May 19, 2004

What happened to America?

I once told my Dad that I'm about as loyal to my country as I am to Wal-Mart; that is, if another country existed that was better than America, I'd go live there.

That's not to say I don't love my country; it's the best country that I know of. I guess I should be more specific: I'm as loyal to my government as I am to Wal-Mart. What I really want is freedom from most of what the government does.

To illustrate my point, I link to a couple of blog entries from Small Town Country Girl, a blog I discovered today through this week's Carnival of the Vanities. The first post, "We're at war, but with whom?," (henceforth, SMTC) quotes John Stossel's book Give Me A Break:

The founders said government should have limited duties. They laid it out in Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution: Government should keep the peace, coin money, establish a post office, postal roads, and the courts, and secure time-limited copyrights and patents. For 150 years, that's about all it did. The focus was on guaranteeing individual liberty.

That's the government I want. That's all that it needs to do. I don't see in that list social security, medicare, medicaid, a war on drugs, a war on obesity, free health care, free housing, protection of utility monopolies, protection of the envrionment, public education, space travel, building codes, anti-discrimination laws (on any basis), welfare, and so on. I wouldn't even mind these so much except that I have to pay for them with a laundry list of new taxes, from the Federal Income Tax to the Cigarette Tax to the Trailer Registration Tax, that you can find here, also on SMTC. John Stossel points out

Collectively Americans now pay more in taxes than we do for food, clothing, and shelter combined.

Every dollar that goes to government is a dollar that isn't buying houses, investing in companies, or paying for any useful service. Imagine how much more prosperous we could be if we didn't have these taxes! Take, for example, gasoline tax. Here in SC, it's 35.2 cents a gallon. In New York, it's as high as 51 cents a gallon. When I'm commuting from school, I refill my car about once a week, and have to put in 14 gallons or so. This tax adds up to $4.93 per week, or $256.36 a year.

That's what I want freedom from.

I also want the freedoms promised to me in the Constitution, like freedom of speech. Laws like the McCain-Feingold Act make me sick. Laws that prevent children and teachers from exercising their freedom of religion in schools are a disgrace to the country.

All I want is what I am told by the very founding documents of my country that I am supposed to have. I want what the founding fathers thought worthy enough to fight for.

This is why I'm a proponent of free market sponsored space travel. When that technology matures, we, like our founding fathers before us, will have a place to go to get away from an oppressive government.

Posted by Blog Jones at May 19, 2004 04:43 PM | Category: Politics

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