I just can’t get over how smart I feel, now that I know the purpose of government is “to help people change their behavior” ( http://leeduigon.com/2014/09/25/seattle-will-inspect-your-garbage/ ).
The Bible (Romans Chapter 13, and elsewhere) says we have governments to restrain and punish evildoers, and to protect our lives and property. Our Declaration of Independence ascribes to government a lofty purpose: to safeguard inalienable rights given us by God Himself. And in the Constitution, government’s function is to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
Obviously government isn’t doing any of those things anymore. Restraining evildoers? The evildoers up on Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue don’t seem the least bit restrained. They chop away at our liberties and, by their fiscal incontinence, beggar our posterity.
But when it comes to helping us to change our behavior–hey, they’re all on board for that.
Laws used to tell us what we couldn’t do. Now, more and more, laws tell us what we must do.
We must buy health insurance. We must embrace same-sex pseudomarriage. If we’re kids in public school, we must eat “healthy” foods as defined by the government, even if it’s tasteless pap. And there are laws just waiting to be passed that will tell us what kind of dwellings we must build, and where to build them, how much electricity we can use, what kind of cars we must drive, what kind of vaccines our children must receive, and even when we’ve lived long enough and must now sign up for “end of life counseling.” And so on–no end to it in sight.
Could anything be farther from securing the blessings of liberty?
Look, you can’t fundamentally transform the country if you can’t order the citizens’ behavior. For that, you’ve got to have “human rights” commissions, speech codes, Climate Change legislation, and amnesty for a flood of illegal aliens to keep Democrats in power until they can finish their transformation project.
Why aren’t people angrier about all this?
I am as angry as a wounded bear in a cage with sharp sticks poking me on all sides.