Getting Government off our Backs

Right wing conservatives, the Tea Party, The Republican Party and their bevy of presidential candidates all call for reducing the size and reach of our federal government. They extol the virtue of “getting government off our backs.” They are keen on returning power to the states. Government should not be involved in providing national healthcare or setting educational standards. The federal government should not be regulating the environment, setting energy policy or regulating banks and big business. The Federal Reserve should be abolished. Social Security should be privatized and every citizen should be free to provide for their own needs when it comes to retirement. All taxes should be reduced or eliminated (especially taxes on investments or capital gains… set to 0%). Leave the wealthy “movers and shakers” alone to make as much money as they can and believe that eventually it will all “trickle down” to the poor, the elderly and hungry children of our nation. They oppose waste and deficit spending.  The federal government should only be involved in national defense and possibly trade with other nations. States rights, personal freedom and personal responsibility have become the Conservative’s mantra.  

It sounds wonderful. Who could be against getting government off our backs? Who could be against tax cuts, less regulation, personal freedom and taking personal responsibility for our lives? Oh, wait. Now these same folks are also in favor of government denying women a choice in their reproductive rights and healthcare options under the guise of “Religious Freedom.” They would also have the government say who can and cannot be married or who can serve in our armed forces. By enacting the Patriot Act, they require librarians to report on the very books we check out of our public libraries. This act allows for the government to tap our phone conversations and monitor our e-mails. They want laws that would allow police to stop and detain people “who look like” they just might be illegal aliens or terrorist. (Are your papers in order?) Especially if you want to vote! Wow. So much for personal freedom and personal responsibility.

Well, perhaps it IS still wonderful if you are wealthy, white, male and Christian. If you are a woman, a Muslim, a person of color, gay, old, unemployed and or homeless and hungry (only a very small part of the American population of course) …not so much. 

The conservative vision for America sounds wonderful and gets large crowds of citizens wrapped in the American flag to cheer and shout their support. We see it on the evening news. Get big government off our backs! But then imagine an America without Medicare, Medicaid for the poor. Imagine an America with a privatized Social Security left in the hands of the Wall Street crowd that brought us our current economic mess. Imagine an America where each state has their own education standards. Imagine an America with each state able to decide on its own environmental rules and regulations. Imagine an America where each state could decide their own energy policy where they could “drill baby drill” and blow the tops off mountains in search of fossil fuels to their heart’s content. Imagine an America left to the greedy insurance industry where only the wealthy could afford their ever increasing premiums for less and less coverage. Imagine an America living in fear of terrorists and illegal aliens with each state restricting what we read, where we can go and what we can know (for our own good of course). Imagine an America where the sick and poor without any kind of safety net… would just die or live in third world poverty. Imagine an America where the very rich would control every facet of our lives. We would cease being citizens of a federal republic, The United States of America and would become, sadly…”The Individual States of the Super Rich.” We would move from a federal republic to a monarchy based on feudal states as it was in the Middle Ages.

So there is a reason for America to have a large federal government, as I see it, if it could function… IF IT COULD FUNCTION! A functioning federal government would provide balance, a balance between “the haves” and “the have nots.” It would provide for the common good, not just the interests of the wealthiest class. I suggest we need a functioning federal government to set standards, enforce regulations and respond to the rest of the world. We need a functioning federal government to provide transportation and maintain the national infrastructure to facilitate the travel of a free people from state to state and around the world. We need a federal government to stimulate a strong, healthy, flourishing middle class. We need a federal government to continue the hope of…Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness that gives rise to our unique American character.

What we have instead is a partisan roadblock of small-minded people, posing as our federal government where NOTHING gets done. Each faction is bent on the destruction of the other for the sake of political gain. Will we get big government off our backs or will big government get back to work. Only time will tell.

Food for THOUGHT…