“People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.” -Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
Before you jump to a conclusion that the famous quote from Ronald Reagan is still operative, examine the sentiment of the throngs of benefit seekers who actually believe that government help is a good thing. The historically impaired reads this Reagan quip as a talking point out of the Obama playbook. Demanding your own government welfare tailored to the needs of your perceived little slice of paradise, is the new American dream. The reason why empirical evidence of a stained record and miserable failure of government programs does not resonate with the vast expanse of the great unwashed, boils down to the simple fact that the assistance deficient multitude, insist that they are owed a never ending flow of public financed payback.
What once was a healthy distrust of government cradle to grave intrusion, has become a dependency cultural birthright. With the upsurge of services and regulations, a tremendous explosion in public budgets is burying the taxpayer in a sea of debt. When more than half of the dole beggars, no longer pay taxes to their federal benefactor, it inevitably follows that the taste of free bennies, just wets the appetite for an endless feast.
If you doubt this assessment, attend a local town meeting. It all starts with local officials, knocking on every door, to apply for additional grant money to expand their town budgets. Financing bloated programs with excessive payrolls, on the backs of property owner taxpayers, has reached the point of punitive ruin. Renters have the attitude that their monthly payment entitles them to the finest and most comprehensive range of public services that someone else pays. Their goal is to become a “public servant” so that they can cash those government checks while building up their retirement fund.
As more local municipalities approach bankruptcy and petition state and federal jurisdictions for a financial lifeline, the escape from reality just pushes up to the next higher level of corruption. Enter the helpful government man, better yet, woman. At every step in the process of spreading the nonexistent wealth, the hungry parasites raise their voices for more government-baked bread. The “let them eat cake” mentality has become, You Won’t Believe This Surfer Living the Food Stamps Dream.
“Today, the federal government operates roughly 80 means-tested welfare programs, and very few promote work. American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray explained to Fox News that government welfare “is systematically undermining a civic culture of independence that was a great American treasure.”
With the viral reaction to the unapologetic lifestyle of Jason Greenslate in the video, Fox News Follows California Beach Bum Living Off Food Stamps, an outraged Middle America is eager to label deadbeats as unrepentant spongers. The hypocrisy from defenders of the state extortion establishment goes unnoticed, when they devote their lives to gaming the system. The tsunami wave of abusive public expenditures is a direct result from the clamor of devoted mainstream subjects. Their calls for a new swimming pool at the local government school or for a state of the art fire truck ignore the destructive implications of taxing the homeowner out of existence.
When surfer dude thumbs his nose at the taxpayer, why is that any different when a school employee casts a ballot to raise the borrowing limit for a new bond issue that directly benefits his or her own vestige interests?
Oh, cries that the civic good demands public services that pay wage benefits based upon the great responsibility of the position is entirely a phony argument. In an economy, that is rapidly becoming a part-time privilege to find employment, the government careerist stands out as a serial abuser of the public trust. Still, the justifiable criticism leveled at the public sector needs to recognize that the typical populace not only tolerates this insult but also supports the growth and expansion of the government services.
ZeroThink writes about the quote: Hi, I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.
“It was 25 years ago today, that President Reagan said those famous words in a speech to the Future Farmers of America. In that speech, he called them the 10 most dangerous words in the English language.
Ronald Reagan went on to say that the ongoing expansion and economic success of the USA at the time was because “… the truth is, we just got out of your way. You did it; we didn’t.”
Quite a departure from President Obama: ‘If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.’
“. . .There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.) If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires. . .”
Do you believe that the type of electorate that cheers the collectivist sentiment that coroneted the Obama regime, the embodiment of state despotism, would select Ronald Reagan as POTUS today?
Jason Greenslate was a baby when Reagan led the country to a fresh renewal of optimism. Nowadays there are millions of self-entitled beachcombers, deriving their living from the government dole and walking the public beaches.
Where are all the fiscally conservatives these days? Many are six feet under and the remaining are now targeted as domestic “Tea Party” terrorists. An insightful gauge on the relative health of the society can be measured by the damning attitudes towards the Tea Party movement. Who hates most, what the Tea Party represents? Just go back to another local town meeting in your community to witness the hostility towards anyone who wants to restore a modicum of fiscal sanity in civic affairs.
The disconnect between legitimate basic public services and the shameless demands for an all intrusive and ostentatious social safety net, defies not only the historic limits and relationships between citizens and government, but also relegates plain common sense to the bowels of passé panache.
Former emotional soccer moms have transformed into Saul Alinsky lobbyists. They retain their co-dependence while acquiring a crazed militancy. Giving any and all the support to make government more egalitarian and fair, includes destroying the last sectors of a free market economy.
Fundamentally, government is not in the business of helping. Most of the social engineering of the last century has done more harm and perverted cultural standards. The results of such experiments produce generations of dysfunctional dependants.
Why blame Greenslate for being the poster boy for the welfare state. Look to your neighbor if you are unable to face your own guilt in the mirror. The breakdown of society is not accidental. Genuine conservatives have been warning fellow citizens about the danger of surrendering individual liberty for the promise of secular security. This message rejected by the government class and their subordinates, is nevertheless still valid.
Refusing to deal with this destructive shift in attitude, which scorns self-reliance, leads invariably to the FEMA principle for normality. Not a new normal, but the only idealism acceptable in the “PC” acquaintance demands in support of government. How did the people do during Katrina? The federal enforcement mental asylum is the only reality that government provides. What kind of help is this?
The abandonment of rational administration, substituted with coercive governance, remains official policy. By supporting such a matrix, foolish government sympathizers are fostering the rot that cannot be intellectually unheeded any longer.
Most dismiss that the SWAT knock at the door will ever be for them, but if it is, remember that all your support for expanding the role and scope of state functions, bears your responsibility. Obama’s victimhood message, coupled with the cynicism that “you didn’t build that”, either requires you to confront a dishonest system or accept a bleak existence. Hey bro surfs up . . .
“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”
Edward R. Murrow
The post I’m From The Government and Here To Help appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.