Our Increasing Lack of Freedom

I remember my old showers, the ones where the water pressure was nice and strong, and the water was hot.  Now, we have low flow devices mandated in our faucet heads and temperature turned down on the water heaters.  When I was a kid, I would walk around with my shotgun shooting at birds and squirrels and we would burn our trash in barrels in the backyard.  We would build our own sheds without a permit.  We would chop down trees and reclaim land without permission from the federal government.  All those things are felonies now.

We could flush our toilets once, because it had enough gallons to actually flush correctly.  I could even buy lightbulbs of my own choice.  It is a good thing that the benevolent government of unionized bureaucrats knows how to live my life better than I do.  They protect me from too much salt, from coconut oil on my popcorn, from grandmothers in wheelchairs in airports.  The same smart people you see when you go to the Motor Vehicle Department, the Post Office or any public agency are there to be smarter than you and protect you.  You don’t need freedom, you need protection.  You may do something unsafe or foolish.

There are never enough government programs to truly protect you, so you need to pay more and more in taxes so you can be better protected.  Ignore the fact that the average federal employee makes over $72,000 a year and over a third make six figures.  So what if the private sector pays less and usually around $40,000 on average?  The people in government are smarter than you and protect you, they deserve more.  When unemployment in the country reached over 10% and 500,000 people stopped even looking for work, take solace that the number of federal employees increased and most got substantial raises.

So, let’s not talk about cutting government, even though we would have no deficit if we went just to 2007 spending levels.  The government knows better what to do with our money and our lives.  Freedom is just unsafe because we don’t exercise it responsibly.  The following is a repost from my oldest sister, Penny: