I recently encountered a highly emotionally driven individual who claimed to have a problem but could not identify whether they were experiencing a problem or inconvenience. This person wanted but could not identify a need. The heaped emotional hyperbole only added fuel to the fires of hostility. From this encounter, this article is born.
Wants
Wants are things we wish for, desire strongly, and do almost anything to acquire. First-world nations generally want material things, and in many parts of the world, food is wished-for in sufficient quantity to silence the hunger pains and provide a good night’s sleep. Is coffee a want or a need?
Needs
Needs are items that are necessary, indispensable, and required for survival. Many people claim they need coffee in the morning to “start their day,” but the need is the caffeine, not the coffee. Coffee is a want as the preferred method for obtaining caffeine. Lacking coffee, is this a problem or inconvenience?
Problems
Problems cause difficulties, presenting a puzzle requiring solving, people who are difficult to deal with, and personal matters requiring action, not merely words, represent problems. For example, lacking coffee, the problem becomes how do I obtain sufficient caffeine to begin my day—a problem requiring solving to feel empowered to act. A want, masquerading as a need, presenting as a problem, is merely an inconvenience in truth.
Inconvenience
Inconvenience is rooted in the word inconvenient, and something inconvenient is merely an annoyance or a disruption in the normal routine. Walking to the coffee pot and not finding sufficient grounds to make a cup of coffee is an inconvenience as it disrupts a plan.
A simple analogy, but adequate to the purpose of helping to identify the differences between each item under investigation. Wants are desires embodied; not getting those wants is inconvenient; plotting for a way to obtain that which is desired presents a problem or a puzzle for solving but cannot ever elevate a want to a need. Needs are more critical problems requiring solving; not obtaining a need is not inconvenient; it is imperative, which if not resolved always leads to a negative consequence.
For example, the Daily Signal is reporting, sourced from the Media Research Center, that the ratio for censoring by big tech is 53 to 1 Republicans to Democrats. Does this present a problem or an inconvenience? Is less censorship a want for Republicans or more censorship a need for Democrats? Some people will erroneously claim, “It depends upon which side of the political aisle you reside.”
Why is this an erroneous claim; for the simple fact that censorship is a denial of liberty and freedom. When one person is denied their rights and freedoms for political gain, everyone loses all their freedoms and liberties. The Second Amendment cannot stand with the First Amendment. Theft of the First Amendment for one person is a roadmap to stealing the First Amendment rights of all people. The Third and Fourth Amendments to the US Constitution fall apart by removing the First and Second Amendments. The legal framework of the Rule of Law is forever destroyed when the US Bill of Rights can be controlled by political operators for personal or political gain. The importance of understanding the interconnectedness of the Rule of Law with morals, values, and the social contract cannot be understated.
What is the Social Contract?
The social contract is an agreement that all capable people living together in a society form with each other, declaring they will abide by a specific set of behaviors, ideals, and shared beliefs codified into law, which undergirds the “social fabric” of a society. The social contract of the United States of America is found in the US Constitution and the US Bill of Rights, the first amendments to the US Constitution. By choosing to be labeled an American, we agree to honor the rights of all people to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, so long as their pursuit does not inhibit another person from pursuing the same.
We understand that the pursuits of life, liberty, and happiness are a path, a journey, not a destination, and not a guarantee. We respect those who achieve and emulate them to reach the same potential destination. We Americans possess hope, born of struggle, that we can achieve liberty and happiness fairly and realize the consequences are ours alone to enjoy or curse based upon our decisions individually.
Let me pause here; currently in K-12 education, witnessed in Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Seattle, and many other locations, the public education system is intentionally abusing children. Stealing their potential by refusing to teach them, and in so doing is raising generations of people who will struggle their entire lives in captivity and ignorance. These actions by teachers, administrators, and elected political officials are intentional and stand in direct opposition to the social contract. However, the children, and their parents, retain the ability to choose a different path, even if it means trying to learn how to read, write, and figure independent from the school abuse. Individual agency to pursue life, liberty, and happiness is the first and quintessential aspect of being an American!
Here’s the rub…
Despite government intervention, the government arbitrarily picks for political gain and personal advancement (through cheating) those which achieve without effort, and Americans inherently despise this aspect of government. Consider the vitriol thrown at Hunter Biden, who has achieved, lived beyond his means, and benefitted from his family’s political connections. The Pelosi’s, Kennedy’s, Clinton’s, Obama’s, Romney’s, and so many others who have achieved, living off the backs of pioneers, but have not contributed, breaks the social contract. Theft, lying, and breach of honor in America are crimes, but when the criminals escape justice, this breeds contempt, copy cats, and empowers others into chasing the same path to a modicum of success through devious and nefarious means—rendering the social contract impotent, sundering any hope of success without government intervention, and placing millions of Americans into captivity.
Look at the disgust America has for Big Technology firms. While these firms have achieved and pioneered success, they have turned monopolistic, oligarchical, and thwarted their competitors, all for personal gain. How are these companies pursuing keeping their gains? They are employing the government authority. They are using mergers to acquire intellectual property to protect their revenues, abusing the power of law, all of which harms competition. This also breaks the social contract, sundering the social fabric of America and destroying the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness of others.
The want of power is breeding a need for correction in America by the oppressed. Look at the rising feelings of freedom as expressed in the #FreedomConvoy. Other examples include the protests against the interminable government mandates, the continued spreading of information deemed by the government, and Big Tech as “misinformation.” Presenting us with a question is this a problem or inconvenience; the answer is PROBLEM! This means there is a solution to the problem and a path to fix the rips in the social fabric and mend the social contract in America.
What is the solution?
With a nod to The Lorax and Dr. Seuss:
“I, the Once-ler, felt sad
as I watched them all go.
BUT…
business is business!
And business must grow
regardless of crummies in tummies, you know.I meant no harm. I most truly did not.
But I had to grow bigger. So bigger I got.
I biggered my factory. I biggered my roads.
I biggered my wagons. I biggered the loads
of the Thneeds, I shipped out. I was shipping them forth
to the South! To the East! To the West! To the North!
I went right on biggering… selling more Thneeds.
And I biggered by money, which everyone needs.”
Return to the Rule of Law, smaller government, and stricter adherence to a moral code. Some will claim, also erroneously, this is not the solution or is only a solution in a “perfect” “utopian” world. However, I counter with the following, “What has brought America to this precipice?” The 1880s saw the rise of bureaucrats restricting the ability to read, as a means of controlling the population, born of fear, and as racist an action as enslaving people! Post-WWI, repeated more severely Post-WWII, the rise in government as a means of “recovering from war.”
Trace through history, and every time the government has undertaken a path to grow, the industrial complex has more closely tied itself to biggering government as a path to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. However, the growth of government has come at the expense of the electorate through increased laws and legislation, bureaucratic mandate, and larger standing police organizations. All this while simultaneously reducing the quality of education, restricting the power to read, write, and figure, and calling the advances “progress.” Restrictions on competition, merging to form larger military-industrial organizations, and increased costs have shut out citizens from politics, thus capturing the reigns of government to keep feeding the growing beast.
Recently Biden has begun pounding the war drums to escape the financial problems, social unrest, and other problems at home. He is sending congressional representatives out to try and support protecting the national borders of Ukraine while removing and destroying the borders of the USA. Why take this path of war and destruction; because it has always worked previously. If Biden can get America focused on war, he can keep biggering the government without scrutiny and with the tacit approval of the electorate.
Look at history, especially recent history, and you will find that the most nefarious, liberty stealing regulations, legislation, and bureaucratic mandates have come while America was focused on 9/11, Afghanistan, Iran, ISIS, and the list goes on and on. The hellaciously destructive and misnamed “Patriot Act” was born from 9/11, when had we merely focused on enforcing the laws already on the books, Americans inside America would not have lost all constitutional rights within their own country. The Patriot Act is but one example of the problems created by confusing wants and needs, mistaking a problem for an inconvenience, and using the cudgel of government authority to force behavior changes in the citizenry.
The 9/11 commission found hundreds of places where the bureaucrats enforcing government failed, but were any of these people held accountable? Were any bureaucrats forced from their cushy jobs and made to pay restitution? Of course not, because this would have made the American government at fault as a co-conspirator and facilitator of 9/11’s terror attacks. So, the solution was to avoid culpability, shirk responsibility, and appease the bureaucrats at the expense of all citizens.
COVID-19 is another example of runaway liberty theft, rights reduction, and smoke and mirror charades. The government seized power from the people, biggered itself, and broke the laws for convenience while the electorate was focused elsewhere. How’s that bigger government working for you? Are you tired of being authoritatively ruled, restricted in your pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness? Do you understand the problem? If so, what do you need?
COVID-19 is a viral disease, humanity has survived a lot of viral diseases, yet COVID is somehow different, or so we have been told. Since COVID kills less than .01%, the response has to be the complete and total destruction of the Rule of Law, the restriction of rights, liberties, and the destruction of all we have held dear. But none of those mandating will answer why or how COVID is different from any other viral disease humanity has survived.
The government needs to bigger itself, or it dies. In competition with a bigger government, the citizens need to be “… secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects.” The party winning in this competition must be the citizen, and the citizen must staunchly defend all encroachment to their privacy, rights, freedoms, and liberties under the Rule of Law. We, the American Citizens, deserve a smaller and less expensive government; this is not a problem or inconvenience; it is a necessity!
If you believe in the potential of all to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, join me! If you prefer the thumb of government and the boot of oppression, find me when you tire of being abused, cheated, used as cannon fodder for illicit wars, and robbed from, so a select few government employees and elected representatives can live off your sweat and tears. This is the stark reality we are living in right now! We must choose a side and then stand. As Father Mulchay said, “You can’t miss when you have good material.” We, those who stand fast in our liberty, cannot miss, we have good material (the US Constitution), and we can win the day!
© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images. Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.
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