Society Vs Government

In Common Sense, Thomas Paine lists out the difference between society and government. These are two very, very different things, and yet instead of our society dictating our government, we have switched to our government dictating our society.

Paine said "SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher."

He also said, "Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others."

What Paine is really saying here is that if we behaved the way we should, the best we could be as a society, that we would not need government at all. This is the antithesis of what our government keeps telling us. Our government tells us, you don't need to take care of your neighbor, we'll do that for you. You don't need to worry about your mistakes, we'll take care of those for you. You don't need concern yourself with others, we'll take care of them for you. In essence, they are encouraging us to be our worst so that we need them more. If we stopped allowing government to usurp our best behaviors as a society, we would be much better off. This is not something government wants. By taking over the role of society, they ensure their own existence, and that's all they want to do. Government's first concern is the continuation of it's own power.

What would it be like to have a leader who inspired us to be better as individuals so we needed government less? What would it be like to have a leader who didn't focus us on our worst qualities but inspired us to show only our best? What would it be like to have a leader who didn't apologize for our past but embraced the accountability we used to have as a society? Does a leader like that even exist?

We are a great country and a great people. We pull together in tragedies and are among the most generous people in the world. We have incredible qualities that have become dormant and now only show in a crisis. Why is this? Because government has taken the need for our everyday expression of these qualities from us to increase their own power. Take it back from them. We long to be inspired. So where is the person to do it? I pray he or she appears soon.

Another Government Agency - Oh Goodie

There was talk today about the possibility of a new government agency as the result of the banking crisis and credit card issues. What would this agency do that no other agency is already responsible for? Who knows. Probably nothing.

Being told that we need yet another government bureaucracy made me wonder just how many we already have. I couldn't find an actual count, but I found a listing of the agencies here, http://www.lib.lsu.edu/gov/index.html. When I went through and counted them up, aside from blood shooting from my eyes, I found that we have 1,278 governmental agencies. These range from NASA to the office of the first lady. Then I started wondering how many people work for the federal government. More blood shot from my eyes. According to the Bureau of Labor And Statistics, the US government is the largest employer in the nation. Doesn't that give you a warm tingly feeling inside. The US government, not counting the postal service, employs 1.8 MILLION people. This is larger than the population of Philadelphia. And these are only the CIVILIAN employees. Don't fool yourself into thinking that the number is that big because of our fighting men and women because that's not the case. These are non-military personnel. If we add the postal service into the mix, then we exceed the entire population of Dallas. Reassuring isn't it.

So although we already have nearly 1,300 agencies and over 2 million employees, nobody can take on the additional burden of looking over credit cards. Hmmmm. How about we get some Industrial Engineers or Six Sigma specialists in there to see what it would take to get the existing staff to be able to take on these additional responsibilities. Unlike the private sector, the government just takes it's money so has not incentive to improve efficiency, and the bureaucracy just keeps getting bigger.

Is this the small federal government that our founding fathers envisioned? Somehow I just don't think so. And what is Obama's plan for creating jobs? Well, the federal government is hiring.

Looking at these numbers it's obvious that what this country really needs is one more government bureaucracy.