Government is the Problem

When this democratic Republic was designed, our federal government was supposed to be responsible for four things:

1. National army / defense

2. Infrastructure (roads, utilities)

3. Postal service

4. Holding the states together... most political power was to be held at the state level.

Over the years, however, due to human greed and corruption and lack of watchfulness by citizens, power became more concentrated at the federal level. By 1887, the beginning of the end was near with the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Private citizens felt they were being discriminated against by the railroads... so they turned to their government and asked for protection. What they got was an executive-branch regulatory body with LEGISLATIVE power. So much for checks and balances.

The funny thing was that the ICC which was supposed to PROTECT the common man, ended up becoming a tool which "big money" (in the form of the railroads) used to LEGALLY screw over Western farmers.

And so it went, and now we literally have tens of thousands of "independent agencies" which quasi-legislative power, that have the authority to jail or punish American citizens - i.e. the IRS, among others.

This is my point: when you get the federal government involved you give power to an entity that you cannot control. To demonstrate this, I will use an issue that I literally could not care less about: environmental regulation. Many people out there feel the need to save the environment and rainforests and endangered grasshoppers. Since corporations and other people do not care as much as they do about the issue, they do not make much headway. So, they decide to enforce their will on EVERYBODY, by getting it legislated. This is actually counter-productive, because now they have given their opponents just as much opportunity for control. Now it becomes a matter of who can contribute more to the elected official that holds that vote. And so it goes. Billions of dollars are spent as a power struggle between the "forces of good" and "forces of evil" go back and forth for decades, and little headway is made. On almost every issue (abortion, global warming, control of the markets, welfare, healthcare), this is how it has, how it does, and how it will go.

The only solution is to NOT get the government involved... or at least, not at the federal level. If it were handled at the state level, you might have some states that allow abortion and others that don't. Some states with strict control of environmental issues, and others that don't. You could literally pick your state based on your conscience.

The "No Banker Left Behind" bill is now just another example of a 125 year old American tradition of giving our central government more and more power, as we sit by and either:

(1) take it, or

(2) ask for it.