The average American citizen is like a hiker, and the government a pack upon his back. No hiker can get far without a pack containing key essentials, as no citizen can get far in freedom without a military, police, and the Rule of Law.
Somehow, though, the government keeps convincing the hiker that the pack should be bigger. This slows the hiker, who fights gallantly to grow stronger and still make progress despite the increased burden. Then, the government grows some more and adds more to the pack. The hiker slows further.
Eventually, the hiker is nearly stopped in his forward progress and fights with all he's got to resist toppling over backwards. At this point, slick politicians show up and once again convince the hiker to increase the size of his pack. "To fix your big pack you need to increase it even further."
To accomplish something so incredibly stupid the government has to be very crafty. After all, the pack cannot propell itself, and things can only be added to the pack if the hiker votes it in. So just how does the government convince the hiker to increase his load?
This is where politicians come into the picture. It is their job to get the hiker to add to his own load. To accomplish this, they use many strategies, such as:
1. Envy – if politicians can make the hiker think someone else is carrying a lighter pack than him, he will vote to increase the other peoples' load and decrease his own, assuming that in the process the government will never turn on him.
2. Class Distinction – If the politicians can make the hiker think he is in a group that has an unfair burden compared to someone else, the same trick can be accomplished.
3. Race – Again, if the politician can use any distinction to get the hiker to agree to an increased load for others, Pandora's box is opened and can be used later on everybody.
4. Special Interests – Once again, it's the same old trick. Establish an "us vs. them" situation and promise the "us's" they will benefit at the expense of "them"
5. Misplaced compassion – most people are not educated on the inefficiencies and inconsistencies of government bureaucracy, so they mistakingly think the government can actually execute a social program effectively and thereby "help" people. In other words, politicians know that most people have good hearts and truly want to make things better, not only for themselves, but for everyone. If the politicians can play to this, they know they will never be held accountable for results because whoever would bring such doubts can be castigated as a "cold-hearted capitalist," or other such name calling which dodges the real question of effectiveness.
6. Misleading or false data – economics and civics can be confusing if misrepresented and argued about enough. The more complicated these subjects can be made to seem, the less people will listen to what is actually being said. This is true of almost all areas in which the government doesn't want the public to know what's actually going on. Misconstrued statistics and "expert" opinion can be used to "prove" almost any position. Eventually, the people will vote for a talking head that produces good sound bites and looks and acts the part. Don't be fooled: self-assuredness is no proof of competence.
There are more than just this short list, but the flavor for all of them is the same: make the hiker think it is in his own best interest to increase his load, then get him to blame anything except the heavy burden on his back for his faltering progress!
Even more incredible is the ability of politicians to not only get the hiker to miss the obvious problem of the governmental burden on his back, but they even succeed in getting the hiker to blame the freedom he has to hike along the trail! Economist and investor Peter Schiff says it best:
"What worries me most, however, is the almost automatic backlash that attributes the present economic collapse to a failure of capitalism and free-market economics and turns it into an argument for expanded government. Never mind that government created a crisis that the free market would have avoided altogether . . . ."
Here is what politicians have convinced the hiker to allow to be done to himself:
1. escalating taxes (WAY over 50% when taken as a whole)
2. government deficit spending (meaning, on a yearly basis, the government spends BILLIONS more than it takes in)
3. exponential growth in national debt (yearly deficits added together, year after year, compounded by interest)
4. Skyrocketing unfunded debt (Social Security, etc.)
5. Massive international trade imbalance
6. Inflationary monetary policies (Inflation means the government prints more money and adds it to the money supply already out there. This makes prices of everything go up and the money you have less valuable. This is the government's favorite tax, because it doesn't have to voted on, is not understood by many, can be easily hidden, and helps reduce the problem of the growing national debt because the amount owed shrinks in value with a declining dollar.) Remember this: our government actualy loves inflation, needs inflation, and misrepresents just how big inflation is annually so people won't understand what is taking place with their hard-earned savings.
7. Swelling government bureaucracy (the unelected portion of our government, which barely existed a hundred years ago, now is a behemoth impossible to quantify financially or politicially)
8. Enormous foreign aid grants (and now we've just decided to pay for abortions in other countries with U.S. tax dollars)
9. Military operations almost everywhere around the globe
10. Increasing "welfare" society of government social programs
Any hiker that thinks he needs a heavier pack to make it easier for him to walk simply does not understand how the world works.
We have a choice.
We can elect government officials who will gut our government, or our government will gut us. Either we put some government employees out of work to save the people, or we will see most of the people out of work to feed the government.
Make no mistake about it: the pack can't increase indefinitely. Some day, at some point, the hiker will topple over backwards.
Then what?
Let's hope the hiker does what any intelligent traveler would do: start chucking the dead weight before it's too late!
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