Slide_ways
Inactive
There are a few ideas that come to my head when the phrase "our government" is used. For many in America, the worst words one can hear are "We are from the government". Why is that do you suppose? Why do people dislike and even fear that which was established to protect and serve the people? It was not always the case, provided you go back far enough into our history. The war over what America should be, started back when we were just a tiny republic. In truth, it could be argued that this war ended in just recent decades. Instead of picking a side, rather I will argue that both “sides” provide the same end result.
I could go on and abuse the "the only thing that men learn from history is that men do not learn from history" saying, but I will refrain from that. That would be, quite frankly, too easy and thus I will ignore it. The truth is, as mentioned above, that this fight has been raging for almost the entirety of this Great American Experiment. (Incidentally, or off topic, if these things were taught in a clinical fashion in our schools, I believe we would avoid repeating many of the mistakes. But, that is just me talking.) You see, going back to just after the Articles of Confederation were written, many people were unhappy with the result. Brief history lesson: So, several states came up with their ideas of how it should be changed. You had everyone involved, from New Jersey to Virginia. Ironically, they all had the same general idea of how they wanted, but all that was left was to iron out the details. In the end, we ended up with just about what we have today (which is admittedly skimmed over). The primary concern was just how big government should be, but more importantly, just how do we elect those who will govern us. On one hand you had the Federalists, who if you were guessing off their name, favored a large, centralized government, and the Jeffersonian type who wanted a smaller, national government. But you have to understand that even those “evil” Federalists didn’t have anything in mind to their counterparts today. According to Jeremy Black, “In other words, strong government was necessary—but not because strong government was in and of itself a good thing. The Federalist would have cast a dim eye on modern-day socialists like Gordon Brown and President Obama, who, many argue, have used the present fiscal crisis to greatly extend the scope of the state.” They realized that a big government was needed to provide against the threat of invasion of England or any other hostile countries. It was never meant to be there to control the people, or to turn the people into mindless providers to the comfort of the Ruling Class. Why do I think that? Look at what they had just fought for their freedom against. Look at England. I restate my observation that people have no clue as to our history, as made clear by our penchant to repeating it. Pay attention, this is the fight that we have never seemed to finish, but until recently.
My argument, you will find is that we are again at the end of this countries cycle, and on the doorstep of oppression. I will explain briefly this cycle of nations further down. Just like in the times of the Revolution, we have a Government that is cut off, and out of touch from the American People. They oppress from afar, and demand things that they have no right to. Look around you, now the government is telling you that you can’t even buy a soda over 16 ounces in New York. Do I think that soda is unhealthy? Yes. But the government has no right to tell me that I can’t consume it. But then you may argue, well your health costs society money so they should be able to do so. That is where personal responsibility comes into play. But that is too hard of a concept for us to grasp. It’s a vicious circle of dependency really, they ensure you are reliant on them, and then they control everything about you and the threat of removing that help is always there if you don’t comply.
What is this “cycle of nation” that you speak of? Well, more specifically the cycle of Democracy those nations follow. To be clear: This great American experiment is an aberration. Without delving too deeply into the different forms of government, suffice it to say while Democracy has its flaws, it is by far the best choice. If you wish to get real technical, America isn’t a true Democracy nor was it meant to be. America is more of a Republic than anything. Alexis de Tocqueville said it best “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
The actual cycle can be seen here.
“From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to apathy;
from apathy to dependence;
from dependency back again into bondage."
The cycle of Democracy in a nutshell goes something like this-Oppression, Freedom, and then people forget how they got there or what they went through to get there and most importantly, they forget the cost of the people who gave their lives to give them the freedom to believe how they wish. Then it’s back into Oppression and the cycle starts anew.
It is my opinion along with many others that government was never to get as big as it has in the last 50 years. Awkwardly, people in America have swallowed the crazy pill and have been caught up in what I will refer to as the "Two Party System". Take for example the bitter arguments you see between people who identify themselves as “Republican” and “Democrat”. Family, friendships and work relationships are destroyed every day over something as simple as Party. Meanwhile, we only concern ourselves about the latest celebrity gossip, or the latest junk programming on TV. Many American's haven't a clue as to what our history truly is, and therefore have never experience true tyranny. We instead force feed ourselves a daily dose of head in the sand bliss, thinking all is well and only really complain when our lives are disrupted.
We give up a little freedom every day in the name of "safety and security" and before we even realize it, the leviathan has awoken and we have no say in our life. This admittedly sounds like the ranting of a futuristic sci-fi movie gone badly, but ladies and gentlemen, the day is fast approaching. Democrat or Republican, the lines have blurred as the truth gets more and more unavailable. The Government keeps us distracted with calls of racism; unneeded wars and keeps us guessing via the useless controlled Media. And yes, again “both” sides are guilty of this.
The fact is, the truth is so far evacuated our halls of Government, and instead lies and distortions are the new norm. Everyone likes to blame this President, and that President, when in reality Congress is the poison that is leeching this country dry. You couldn't get John Q Public to tell you who their congressman is or even what he/she stands for, much less be able to tell you the slightest facts about them. Oh, but they know what Justin Bieber and the Kardashians are doing and everything they have done in a heartbeat.
If you haven't gotten an idea of what I feel about our government at this point, keep reading and you will soon understand. Big Government is precisely what we have today, and I will show you just a few examples that demonstrate this opinion.
You say, *****, I know where you are going with this. You are going to blame “blank” party. Ah, but you are wrong. Your assumption is precisely what I referred to earlier in my opening statement. This isn't about blue or red. This is about personal choice and responsibility. Those two carrots have long been ripped out of our social consciences and its effects are becoming more and more obvious to those who pay attention. Our children in schools have zero concepts of personal responsibility or consequences for their actions. They are coddled, “protected” and indoctrinated literally from birth. You have children who will ridicule old woman on buses with profane, disturbingly cruel words until she bursts into tears for no reason at all. You may be able to argue that it was just an “isolated” incident, but stories like this go reported every day all over our country. Imagine the ones that do not get reported and then multiply it and you have an idea of what I am saying.
The truth is: both parties in America have their own versions of "big government" and all’s you do when you vote is pick the flavor you like best. On one side, you have the “nanny state” in which they give you so much stuff that you can’t afford to not go along with it. What do I mean? I mean, look at the facts. According to many resources and even the CBO, some 100 Million people living in America take some form of government handout. Total Federal payments to individuals are equal around $6600.00 each year per person. Whether it’s Food Stamps, or subsidized housing or “pre-school” all these of course are handouts. Anything given to you that you didn’t earn must be first taken from someone else. I think there is a general disconnect or maybe classic case of “head-in-sand” mentality amongst people today. However, the fatal flaw or the base problem of Socialism is when the group of providers becomes smaller than the group of takers, and then the system implodes. The only difference is the rate at which the implosion occurs. Take California for example as they are the first example is Big Government. They are broke, and not only are they broke, but they have no recourse. Their social programs along with their ridiculous environmental restrictions have literally caved in their state. Now, they are reaching out to the government for help. It is a fact that the government cannot give something to someone without first taking it from someone else. The popular argument for this behavior is that we all must take “shared” sacrifice. Yet the very people who espouse this mantra do not give more, yet they legislate that others must.
When will this end? Well, only until the money runs out of course. But what do you expect really? We have politicians who can literally vote themselves raises, who literally buy their votes via transfer of wealth to their constituents whether through pork barrel requisitions for their state or through directs payments in the aforementioned “social assistance”. I am not against helping those in need, but it has gotten out of hand. Yes, Jesus would want us to give, and give liberally but not at the point of a sword. Forced giving isn’t actually giving.
On the “Other Side” we have those who think that we should invade other countries and start countless unwinnable wars, to feed the “war machine” and they make every excuse to continue to do so. When in reality, there is just a phantom bad guy and a never ending toll on our young men and women. According to Tanner who says:
“During the first six years of the George W. Bush administration, government domestic spending has increased by 27 percent in real terms. Domestic discretionary (non-entitlement) spending has grown at a real annual rate of 4.5 percent over these six years, compared to 2.1 percent per year under Bill Clinton. Indeed, President Bush has been the biggest big spender since Lyndon Johnson and his Great Society policies of the 1960s.
Furthermore, government’s intrusiveness in the social and economic life of the country has also gone up dramatically. Bush and a Republican Congress enacted the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, the largest new entitlement program since President Johnson signed the Medicare bill four decades ago. Bush also expanded the tentacles of federal control over education by pushing No Child Left Behind, which promises more and more regulation and national standards imposed by Washington. Federal spending on education has increased by more than 50 percent; the Department of Education budget has gone up from $33.6 billion in 2001 to $51.1 billion today.
A Republican Congress happily passed bill after bill that increased the spending on a pork barrel full of programs to benefit every conceivable special-interest group. The most notorious are “earmarks,” which target money for particular states and designated constituents. The corruption scandals of the last few years have merely been the tip of the iceberg of a Republican congressional mentality that nothing was more important than reelection and power.”
And of course, the requisite spending binge that accompanies it. The largest expansion of the NSA occurred under a Republican controlled government, along with the well documented useless Homeland Security. That’s just it. One side wants to feed and control you and keep you sedated with free stuff, and the other side wants to suck you dry to feed their power and control all the while the America Taxpayer is getting nuked into extinction.
Meanwhile the Media is used as a propaganda tool to soothe or rile up the masses as needed. Did you know our whole American Media is owned by no less than the same 6 corporations? In 1983, there were around 50 corporations that controlled all the news media here in the US. Today there are 6:
“In 1983, fifty corporations dominated most of every mass medium and the biggest media merger in history was a $340 million deal. … n 1987, the fifty companies had shrunk to twenty-nine. … n 1990, the twenty-nine had shrunk to twenty three. … n 1997, the biggest firms numbered ten and involved the $19 billion Disney-ABC deal, at the time the biggest media merger ever. … [In 2000] AOL Time Warner’s $350 billion merged corporation [was] more than 1,000 times larger [than the biggest deal of 1983]”.
That’s right folks; you have been fooled into thinking otherwise. Doesn’t matter if it’s Fox News or MSNBC have some free time and trace it out if you can manage to do so. Again, it’s the same game, just a slightly different flavor.
Yes, there are those people or politicians who claim to be this or that, but in the end, they are get corrupted or turn. Very few people who head to Washington ever stay the course, looking out for the people. They rather go with the flow and become chameleons. Face it, you have been snookered. Something to think about next time you vote for President-Popular vote is meaningless; rather it is the electoral vote that truly matters. This process isn’t new; it has been around virtually since this country came to be. Remember when we were having our history lesson, this method was created. Didn’t know that? See my original premise that most American’s are ignorant. What truly matters isn’t what they advertise and push on us “the presidential elections” rather it is the House and the Senate and our local officials. Really want to change America? Start from the ground up. That’s right, local.
To sum this up, yes, we have Big Government, and it is here to stay. We are in so deep and the American people are so divided that there is nothing that we can do in reality. We can throw our Tea Parties and our Occupy Wall Street protests all we want, but nothing will change. Is this a defeatist mentality? I call it realism. Buckle down and prepare America, be ready to defend yourself and your family from those who will do you ill. I truly believe that we have gone too far down to ever go back. Sure, we can make some adjustments and changes, but eventually, this will in fact all come crashing down. You want to change your country? Start at home, be responsible for your actions, and own your mistakes. Help your neighbor, give all you can and take only what you need.
I could go on and abuse the "the only thing that men learn from history is that men do not learn from history" saying, but I will refrain from that. That would be, quite frankly, too easy and thus I will ignore it. The truth is, as mentioned above, that this fight has been raging for almost the entirety of this Great American Experiment. (Incidentally, or off topic, if these things were taught in a clinical fashion in our schools, I believe we would avoid repeating many of the mistakes. But, that is just me talking.) You see, going back to just after the Articles of Confederation were written, many people were unhappy with the result. Brief history lesson: So, several states came up with their ideas of how it should be changed. You had everyone involved, from New Jersey to Virginia. Ironically, they all had the same general idea of how they wanted, but all that was left was to iron out the details. In the end, we ended up with just about what we have today (which is admittedly skimmed over). The primary concern was just how big government should be, but more importantly, just how do we elect those who will govern us. On one hand you had the Federalists, who if you were guessing off their name, favored a large, centralized government, and the Jeffersonian type who wanted a smaller, national government. But you have to understand that even those “evil” Federalists didn’t have anything in mind to their counterparts today. According to Jeremy Black, “In other words, strong government was necessary—but not because strong government was in and of itself a good thing. The Federalist would have cast a dim eye on modern-day socialists like Gordon Brown and President Obama, who, many argue, have used the present fiscal crisis to greatly extend the scope of the state.” They realized that a big government was needed to provide against the threat of invasion of England or any other hostile countries. It was never meant to be there to control the people, or to turn the people into mindless providers to the comfort of the Ruling Class. Why do I think that? Look at what they had just fought for their freedom against. Look at England. I restate my observation that people have no clue as to our history, as made clear by our penchant to repeating it. Pay attention, this is the fight that we have never seemed to finish, but until recently.
My argument, you will find is that we are again at the end of this countries cycle, and on the doorstep of oppression. I will explain briefly this cycle of nations further down. Just like in the times of the Revolution, we have a Government that is cut off, and out of touch from the American People. They oppress from afar, and demand things that they have no right to. Look around you, now the government is telling you that you can’t even buy a soda over 16 ounces in New York. Do I think that soda is unhealthy? Yes. But the government has no right to tell me that I can’t consume it. But then you may argue, well your health costs society money so they should be able to do so. That is where personal responsibility comes into play. But that is too hard of a concept for us to grasp. It’s a vicious circle of dependency really, they ensure you are reliant on them, and then they control everything about you and the threat of removing that help is always there if you don’t comply.
What is this “cycle of nation” that you speak of? Well, more specifically the cycle of Democracy those nations follow. To be clear: This great American experiment is an aberration. Without delving too deeply into the different forms of government, suffice it to say while Democracy has its flaws, it is by far the best choice. If you wish to get real technical, America isn’t a true Democracy nor was it meant to be. America is more of a Republic than anything. Alexis de Tocqueville said it best “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
The actual cycle can be seen here.
“From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to apathy;
from apathy to dependence;
from dependency back again into bondage."
The cycle of Democracy in a nutshell goes something like this-Oppression, Freedom, and then people forget how they got there or what they went through to get there and most importantly, they forget the cost of the people who gave their lives to give them the freedom to believe how they wish. Then it’s back into Oppression and the cycle starts anew.
It is my opinion along with many others that government was never to get as big as it has in the last 50 years. Awkwardly, people in America have swallowed the crazy pill and have been caught up in what I will refer to as the "Two Party System". Take for example the bitter arguments you see between people who identify themselves as “Republican” and “Democrat”. Family, friendships and work relationships are destroyed every day over something as simple as Party. Meanwhile, we only concern ourselves about the latest celebrity gossip, or the latest junk programming on TV. Many American's haven't a clue as to what our history truly is, and therefore have never experience true tyranny. We instead force feed ourselves a daily dose of head in the sand bliss, thinking all is well and only really complain when our lives are disrupted.
We give up a little freedom every day in the name of "safety and security" and before we even realize it, the leviathan has awoken and we have no say in our life. This admittedly sounds like the ranting of a futuristic sci-fi movie gone badly, but ladies and gentlemen, the day is fast approaching. Democrat or Republican, the lines have blurred as the truth gets more and more unavailable. The Government keeps us distracted with calls of racism; unneeded wars and keeps us guessing via the useless controlled Media. And yes, again “both” sides are guilty of this.
The fact is, the truth is so far evacuated our halls of Government, and instead lies and distortions are the new norm. Everyone likes to blame this President, and that President, when in reality Congress is the poison that is leeching this country dry. You couldn't get John Q Public to tell you who their congressman is or even what he/she stands for, much less be able to tell you the slightest facts about them. Oh, but they know what Justin Bieber and the Kardashians are doing and everything they have done in a heartbeat.
If you haven't gotten an idea of what I feel about our government at this point, keep reading and you will soon understand. Big Government is precisely what we have today, and I will show you just a few examples that demonstrate this opinion.
You say, *****, I know where you are going with this. You are going to blame “blank” party. Ah, but you are wrong. Your assumption is precisely what I referred to earlier in my opening statement. This isn't about blue or red. This is about personal choice and responsibility. Those two carrots have long been ripped out of our social consciences and its effects are becoming more and more obvious to those who pay attention. Our children in schools have zero concepts of personal responsibility or consequences for their actions. They are coddled, “protected” and indoctrinated literally from birth. You have children who will ridicule old woman on buses with profane, disturbingly cruel words until she bursts into tears for no reason at all. You may be able to argue that it was just an “isolated” incident, but stories like this go reported every day all over our country. Imagine the ones that do not get reported and then multiply it and you have an idea of what I am saying.
The truth is: both parties in America have their own versions of "big government" and all’s you do when you vote is pick the flavor you like best. On one side, you have the “nanny state” in which they give you so much stuff that you can’t afford to not go along with it. What do I mean? I mean, look at the facts. According to many resources and even the CBO, some 100 Million people living in America take some form of government handout. Total Federal payments to individuals are equal around $6600.00 each year per person. Whether it’s Food Stamps, or subsidized housing or “pre-school” all these of course are handouts. Anything given to you that you didn’t earn must be first taken from someone else. I think there is a general disconnect or maybe classic case of “head-in-sand” mentality amongst people today. However, the fatal flaw or the base problem of Socialism is when the group of providers becomes smaller than the group of takers, and then the system implodes. The only difference is the rate at which the implosion occurs. Take California for example as they are the first example is Big Government. They are broke, and not only are they broke, but they have no recourse. Their social programs along with their ridiculous environmental restrictions have literally caved in their state. Now, they are reaching out to the government for help. It is a fact that the government cannot give something to someone without first taking it from someone else. The popular argument for this behavior is that we all must take “shared” sacrifice. Yet the very people who espouse this mantra do not give more, yet they legislate that others must.
When will this end? Well, only until the money runs out of course. But what do you expect really? We have politicians who can literally vote themselves raises, who literally buy their votes via transfer of wealth to their constituents whether through pork barrel requisitions for their state or through directs payments in the aforementioned “social assistance”. I am not against helping those in need, but it has gotten out of hand. Yes, Jesus would want us to give, and give liberally but not at the point of a sword. Forced giving isn’t actually giving.
On the “Other Side” we have those who think that we should invade other countries and start countless unwinnable wars, to feed the “war machine” and they make every excuse to continue to do so. When in reality, there is just a phantom bad guy and a never ending toll on our young men and women. According to Tanner who says:
“During the first six years of the George W. Bush administration, government domestic spending has increased by 27 percent in real terms. Domestic discretionary (non-entitlement) spending has grown at a real annual rate of 4.5 percent over these six years, compared to 2.1 percent per year under Bill Clinton. Indeed, President Bush has been the biggest big spender since Lyndon Johnson and his Great Society policies of the 1960s.
Furthermore, government’s intrusiveness in the social and economic life of the country has also gone up dramatically. Bush and a Republican Congress enacted the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, the largest new entitlement program since President Johnson signed the Medicare bill four decades ago. Bush also expanded the tentacles of federal control over education by pushing No Child Left Behind, which promises more and more regulation and national standards imposed by Washington. Federal spending on education has increased by more than 50 percent; the Department of Education budget has gone up from $33.6 billion in 2001 to $51.1 billion today.
A Republican Congress happily passed bill after bill that increased the spending on a pork barrel full of programs to benefit every conceivable special-interest group. The most notorious are “earmarks,” which target money for particular states and designated constituents. The corruption scandals of the last few years have merely been the tip of the iceberg of a Republican congressional mentality that nothing was more important than reelection and power.”
And of course, the requisite spending binge that accompanies it. The largest expansion of the NSA occurred under a Republican controlled government, along with the well documented useless Homeland Security. That’s just it. One side wants to feed and control you and keep you sedated with free stuff, and the other side wants to suck you dry to feed their power and control all the while the America Taxpayer is getting nuked into extinction.
Meanwhile the Media is used as a propaganda tool to soothe or rile up the masses as needed. Did you know our whole American Media is owned by no less than the same 6 corporations? In 1983, there were around 50 corporations that controlled all the news media here in the US. Today there are 6:
“In 1983, fifty corporations dominated most of every mass medium and the biggest media merger in history was a $340 million deal. … n 1987, the fifty companies had shrunk to twenty-nine. … n 1990, the twenty-nine had shrunk to twenty three. … n 1997, the biggest firms numbered ten and involved the $19 billion Disney-ABC deal, at the time the biggest media merger ever. … [In 2000] AOL Time Warner’s $350 billion merged corporation [was] more than 1,000 times larger [than the biggest deal of 1983]”.
That’s right folks; you have been fooled into thinking otherwise. Doesn’t matter if it’s Fox News or MSNBC have some free time and trace it out if you can manage to do so. Again, it’s the same game, just a slightly different flavor.
Yes, there are those people or politicians who claim to be this or that, but in the end, they are get corrupted or turn. Very few people who head to Washington ever stay the course, looking out for the people. They rather go with the flow and become chameleons. Face it, you have been snookered. Something to think about next time you vote for President-Popular vote is meaningless; rather it is the electoral vote that truly matters. This process isn’t new; it has been around virtually since this country came to be. Remember when we were having our history lesson, this method was created. Didn’t know that? See my original premise that most American’s are ignorant. What truly matters isn’t what they advertise and push on us “the presidential elections” rather it is the House and the Senate and our local officials. Really want to change America? Start from the ground up. That’s right, local.
To sum this up, yes, we have Big Government, and it is here to stay. We are in so deep and the American people are so divided that there is nothing that we can do in reality. We can throw our Tea Parties and our Occupy Wall Street protests all we want, but nothing will change. Is this a defeatist mentality? I call it realism. Buckle down and prepare America, be ready to defend yourself and your family from those who will do you ill. I truly believe that we have gone too far down to ever go back. Sure, we can make some adjustments and changes, but eventually, this will in fact all come crashing down. You want to change your country? Start at home, be responsible for your actions, and own your mistakes. Help your neighbor, give all you can and take only what you need.