I’ve gained a little weight lately. OK, a lot. I now have a gravitational field that holds small objects in orbit just past my arms’ reach.
I’ve claimed the usual married, mid-forties rationalizations, but I can no longer deny that this once-lean and active rebel will bloat, waddle and wheeze toward the usual diseases and earlier-than-necessary death ...unless, of course, I take serious action to become a lesser man.
Here’s the question: Would the self-denial of weight loss result in a negative, or a positive? In other words, would I really lose by suffering myself down from dysfunctional enormity, or would I in fact gain by losing?
As you might expect, there’s a government analogy here. And in this context I’d argue that it’s possible to have too much of a bad thing.
Hillary Clinton, always an example of something, recently asked, “Will ending the dividend tax make air travel safer?” The senator expects you to answer, “No,” because by her calculus, more government always means more good.
On what should be the other side of the spectrum, however, are bureaucrats who timidly declare that government is “too big” as if asking “do I look fat in these pants?” But these bureaucrats never offer an estimate of proper size, or even describe what a smaller government will do for us, so most citizens suspect that they’re merely trying to “take away” something they’ve come to believe is good.
Here’s the problem: We can all see that our involuntary taxation actively does things; like tearing down sporting arenas to make room for new ones. However, we incorrectly deduce that without involuntary tax, there’d be no buildings, bridges, roads, charity, or air safety. In other words, we can see that Indiana taxpayers are coughing up $14K/month to an expert who’ll recommend a new stadium for the Colts, but we don’t see where that money should have gone instead.
Ironically, for most of its history, the Land of the Free was built by everyone but bureaucrats. In the generations before income tax, capitalists and churches and Optimists and Kiwanis and legions of grown men wearing funny hats, and women who we’d now call “stay-at-home-moms” built parks, community centers, gymnasiums, barns, schools, soup kitchens, trolley tracks, retirement homes, bridges and roads.
But, “I gave at the office” acquired new meaning once FDR invented tax withholding for the middle class. And with their new, euphemeral “USA Freedom Corps,” senators Evan Bayh and John McCain have put FDR’s involuntary tax in direct competition with the remaining, struggling voluntary associations, claiming that a multi-billion-dollar boondoggle is a better use of your money than anything you could devise.
And that’s only the tip of the tax-subsidized iceberg. Every day, big-pants bureaucrats take your money for big corporations, foreign governments, drug lords and tobacco farming because Hillary knows best.
So, how are these porky politicians doing with your life, health and security? Well, with all the time-saving, life-extending and comfort-enhancing technology developed by capitalists in the last hundred years, we should be doing a lot better.
The United States of America, bulging into the fattest, most omnipresent nation of all time, has quite a gravitational field around it, with enemies orbiting just past our arms’ reach. Yet some of our enemies have already dropped us to our fat, clumsy knees with box cutters.
And besides losing the national security once dependent upon strong, free citizens, we’re losing jobs, entire industries, opportunities, human resources, and what was once the defining characteristic of the USA, liberty.
Just as I can no longer ski, race bicycles or run without fear of embarrassing my ancestors, this nuclear nation has become sluggish, grouchy, and as dangerous as a rabid bear.
Here’s the solution: Just as I know how much I should weigh and what I should be able to do, our government has a constitution that, despite what you’ve been told, legally mandates a lean government that relies on free citizens and their never-ending notions to make society work.
Politicians can’t add anything to that. They can only take away.
Please vote for only those that can see this, as well as the unseen hand of unlimited options and volunteers. Fire everybody else. Push the current HR 25 (“Fair Tax” bill) through congress and end involuntary taxation. Demand less government and get more life. Just do it. This nation will feel better, and live longer.
Liberty or Bust,