Election year. Fun times.
I'm sure that I'm not the only one in this nation right now feeling inundated by the words "liberal", "conservative" and "moderate". The monikers are stamped on this politician and that one over there too. They label themselves, each other, voters, states, ethnic groups, races, religions - you name it- with a big rubber stamp. They're buzz words. That's about the extent of it. They simply designate what areas of our lives that each group want the government to have too much power over.
"Liberals" want too much control over your money, your right to earn it and what you can and can't do with it. They want to make sure that none of your honestly earned private property harms any allegedly endangered flowers, rats, dung beetles or (God forbid) bats. They also want to make sure that everyone, regardless of willingness to produce anything, never misses a check or an episode of Jerry Springer.
"Conservatives" want too much control over your personal private life. They want to say who you can and can't marry, what you can do with your own body and take every step to make sure that you and I are not "terrorists" (whatever that word means this week) and that no one gets on an airplane with fingernail clippers...unless they're in a sandwich.
"Moderates" are too weaselly to have a spine so they just agree with both sides to let the government have whatever power it needs to be too powerful in every area of your life.
The thing these groups have in common is that they believe that the power to make all these decisions can only be seated in Washington. It is as if they don't even realize that there are 50 states in this Union and that every single one of them have their own capital, complete with legislature, chief executive and court system.
So I have to ask, what are these institutions for? What purpose does state government serve? Why do we bother operating large bureaucracies that are only allowed to do what Big Brother tells them to?
I want to look (briefly) into history for the answer to this. I want to mention the Articles of Confederation. I know, I know, there goes that delusional Georgia boy carrying on about the Lost Cause and those slavery-crazed rednecks and their misguided rebellion again. Hang on...not that rebellion. Our founding fathers began composing this document in 1776 and the approved version was sent to the states for ratification in late 1777. It was ratified by all 13 states by 1781. The Articles served as the law of the land in the United States of America from March 1, 1781 until it was replaced by the Constitution as ratified on June 21 1788, nearly 12 years after the Declaration of Independence.
The United States fought a successful war as an assembling of rag-tag backwoods colonies against the most powerful nation on Earth, perhaps the most powerful ever on Earth. They lobbied major world powers of the time to gain support, funds, supplies, etc to help the war effort. They cooperated (admittedly with some difficulty) with each other to bring success in the war effort. They fought the war for a year before declaring independence and then fought until 1781 and the war did not officially end until 1783. They did this with little, if any, central government. The states did this. And we are told in school that the Articles of Confederation were "not strong enough". Eight years of war. Many of which with no binding document and a few under the Articles. And it worked. You do the math.
My biggest point in this is that all 50 states are in this together but at the same time, we hinder each other. Our problems are at the Federal level. We can't mind our own business. We see an issue and think "the government needs to do something about this". Never the state government, always Washington. Gay marriage, abortion, education, welfare, transportation, the environment, energy, all of these are micromanaged (or attempted to be) by the Feds and all of them are dismal failures. They aren't Federal issues but we can't stand the thought of some other state doing something we don't agree with. We can't pick our own boogers. We have to shove our fingers up someone else's nose.
What is the result? We stay mad all the time. All 50 states have small nostrils and big fingers. So, in our pain, we use our other finger to point and pass blame elsewhere. We call names, we fight, we sue. We have to realize that Washington isn't really protecting us (and couldn't even if they really wanted to). We need freedom. That was the point of this Union to begin with. We need to go to our own states, pass our own laws, watch each other's backs but mind our own business. We need to take our finger out of our neighbor's nose, fold it down and then raise the one next to it towards Washington. After all, they're the ones egging us on to pad their own pockets and justify their own existence.
This nation was born in Antifederalism and only that principle can lead us back to freedom.
By the way, I'd wash my hands if I were you.
