting.. People who enjoy power seek out these kinds of job and some of these are people who enjoy making others suffer. I think there should be a psych test for applicants and periodic exams thereafter and perhaps yearly in-services on being fair and considerate.
Government is too prone to corruption. Mankind is too prone to corruption. Together, they make something altogether too horrific.
As I got older, I realized why this could never work in real life. People are lazy! People are greedy! People are selfish and just plain mean at times. Not everybody, not any one person all the time, but enough to make my dream of utopia unworkable.
I came to this conclusion when I tried to structure a system of laws for my gleaming city. I would watch about crime on the news programs of tv. Fellow classmates teased me. My sisters would whine about doing chores and I watched a neighbor walk back and forth in front of our house going to buy cases of beer. The reality is, human nature won’t allow for a share and share alike system or society.
Not too long after that, I learned about communism & socialism, how it was supposed to be like my utopia, but somehow it just didn’t work out. Considering human nature, what a surprise. Sharing the wealth and giving a government control of how it’s to be distributed is like posting a notice: Greedy and power hungry people wanted for wealth redistribution. Good perks. Time and again through all of human history, it’s been shown that power corrupts and wealth breeds greed. Even when a ruler rises that turns out to be a good and conscientious man, his son usually turns out to be a pig, instituting repressive changes. Hence all the bread lines in Russia, people waiting 18 hours to buy a couple of rutabagas. Fields weren’t planted or if they were, weren’t harvested because always, somewhere along the line, someone didn’t do their job and everyone else figured, why bother to work if no one else does. East Germany was a miserable gray country until the wall was torn down and they rejoined their brothers in the west. The world was appalled. Damage from WWII hadn’t been repaired. Factories suffered from high absenteeism because everyone was paid the same whether they worked or not and turned out abysmal products. Manufacturing equipment was decades old, since there wasn’t enough money to upgrade.
Governments have never done anything efficiently. Time and again, experiments with privatization, primarily prisons, have shown that the private sector can weed out waste more efficiently than government. And yet our president and those who surround him think that putting the government in charge of everything is good. Currently, Obama is working on the deficit by striking out at the very people who make the jobs for the people who pay the taxes. If the people in charge of what drives our very economy are scared of what might come next, they are going to hold off on the business expansions that create new jobs and probably close down some of what they’re already doing. Regulating free enterprise makes a very un-free enterprise indeed.
Our founders set up our government to be small for a reason. They knew that men could not be trusted with extreme power. Overseas you see it when things are budgeted taking bribery and graft into account. In the US, missions over seas are budgeted the same. Over here, you see it in government programs like medicare where doctors bill for services not performed, or nonexistent patients. Undoubtedly, officials higher in the food chain find a way to extort some for themselves. It’s like prisoners in prison, as soon as you catch on to one trick, they devise another. It’s crazy. If those men put half the ingenuity and work into something legitimate, they’d be well off legally. In other areas where money isn’t as involved, graft still finds a way, as in the superintendent who makes up a new management job and puts his favorite nephew into the position
Not only is government expanded with a stroke of the pen signing in health care mandates, the IRS is put in charge of “enforcing” this law. Why isn’t that sending a shiver down the spine of Americans? How often have innocent Americans been tortured by this agency? It is a perfect example of power corrupting.. People who enjoy power seek out these kinds of job and some of these are people who enjoy making others suffer. I think there should be a psych test for applicants and periodic exams thereafter and perhaps yearly in-services on being fair and considerate.
Government is too prone to corruption. Mankind is too prone to corruption. Together, they make something altogether too horrific.
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