Recently, in support of central planning and big government, a FB acquaintance of mine (IOW, we are strangers who never met in real life but nonetheless became linked as “friends” in social media) asked:
“If you’ve got a group of people who all live in the same area, they’re going to get together and come up with an agreed upon set of rules for getting along, won’t they?”
My response was (and is):
Yes, that’s correct. A community of people will inevitably self-organize for the common good, whether it’s food production, raising a barn, building a schoolhouse or church, protecting the community, etc.
The significant difference between that and the statism you seem to be advocating is that it is all being done voluntarily. If someone in the community were to opt out of participating, the worse that would probably happen is they might be ostracized by some of the others who *do* participate, or not allowed to share in the benefits of the community’s pooled resources. They would *not*, most likely, be seized, their wealth stolen at gunpoint, put in a cage, beaten or worse.
As originally intended, the federal branch of government in this country was to be kept small, and given a very strictly limited set of duties to perform. The right to rule oneself remained in the individual, collective power resided in the people, and the individual states were sovereign. The federal government was charged mostly with ensuring the common defense, minting money, handling trade disputes, and not much else.
The ink was barely dry on the hemp, however, before the federalist faction, the statists of their day, began undermining the limitations set upon the federal government. The myriad ways this was done are legion and too numerous to enumerate here. Suffice to say, the federal government has since grown into the monstrous thing we see today, having usurped functions it had formerly been denied, assuming responsibilities for which it is ill-equipped, and insinuating itself into every nook and cranny of our lives, becoming not unlike the despotic regime from which we had once declared ourselves free and independent.
There is not a thread of voluntary choice left at the federal level, nor very much at the state level, for that matter. The people cannot self-organize to do much of anything these days without first begging the government for permission, and spontaneous, self-organizing action is punished.
Now, I understand the desire of some folks for big government, as it absolves them from a great deal of bother and responsibility. Go swing a lever at the polls every couple years, brush your hands off and go about your business, with one’s civic duty duly performed, right? But such marginal convenience comes at a considerable cost in terms of liberty and self-determination. Those who desire ever more centralized control of the country, and ever more freebies in the process, will not understand those who would happily do without it until it’s too late, I’m afraid.
