The Land of the Free - Open Hands to Government

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Open Hands to Government by Jeff Jackson 10/04/03

This is Part 2 of the topic "Propagation of the Nanny State" and follows Government As A Provider. This paper deals with the topics of how certain sections of society see Government.

With hands outstretched our people approach the government asking the question of "What shall you give me today?" And our politicians respond by rattling off any number of proposals all designed to "give" something to the people that ask the question. For if they do not the people then ask the question "Why are we electing you if you give us nothing?"

The correct answer to the question of "What shall you give me today?" should not be the lavishing of funds from the treasury or new fights against imaginary foes or even the bettering of these persons at the expense of another. No, the answer to the question must be a resounding "Nothing." That is nothing except the protection of the rights and liberties of all free men and that tomorrow you will still awaken in a land where republican government and those freedoms will be ensured. That is nothing except the freedom to make of your life what you will of your life among your fellow man.

Government's job is no more nor can it become more. Opening our hands and taking of government more than its basic functions of ensuring our inalienable rights is allowing it to hand us the bricks and the mortar to build only our own prison. This prison, once built, will choke the air of freedom and be nearly impossible to tear down.

Approaching government with the expectations that it will give you something other than the basic functions of its purpose leads to an ever tightening spiral of demanding more and more. Some do not care simply because they do not bare the fiscal costs of running the programs that government lavishes upon them and their fellow Americans. But they do bare the societal costs. These societal costs are that as the government provides more and more to those that already have nothing and thus do not bare the fiscal costs of such programs, these same persons are not driven to better themselves because they have a provider giving them more than they normally would have. Even those that do bare the fiscal costs of government can fall into this trap in order to better themselves as well.

Any time we use government to better our lives at the expense of hard work, we must take from another citizen for all the funds for which government uses to provide for others comes from other citizens. Government responding to the cries of "What shall you give me today?" with more spending and pet projects and more enslavement of those that receive has not given its people anything except a prison where government is the warden.

We have seen many years of the government giving to its people as they beg for more. We have seen the "War on Poverty" and the "Great Society" try to lift the impoverished out of their condition only to still have poor and impoverished people over 30 years after they began. No amount of government spending has solved it. Instead of people that better themselves we are left with a class of citizens imprisoned by the government.

We have seen failed business endeavors such as certain sectors of the farming community and even AMTRAK subsidized year after year by the government to either not produce or to not run as sound and viable businesses.

We have seen a federal government that has to rely on private citizens to even provide medical supplies and air conditioners to our troops over sees.

We have seen the generous hand of government and we have well been witness to it's mightiest failures. Why should we as citizens continue to put our faith in a system that works so miserably? The answer is that we should not. However politicians that do everything but be leaders continue to force government to keep the vaults open and encourage our citizens to beg for more and more with hands outstretched.

Our government should not be a charity or a bail out for failed endeavors. Our government should be the protectors of our freedoms and our means of recompense against those that seek to do us true and measurable harm. Our government should slap away the hands of the people that would come before it as beggars. It should not allow the people that it serves to build up a prison about themselves.

And those of our government that would continue not to do so would be guilty of our highest crime; treason.