If only everyone would stop and think about how efficient and even necessary a federal government is, politics and D.C. might be a lot different. Think about what?
Man, without the aid of government, has invented everything we now use and find necessary. Elevators, light bulbs, television, automobiles, books, electricity, steamships, compressed air, computers, machinery, thread, cloth, and everything from birth to death, and all in between, has been invented, financed, manufactured, and sold, by private individuals, corporations, or non-governmental entities. Nothing we use today, nothing we eat, drive, watch, listen to, drink, or enjoy, came from government. NOTHING.
All government has done, is regulate, harass, tax, thwart, get in the way, screw up, mess up, corrupt, and be a damned nuisance. Especially at the federal level. Suppose there was no federal government, or we had one as the Constitution call for and that is to do basically nothing. Oh I forgot! Declare wars, or as has been common practice of late, go to war without permission from Congress, as the Constitution orders. Suppose Washington D.C. were hit by a terrorist atomic bomb and ceased to exist? A famous novel hypothecated that and ended without the results. This is “Just suppose.” What would we miss? The post office, which looses hundreds of billions a year? Probably not, as private operators would instantly jump at the chance of delivering mail, and probably at half the price. What would we miss? Stupid laws? Utter waste? Heavy taxation? The Congress or Senate? President Obama? Would the lights go out? Would water cease to flow from our faucets, and would our furnaces cease to heat? Would our roads crumble? Would we be unable to buy a car, travel by air, or rail?
Amtrak is about as efficient as is the post office, and the glorious passenger trains Amtrak replaced, needs no explanation. Please let me quote John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, dated July 9, 1813. “While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill. Little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.” The United States of America, is composed of fifty, individual, different but united entities, with their own governments. Each state has counties with their own governments, and within the counties, towns and cities, with their own governments. Why do we need a federal government, other than perhaps five percent of what we now have? I am deadly serious!
Without 95% of the federal government, but with state, county, and city governments, we’d all be much better off, and taxed at about a third of what we are now taxed, and for federal taxes we receive nothing but what was elaborated about above, and I defy anyone to prove me wrong. Can states build roads? Do private entities build railroads, cars, busses, rapid transit, and airplanes? Are any of the millions of regulations promulgated by the D.C. Gang, really necessary? Is there any reason why each of the fifty individual states can’t control crime, their borders, utilities, agriculture, and commerce? Can we do without federal courts? Why can’t state, county, and local courts do it? The Supreme Court can rule on them easily, and state supreme courts can judge very well, thank you.
Would crops grow, grass be cut, homes and offices be built, without an all powerful, gets in everyone’s way, federal government? If there were no federal government to levy corporate taxes, would all the lost jobs come home? If there were no federal taxes of any kind, America would be the crown jewel of the world. Initially, small tariffs paid for the small federal government, and there were no other taxes, corporate, individual, business, or inheritance. Does that sound like heaven? Just think about it, is all I ask.
Daniel Webster, in 1830, wrote: “The national government possesses those powers which it can be shown the people have conferred on it, and no more. All the rest belong to the state governments, or to the people themselves.” I think that is a great analysis, but my question is, what powers have the people ’conferred on the federal government?’ Or did the federal government grow like a cancer over the last 200 years, until now it is a monster, devouring us all with regulations, wars, taxes, and endless, self assumed powers we never conferred upon it?
I know, this is a totally radical opinion, and most will think I am nuts, but please tell me, how would we be worse off, and a thousand percent better off, without the octopus of Washington D.C. and its tentacles, which spread out over the entire nation, eating us alive? Do we need any of the various ’cabinet posts,’ which in themselves are un-constitutional? Can people work without the Department of Labor? Can schools teach without the Department of Education? Will the light bulbs glow and electricity flow without the Department of Energy? Will the trains run, accidents be investigated, and flights fly, without the Department of Transportation? Will commerce continue without the Department of Commerce? Will crops grow without the Department of Agriculture? Would stocks trade and business carry on without the Securities and Exchange Commission? (They didn’t detect Bernie Madoff, and a host of other frauds). Can anything government does, regardless of what, be done cheaper and more efficiently by private enterprise?
Government didn’t build the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The State of Pennsylvania built it, and the same with the New Jersey and other turnpikes. Government doesn’t make telephone wires, power lines, windshields, tires, electric motors, steam turbines, slot machines, carpeting, lumber, steel, furniture, cars, busses, trucks, or ANYTHING we use, need, or want. Government doesn’t develop or invent drugs, hospitals, medical institutions and schools. Government isn’t responsible for wonderful medical discoveries, surgeries, and cures. It’s all private! Government has just gotten in the way, needlessly regulated, and heavily taxed everything man has done and tries to continue to do, although as each year passes, man’s inventiveness, and energies are being sapped by that entity I call “The D.C. Gang.”
Some will say that we need an army and navy to protect us from our enemies. We have never been attacked by anyone, other than the War of 1812, which was stupidity personified. All we do is attack others. A neutral America would never fight a war, nor incite anyone to attack us. What would they gain, if everyone had guns, and the state guards, (which are now called national guards) were around to act as defenders of the individual states? A foreign nation attack us? What for? What could they possibly gain without a big. huge Washington D.C.?
Would we need a national treasury to produce silver coins and back paper money with gold and silver? I wouldn’t object to that, nor to a state department which had as many employees as it did during Thomas Jefferson’s time, namely seven. There is no need of an FBI, CIA, or ATF.
Please tell me, how we would be worse off without D.C.? As a final quote, listen to Theodore Roosevelt, when he said in a speech in 1905 in Raleigh, North Carolina: “I do not believe in government ownership of anything which can be left in private hands.” Isn’t that just about everything? More on this Tuesday, but if there is any reason why the federal government shouldn’t be reduced by 95%, and Washington D.C. be made into a ghost town, I’d like to know. D.C. is still growing like a cancer, and no one yet, has campaigned on getting rid of most of it.