Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Why We Love "Big Government Handouts" But Detest The Idea Of It.

I've been thinking a lot, recently, about the human being and the penchant to want to eat our cake and still have it. This thought has become more and more pronounced in my head since this latest Republican Party onslaught on our sensitivities and sensibilities concerning how big government and government handouts are the cause of all the problems faced by this country. I've tried, and you don't know how hard, to banish this thought but without success, especially since, it seems, Americans have become more selfish and, as a result, more stupid, and want to enjoy everything that government provides while also not wanting government.

Americans want good roads for their cars to run on and cannot tolerate the shallowest of pot holes on them. We need the traffic moving, our traffic lights working like clock work and the highway police on hand to take care of any problems that might arise.  We want good rail tracks for the trains to run on and won't entertain even the minutest of delays. I use the subway and I know what the reaction usually is from myself and my fellow commuters anytime the train is running late. Americans want good security and anytime there's a crime, or the threat of it, we want for the police to appear within seconds and take care of whatever it is.

We love our emergency responders and every time there is an accident, or a fire incident we love for our EMTs and fire fighters to show up within seconds and take care of the situation even before we dial 911. We don't want fallen snow to last two minutes on our roads otherwise the city mayor will hear from us, and we complain to high heavens every time we think the works department has been slow in clearing that annoyance from our government maintained roads.

Whenever we want anything from the city hall, be it our children's birth certificates or our business certificate of incorporation, we always want to get it within seconds of arriving there and we wouldn't tolerate the slightest delay. We want to get to the RMV and have our driver's license waiting for us before we ask for it, or our license plate affixed to our vehicle for us. We want our courts up and running, and taking care of all cases promptly and as quickly as humanly possible.

Americans love our education. We want our schools to be the best in the world and cry to high heavens, demanding for something to be done urgently any time we feel we're not getting the best. We want our kids bussed to and from school, and want them to have the best education that can be provided with the best teaching equipment in the world. We want the best higher education institutions to be available for everybody that wants to attend and, therefore, we demand for the best equipped schools with the best qualified teachers.

We want the best and most equipped libraries and demand it everyday. We want a library branch in each and every one of our neighborhoods which is fully equipped and staffed and we demand the utmost comfort every time we're using it. During winter, we want it adequately heated and in summer we need it well cooled. We want to visit the library any time and be able to find the latest materials waiting for us to use.

We love our safety nets and when we lose our jobs, we want the government to be there for us and pay us jobless benefit until we can get back on our feet. If we eventually are not able to find a job and become homeless, we want the government to help provide us with shelter and allow us stipends to enable us get the necessities needed for everyday living

We also want to have safety nets like medicare and medicaid to fall back on when we reach retirement age and are weak and frail. When we can no longer cater for ourselves, we want the government to take care of us and make sure we can get medical service every time we need it To cut a long story short, we love to have all of our needs taken care of even to the point of our trash taken out for us.

This is a good thing except that we want all of these things without having to pay for it, and possibly without having a government. In other words, we want these services to fall from heaven which might explain our infatuation with small, or no government. This might also explain why nobody wants to pay taxes while expecting to drive on well paved roads and enjoy the other benefits mentioned above.

The truth is that we as a people, like everybody else around the world, actually love "big government" and everything it provides but have been made to hate the idea of it by some self serving people who just want to deceive. Their reasons for this deceit are well documented here http://ohaneze.blogspot.com/2010/12/privatization-and-small-government-what.html  and, until we decide to face reality and accept that the phantom idea of small or no government which we're enamored with is not practicable, we will keep running around in confusion, not knowing where we are or where we should be heading.

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