Douglas Hill
opinion, humor and small town common sense
Thursday, January 17, 2008

Government is too much with us

Thomas Paine argued that “Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”

For Thomas Jefferson, all compromises with political power were pacts with the devil. All efforts at political consolidation were treasonable acts.

Unlike that of our forefathers, our society has failed to recognize the enveloping tyranny, or to thwart its insidious assault on our liberty and freedoms; it does not notice that the government that is tasked with preserving our liberty and freedoms is usurping both.

The government tells us when and where we can smoke; it grants us the “privilege” of operating a motor vehicle, subject of course to licensing fees, the requirement to wear seat belts, to transport children in a government-specified manner, to use only a government-specified formula of fuel, which it taxes heavily, and charges us for the aforesaid “privilege” with registration fees and excise taxes. The government takes (this is not a voluntary contribution) ever larger portions of our earnings to dispose of as it sees fit. We, as individuals, have no say in how our money, the fruit of our labor, is spent by government. We have moved far from our guaranteed compact of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, just as we have from the right to bear arms, to being subjects of privileges conferred by the State, at the pleasure of the State. Government intrudes into our lives almost imperceptibly, encroaching upon our personal liberty and freedom at an ever increasing rate. Power of one man over another is that insatiable.

Today, eminent scientists are denied the right to espouse theories relating to global warming contradictory to the party line. Rational debate is closed. Hysteria prevails. A scientist that has the temerity to suggest that global warming is a function of solar activity, rather than man-made emissions, is threatened with losing his position, promotions, grants, and is ostracized and ridiculed by those unwilling to tolerate discussion. One Weather Channel zealot made the news by suggesting that any scientist taking a position opposing the theory of global warming resulting from man-made emissions should “be stripped of his credentials,” and, presumably, cast out of polite society. All of our freedoms, not the least, the freedom of speech, are under heavy assault. We are already that intimidated by government that no one dares cry foul. Yet recently, four hundred eminent scientists from around the world did just that. They declared in unison their objection to the theory that man-made emissions are responsible for global warming, asserting that solar activity, beyond our control, is the source of global warming, and that man-made emissions do not factor in any significant way into the matter. It is said that numerous other scientists share that opinion, but dare not admit to their opinions for fear of reprisals. Welcome to the Dark Ages. The world is flat – praise be to Political Correctness!

Political Correctness is the religion of the day, and its airhead zealots are legion. Al Gore, fresh from inventing the internet, is the chief zealot-in-charge of the global warming mandate – believe or die. His hysterical rants of doom and the world’s impending end exemplify the Political Correctness movement, which favors the hysterical party line over rationalism. Rather than regulating industry out of business, legislating crippling emission controls and creating a vast boondoggle of carbon exchange scams, our collective effort might be better served by planning how to cope with global warming should solar activity result in such an eventuality.

The politically correct know what’s best for you and me, and are prepared to dictate the terms by which we are suffered to exist as subjects of the State. Political correctness informs the sensibilities of the government bureaucracy, which accounts for the acceleration of government’s dominion over our lives. The power of government is derived from us. The transfer of power from us to the ever-growing government has heretofore been gradual, by seemingly imperceptible or inconsequential increments. Gradually, and freely, we have ceded our precious freedoms to a government that was never intended to become the bloated, self-serving, dictatorial gargantuan that it is, and by which we are now, individually, cowed. Its appetite is insatiable; its assault, insidious and relentless.

Yet we continue to idly sleep, led like sheep, shorn of our capacity for individual thought, to our ultimate indenture to the State. As the spirit of individualism is sacrificed to the collective, our individual thought process is supplanted by imposition of the dictates of group thought, and we dare not suffer the sanctions of apostasy. We do not need to contemplate or solve our problems – the “answers” will be provided to us.

For now, the ascendancy of Political Correctness is sweet to its proponents and followers. It is a short-sighted victory. When the power of government discovers a new religion, as it inevitably will, those who strove to impose their agenda on others through increased government power will find something quite different imposed upon them. But they will no longer have the liberty or freedom to do anything about it.
Reading
WALDEN
Henry David Thoreau


Listening
Simon & Garfunkel






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