A Government that Takes Care of Us Shackles Us.

               I certainly agree with James Sefcak (“Government Responsible for People,” Yuma Sun, November 17, 2013) that our health care system has bogged us down in incredible debt and made health care exorbitantly expensive.  What he does not understand, however, is that the clumsy way in which the federal government inserted itself into the health care industry 65 years ago actually created the problem.  He is misguided in his belief that more government involvement would cure the ills that that the government created.  But that’s an argument for another day. 

               What is most disturbing about Mr. Sefcak’s letter is his assertion that it is the responsibility of the federal government to “take care of us.”  The founders of this country were astute students of history.  Their writings reflect that they knew The Bible and studied every great thinker from Herodotus and Liu Xiang to Thomas Aquinas, Voltaire, John Locke, and Iroquois Tribal Law. A key lesson they learned was that in order to protect the rights and freedoms of citizens, governmental powers must be severely limited. They knew that “the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground,” an evolution that inevitably leads to tyranny.  When we depend on a government to take care of our needs, we become slaves to the ruling classes.

               Now James will probably say, “Well, the founding fathers, and certainly those primordial ancients, know nothing about the modern world.”  True, they didn’t know about tweeting and twerking.  They did, however, have a unique understanding of some important truths about the human heart.  They knew the intrusive and arbitrary evils wrought by consolidation of power. They knew that all men were vulnerable to greed and an insatiable lust for power.  For this reason they carefully divided and limited the powers of the federal government.

               Apparently when Ben Franklin exited Constitution Hall after 116 days grueling days of intense debate, a woman asked him, “What kind of government did you give us?”  “A republic,” he said, “if you can keep it.”  He predicted our descent into despotism. He, like eighteenth century historian Alexander Tytler, understood the self-destructive cycle of democratic behavior: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back into bondage.

 Our politicians get us to vote for them promising to “care for us,” but every law they pass feathers their own nests at our expense.  .  We used to have a strong middle class.  It’s shrinking.  Soon we’ll be like other socialist nations, the ruling classes living in seclusion in their elaborate seaside dachas while the rest us, mobs of the underclass, huddle in crowded public housing developments grateful for the crumps left for us in our feeding troughs.   

               Norman Thomas said, “The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism.  But, under the name of 'Liberalism', they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation without knowing how it happened.  I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party.  The Democrat Party has adopted our platform.” 

               Is there a way we can derail this train?