And the real political problem is...

Sorry guys, this one is gonna hurt.

As you know, I blame Congress and the Nanny state for most of the nations cultural and all of the nations financial woes.  But let's do the vector math and figure out the source of the problem.

Question 1.
If a government agent called to tell you there was a glitch in the disability laws that would grant you $1500 a month for life if you quit your job and never worked again, would you...

1. Quit your job tomorrow (and possibly work for cash under the table)
   
2. Tell the government to go to Hell.

I was reading a book from the 1940's last night and it became apparent to me that the worst thing you could call a man back then was a "weakling".  If you were weak, you were dependent, you couldn't provide for yourself, your family, you were undesirable as a mate.  You were lazy, a loafer, a fool.  So, as the story goes along, the various guys use their cleverness, their connections, their wealth, or their brute strength to make their way in life. Each man - even though in conflict with the others - respected them, yet still used their talents to compete with them for their own version of success.

Question 2.
If someone sues a big company over a small matter and gets a gigantic settlement, he is...

1. a genius
2. a theif

In that earlier time, a man's labor was his own.  The notion that 50% of anyones income - from Howard Hughes to the bum on the street - belonged to the state was unthinkable.  Today we have adopted the attitude that it's the duty of those with income to provide whatever the government tells it we must.  If we complain about high taxes, we are told that we lack compassion.  Seriously.  How does not wanting to feed the monster that is destroying our country a lack of compassion?  Does the money-gobbling dragon deserve our compassion in the first place?  How did we get to this place where we happily fork over the fruits of our labor without so much as a whimper?


In my mind, if you take a job for, say $8 an hour, you have earned $8 for each hour you work.  Every penny that is forcibly deducted out of that paycheck is an evil, and the decision to confiscate them should be come to only in the direst of states.  No, it's not OK that you took a job at $8 an hour and your check is made for the equivalent of $7.25 an hour.  You have been robbed.  Your work - your sweat - has been used to feed some fat bureaucrat somewhere in a federal and state office building.


Question 3.
If something is a good idea, does that mean that government should do it?

It's a great idea to wear your seatbelt when you drive.  Statistically, it will probably save your life.  But when the nanny state makes laws that you must wear it, on penalty of being fined, they have stolen your freedom.  They have done something else as well.  They have created a revenue stream for themselves.  Have you noticed that cash-strapped states are upping their traffic enforcement?  Why is that?  Do you think that these new laws are about safety, or revenue?

Here in California, it is illegal to talk on a cell phone while driving, unless using a hands-free device. Now, we already had distracted driving laws, so anything a driver does to endanger others is already covered by that.  Here's how we got where we are.

Someone took the statistics that more and more accidents were happening where a driver was chatting on the phone.  So they wrote a new law that you can't chat on the phone while driving. What they didn't note was that cell phone use in general was also on the rise, and that there is no statistic to show...

1. the number of drivers who safely use their cells on the road.
2. the number of drivers who know they aren't safe driving while chatting, and voluntarily choose to pull over when chatting.

So now the ever-watchful Nanny-Zilla is on the rampage collecting more of our income because the sitter needed to know what to do when Johnny was puking while you were on your way home from work.

So, is distracted driving bad and should it be illegal?  Yes. 

Is chatting on the cell while driving "distracted" driving?  Maybe.  No one ever bothered to find out.  No one ever will, now.

So let me ask you this:
Who causes all these horrible confiscations of our money and freedom?

The answer is that we do it ourselves.  Every time we vote for some polit-weasel that promises us something for nothing (health care, pensions, welfare) - every time we vote for some measure that promises to hand us cash and goodies that someone else will have to pay for (corporations, smokers, fat people, the wealthy), we are creating a state where hard work and enterprise are punished to prop up laziness and theft.

So who is the real political problem?

You are.

What is the solution?

Stop relying on others to make your way in life.  Rely on yourself.  Theft is not cleverness, it's an offense.  Stealing from the wealthy, or corporations, or anyone is not virtue, it makes you a thug - even if you used the legal system to perpetrate your crime.  You should get a job and provide some value for your income.  Stop accepting evil as normal.  That, or sit back and wait for your ill-gotten gains and watch as the economy goes to Hell.  It's your choice.

You can't steal from the industrious and expect them to keep earning for you to steal even more.