-Caveat Lector- Government Is Evil by Bob Murphy My New Year�s Resolution was to quit trying to be so cute all the time and just say what I mean. Well, I can hardly cease being cute, as the reader can well imagine, but at the very least I can indulge myself in less subtlety at the innocent reader�s expense. Consequently, no ambiguous title for this article; I will state the truth without resort to my usual attempts at alliteration. So some black woman journalist is on the O�Reilly Factor Friday night, talking about Jesse Jackson�s "tragedy." Now this lady is supposed to be representing minorities and women, right? She is the self-declared champion of their cause. And what does she do? Does she shake her head in shame, and lament that the temptations of power and money have corrupted yet another noble soul? Of course not. She just stresses over and over that Jackson�s lifetime record contains far more good than bad. Okay, at this point I�m still not even listening to her. But then my ears perk up, because she says something along the following lines: "I�ve known the Jackson family for over 30 years, Mr. O�Reilly, and I can tell you this: that child will be loved." Now I don�t know this lady, but I�ll bet she whines about what awful role models gangsta rappers are for the disadvantaged youths in this wicked country. Yet she has no qualms condoning Jackson. Isn�t she "sending a message" to kids that fathering a child out of wedlock is acceptable, so long as you apologize and make a speech showing how much you "care" about the latest hot button issue? I�ll bet she buys into the nauseating claim that Ronald Reagan made us "comfortable with our greed." Isn�t Jackson making us comfortable with our rate of illegitimacy? You think racism makes a ghetto kid turn into a drug dealer? How about the fact that the only person setting any standards in this kid�s life is a teenager herself who believed some worthless unemployed sweet-talker when he told her he loved her? Oh, no Bob, it�s all good; there�s no need for mature parents. The ghetto kid�ll learn how to behave in society at the lovely public schools that all of the "caring" people provide for him. Right now the conservative reader is guffawing. "So true! So true! Those idiot liberals can�t see how hypocritical their leaders are. Clinton didn�t even do anything for blacks; he just said a bunch of nice stuff. And whenever Bill Clinton or some other icon fails to deliver anything tangible, the dumb liberals make excuses for him and blame it on the Republicans." Guess what, fellas, you do the exact same thing. Oooh! George W. is one of us! We�ve been waiting for eight years to rid Washington of these clowns, and now we can get some work done. Of course, Bush can�t implement anything really important; it�s because he has to compromise with those damn Democrats! That�s why most of his wonderful tax cuts are to be phased in down the road. If Bush had his way, we�d get all of our money back right now�. Right, and I�m Cyndi Lauper. Does anyone think Bush doesn�t know what happened at Waco, right next door to his ranch? Then why isn�t he doing anything about it? "Oh, he is Bob! Why, look at his support for gun rights. And besides, those damn Democrats won�t let him prevent another federal massacre. Believe me, he wants to dismantle the FBI and BATF." Or how about the Linda Chavez debacle? The conservative spin was that she was being attacked for her "compassion." No, she was being attacked for the same reason the Republicans go nuts whenever a Democratic nominee gets caught with a skeleton in the closet. My personal favorite is listening to Rush Limbaugh instruct us that he knows George W. � hell, he shot a few rounds with the guy! And Rush assures us that W. is a bona fide conservative; we mustn�t waver in our trust simply because of W.�s apparent concessions, which are merely strategic retreats. Well gee, I�m sold, Rush. Where do I sign up? You conservatives are baffled at how the liberals can support a lying robot like Gore. Don�t you realize that the liberals are just as baffled that you can support a silver spoon idiot who did blow and drove drunk? (Yes, I know � W. is no idiot. That is a façade just as phony as Clinton�s. I�m not saying he intentionally mangles words, but you don�t become the most powerful person in the world unless you are cunning. And he certainly does not present himself as cunning.) Harry Browne had a great commercial in which he compared big government to an abusive man. (When I first saw it, I was pissed � I had independently thought of the same analogy. Don�t you just hate it when you come up with a good anarchist argument and somebody scoops you?) Politicians tell us how much they care about us, then inevitably get caught lying or cheating or stealing. But they say they�re really sorry. So we forgive them. Then they do it again. They apologize. We forgive them. Sometimes they treat us so badly, that we dump them for good. But the next politician we fall for is just as much of a jerk. And so the cycle continues. (Incidentally, I am not making any claim to understanding how women think. All I�ve really figured out so far is that constant sarcasm and megalomania do not constitute a good way to earn their affection. I�ll keep you posted if I discover anything else.) Now why does the abused woman keep falling for the jerks? Because she has no self-esteem. She settles for someone who only cheats on her occasionally, or only hits her when he�s been drinking (and never in front of the kids � he�s not that bad!). In a perfect world, of course, he would be Prince Charming, but we have to accept people for who they are, right? And besides, she thinks, she is so unattractive or unintelligent that she doesn�t deserve a better man. Well guess what, folks? Humans have fallen for government. We have lost our self-esteem; we simply do not believe humans can treat each other with civility. We tell ourselves it�s "human nature" that causes wars. Sure, in a perfect world, there would be no famines, but we have to accept reality, right? Nope. Governments start wars, not civilians. Murder is no more "natural" and thus inevitable than dying from hunger or tuberculosis. As a society, we can take definite steps to greatly reduce the incidence of all of these things. It�s true, we mustn�t proceed through "scientific" management of human affairs, but rather allow the free market system to foster civilized behavior. (Ever notice that famines never happen in the capitalist countries? When the US gets hit with a drought, the news features some impoverished farmers. When a socialist country gets hit with a drought, people start dying in droves.) Uh oh, now I will be lectured that I am a naïve utopian who needs to get into the real world. Sure, freedom looks good in my silly little thought experiments, but the sensible layperson looks at history, not my fantasyland of pure laissez-faire. Okay, I am willing to throw out theory and just let history speak for itself. Let�s look at the record of governments. The more powerful they�ve grown, the more terrible are their crimes. The worst depression to ever hit the United States occurred shortly after the creation of the Federal Reserve � an institution the purpose of which is to micromanage the economy and thus dampen the vicissitudes of the wild-cat free banking system. People are starving and executed in socialist countries, while they are fat and lazy in capitalist ones. Who exactly is espousing the ridiculous argument here? I am saying that if we create an institution of systematic violence, and hand it over to professional liars, bad things are going to happen. Where am I being naïve again? Just as recovery can only come when the abused woman stops denying her own responsibility for her horrible life, so too will we stop wars and famines only when we admit that humans have been living a tremendous lie for thousands of years. The truth is scary. It is simply awful that all of this suffering around us is largely preventable. I understand that. But we must have the courage to accept this truth, to stop the cycle. must admit that Government Is Evil. January 22, 2000 Bob Murphy is a graduate student in New York City. http://www.lewrockwell.com/murphy/murphy25.html "Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible reform, which dares not name itself, advances." - Ralph Waldo Emerson <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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