Laws of Government

July 29, 2002

By Douglas B. Wakeman

What authority granted to government has not been carried to the furthest extreme? The Civil Rights Act of 1964 which led to bussing and quotas? The Endangered Species act which resulted in confiscation of peoples' land in the name of a fly? Roe vs Wade, which has come to the point where government forces the states to accept the mutilation of a baby during the process of being born? Perhaps the separation of church and state which today means that the name of God cannot be spoken in any public place. The income tax, that was to be 1% of income and only applied to the very wealthy. Here's a good one - The RICO statutes, touted and used effectively as a tool to fight organized crime, you know, the MAFIA, drug and prostitution syndicates, are now turned against anti-abortion groups. The lobbying for all of these measures was accompanied by the ernest protestations by their supporters that, "Oh! We would never abuse this power. Don't be silly!"

The fact is that government is unrestrained coercion. There is nothing above it to check its actions on this Earth. It has the police, the army, the courts and the guns. Once the people give a power to government it will always be exercised to the greatest extent possible. It will never ever be held within reasonable or common-sense limits. The only limit to what the law will allow government to do to its subjects is the law itself. And, as the abuse of the commerce clause and the general welfare language or the finding of a right to abortion in the 4th amendment all demonstrate, even the law will not constrain government from unreasonable actions against its subjects.

We see government going after tobacco with all of its might. The stated reason is that tobacco is bad for you. This cannot possibly be the reason. If it was, then success in this war would put thousands of bureaucrats out of work - the same bureaucrats who are waging the battle. The only reason they wage war on tobacco is because they can.

Government does nothing well. It performs all of its tasks with mendacity, venality, avarice, self-interest and corruption as its prime motivators. There are some tasks that can only be done by government. That is why we allow such a monstrosity. We know that these tasks will be done amazingly poorly and at ridiculous expense, yet, having government perform these functions is the best alternative. But, why would we then abdicate to government a myriad other functions which, not only can we perform much better ourselves, but which are absolutely critical to our health and well-being. It is incredible to hear a Bill O'Reilly proclaim that heath care is too important to be left to the market. It must be run by government. Yet, any product that is supplied by the market is better, less scarce and cheaper than anything that is under bureaucratic control. Don't we want health care to be good, plentful and cheap?

So much of what government and its appendages do works towards certain ends which are government's alone. That is, somebody who works in government performs tasks and promulgates positions that, in a local sense, may serve a certain goal, but which in the larger sense, serve a basic governmental goal. For instance, a senator who pushes for universal daycare may believe that he is helping working mothers or giving children a jump start in their education, but he is actually working for the governmental goal of the destruction of the family. A senator who opposes a nomination because he truly believes that the nominee, because of his religious beliefs, will discriminate against some group is actually serving the government's goal of the elimination of religion.

This is a problem faced when defending the family or religion from government stooges. Even they do not realize their function. When we go to the store, we do not make our selections in order to affect the consumer price index, overall wages and prices or the unemployment rate. But, we nevertheless, do effect all of these things with every purchase. As consumers, we cannot help serve the laws of economics any more than a senator, congressman, bureaucrat, government agency or department or recipient of government funds can help to serve the laws of government.

The laws of government are just as immutable as the laws of economics because they have the same immutable basis - human nature. The laws of government are:

eliminate competition (family, religion)

crush criticism

exterminate dissent

increase influence

increase power

increase personnel

increase income

increase size