We have a government that places its value on the services it provides to its constituents. Yet the country that values its individual liberties should value just the opposite. Our value should be in the proportion of our population that doesn’t need the assistance of the government.

So social security is a big success because of the number of people it helps; i.e. the number of checks it writes. It doesn’t matter whether these checks are for poor people or for millionaires who could quite well live well without it. It does not matter that the discount heart bypass paid by Medicare was for a senior with plenty of money. It does not matter whether the Hope Scholarship recipient could easily afford to pay for college.

Our government is ever in search of more people to help because creating a bigger constituency dependent on the government is the key to that power, but do not be deluded that the end result is to help people: the end result desired is raw power. The poor and the downtrodden are just a means to an end. This is especially true for those populist candidates from both parties.

Thus the poor are defined with ever increasing thresholds of poverty. Does anyone seem to notice that despite the incredible sums spent to reduce poverty that we still have it? Is poverty possibly institutionalized by the very programs that claimed to reduce and eliminate it?

Or are the programs still in tact because the real purpose was never to deal with poverty to begin with? The 20th Century was littered with socialist institutions that created authoritarian slaughter houses under the guise of helping the common man address the pain from the modern world, scapegoats and all.

The absolute certainty that some of our candidates and their shills address our problems with, requiring religious like devotion, a demonized opposition, and expanded power (higher taxes and mandates) should cause us all to consider where this likely will lead.

I believe our liberty is more likely to be given away that taken away.

Henry Oliner
1/19/08

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