One of the most fascinating things about the ever expanding state we live under is how they will continually justify their expansions based on previous expansions of power. Through this process, the state expands exponentially at times until the weight of it becomes too much to bear for the citizenry. I have come to refer to this as the spiraling state phenomenon.
This phenomenon is best described as thus: say there is a problem facing the citizens living under a certain government. It could be small or big, it doesn’t really matter, what matters is that the citizenry decides to outsource the solution to the government leaders who are overseeing them. Sometimes the leaders themselves will take on the problem without consulting its citizens, as is usually the case with the Federal government. In any case, the government has been tasked with solving the problem.
So what does the government do to resolve the issue? A number of things, all of which involve force of some kind. A law is passed, a new agency or an existing agency is tasked with enforcing that law and thus the problem is solved. Unfortunately, while the solution may work, it inevitably creates a new problem that afflicts the citizenry. I can’t think of any instance in modern history where government interference hasn’t created a new problem.
So now the citizenry or the government have identified a new problem. Since the citizens are used to the government fixing problems, they gladly allow the government to tackle the very problem created by the government in the first place. Thus, the government leaders, instead of removing the original cause of the problem by repealing the law and retasking the bureaucracy accordingly, pass another law and push new tasks on a new agency or an existing agency. And thus, the state spirals out even further. This is repeated with less and less resistance from the citizenry because by the time it has spiraled out far enough, everyone pretty much expects the government to resolve even the simplest problems.
There are plenty of examples of where this occurs in just about every sector of our society. The best example would be the health insurance plans and how things have moved toward more expensive plans and ultimately will be headed to state-run health care. For starters, over half a century ago, health insurance was simply insurance. Most people would use it when they would incur costs that they could not cover. Otherwise, they would pay the doctor a flat fee directly. However, because of various Federal and state government mandates, regulations, tax breaks, and welfare programs, today health insurance costs a lot more than it should. So what does the Federal government propose to do? Repeal all these ridiculous laws and let the free market take care of it?
Are you on crack? Why would the State ever give up any power it has already acquired? Because health covers more than just illnesses but diet, physical activity, and other things, allowing any government some level of influence on your health care will allow them to justify controlling the food you eat, the kind of work you do, and ultimately the kind of care you deserve. In the UK, I’ve heard that people who smoke are given a lower tier in the care queue than non-smokers. While this is fair, from a cost-benefit analysis, the real question should be why we aren’t forcing individuals to pay for their health care.
So you see the problem here. As long as we keep on expecting the government to be there for us when life hits hard, we will always see more and more government tyranny. Because the government usually is a subset of the general populace, not some god-like entity as so many people seem to believe, it is severely limited in managing our affairs. The best person for You, Inc. is, well, you.
So if you have a problem in your life, no matter how big, you should always fall back on the government as a last resort, not as the first one. I know this is probably counter-intuitive for many people, so it will be hard to convince most people. At the same time, though, I am seeing more and more people out there who were just living their lives rising up and declaring themselves to be free individuals who don’t the government for every scrape life gives them. This, at least, gives me some hope for the future of our nation.