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Don't You Wish the Government Would Get Something Done For Once?
Don't You Wish the Government Would Get Something Done For Once? PDF Print E-mail
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Original Articles - Palmer, Stephen
Written by Stephen Palmer   
Friday, 25 July 2008 22:43

"I wish the government would stop bickering and get something done!"

You've heard it, or maybe you've even said it yourself, right?

Doesn't it get tiresome to see so many pressing problems, such as illegal immigration and skyrocketing inflation, and watch the government wallow in the quicksand of petty partisanship and agonize over minor details? Don't you get tired of seeing politicians and branches of government who are unwilling to cooperate to get things done? Don't you wish that, just for once, our elected representatives could agree on something, anything? Don't you wish we could have a more efficient government that was more responsive to the needs of its citizens?

There's one slight problem with that sentiment, which was summed up well by Harry Truman who said, "Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship."

The Founders wisely set up a constitutional form specifically so that individuals, groups, and government branches would fight against each other, jockey for position, and ultimately check and balance each other. The only time the branches and parties would come together, reasoned the Founders, was when a problem was so immediate and disastrous that cooperation and efficiency were needed to solve it quickly, such as national disasters and major wars. In other words, the Founders wanted the government to be slow, contentious, and largely uncooperative. As Marchamont Nedham, a noted newspaper columnist in 17th Century England wrote, "...keeping [the executive and legislative] Powers distinct...so that they may never meet in one, save upon some short extraordinary occasion consists the safety of a state."

This structure, of course, was set up at a time when the People understood that they individually bore responsibility for their own welfare. Now, when the majority of our citizens look first and primarily to the government to solve problems, frustration with a sluggish, partisan, and uncooperative government is an ever-increasing sentiment.

The more the government fights internally, the more they leave citizens alone and free. In most cases, the more government cooperates, the more freedom we lose. Don't get me wrong--I want the government to be strong and capable in its prescribed duty to protect my unalienable rights. The problem is that power centralizes and expands, and government -- especially popular government -- always tends toward exceeding its prescribed limitations.

As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "The concentrating these [government bodies] in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one...As little will it avail us that they are chosen by ourselves. And elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should...be founded on free principles..."

Cooperative, efficient government has given us the following and more:
  • The 16th and 17th Amendments and the Federal Reserve Act, and, as a result, the Great Depression.
  • The New Deal, complete with the foundations of every entitlement program in existence today.
  • The Iraqi War, which is currently costing us $12 billion per month and is now the second longest war in our history, as well as the second most costly (surpassed only by World War II).
  • The $5.3 trillion bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
And in the process, what has been forcefully taken from us? Tax dollars (you now work four months out of twelve to support the bloated federal government budget), incalculable amounts of spending power through inflation, a constitutional form that largely prevented the growth of the federal government and ensured that state governments could check and balance the federal government, domestic peace as class conflict and resentment are created because of forced wealth redistribution, and a naturally balanced and healthy society as the government favors certain institutions at the expense of others, among others.

I don't know about you, but I wish the government would stop getting things done. The more it gets done, the less freedom you and I have, the less money we have, and the less power we have to influence and change things for the better. Thanks to efficient government, hard-working, responsible tax payers are being forced to bail out greedy and unwise financial institutions, support bureaucratic and unsustainable welfare programs, and spread American empire while our Republic crumbles internally.

Ironically, the dangerous slippery slope of government efficiency is greased up in the name of "helping" us. As Murray Rothbard wrote, "...at the heart of the welfarist mentality is an enormous desire to 'do good to' the mass of other people, and since people don't usually wish to be done good to, since they have their own ideas of what they wish to do, the liberal welfarist inevitably ends by reaching for the big stick with which to push the ungrateful masses around."

The next time you read or hear of partisanship and a lack of cooperation in the government, thank heaven that the politicians and bureaucrats are fighting amongst themselves, rather than working together to take your hard-earned money and property. The less they cooperate, the less they encroach on your freedom. The less they get done, the more you're able to get done without them meddling, regulating, and confining.

Long live uncooperative, inefficient government!

Recommended Reading:
The 5,000 Year Leap by Cleon Skousen
Thoughts on Government by John Adams
The Founders' Constitution by Liberty Fund
The Spirit of the Laws by Montesquieu
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