The Fundamental Error

Big, unlimited government causes corruption in business and government to thrive. Heavy and byzantine regulation and taxation turn government into a crony-capitalist, fascistic, money-laundering operation. We're all familiar with this. This is the issue. If you're a liberal, you see this issue in terms of the rich being on the take and the poor getting left behind.

The error is to suppose that empowering government to fix this problem is a good idea. Government has caused the problem by being given too much power. Giving it more power only exacerbates the problem. And this is where we find ourselves: out of money and drowning in corruption.

Suppose you have a mafia gang in your neighborhood. It gets power and starts dealing influence and favors, stealing from the residents, and restricting liberty. The situation becomes very bad, with corruption, poverty, and economic decline. So, you hope to clean it up by calling for the mafia gang to get more power. This is an error.

There is a matter of luck at play. Our military has enormous power. Yet it is full of honorable people, just by our good luck. Our government has a fair amount of honorable people in it, but not nearly enough to counterbalance the dishonorable ones. If you empower a government body, you better be lucky enough to have that body peopled by honorable men. In the case of government outside of the military, you aren't so lucky. Stop making this mistake. Your luck isn't going to change.

The Founding Fathers wanted government to be restricted, hog-tied, and severely limited to enumerated powers, so it couldn't wreak havoc of the kind it is wreaking now, 200 years later. They knew we wouldn't be lucky. They knew there would be corruption. Please try to revisit this vision of government. It is correct. The progressive vision - the vision driving American federal and state government for the last 100 years - is an error. Please try to give up on the "But if we just..." reflex which drives you to suppose that there are governmental solutions to this problem. These solutions are 2000-page bills that feed the parasite that is killing you.

The choice is small, limited government or big, unlimited government. There is no third way. Big, unlimited government isn't the solution; it's the problem. If you can't see this, you'll keep making the same error over and over again. Please reconsider the Founding Fathers' vision.