Over the course of fifteen years, Robert Welch delivered two speeches in Indianapolis, the relevance of which still resonates in today’s political landscape. This article delves into the ten generalizations of government that Mr. Welch articulated in his speeches, providing a concise overview for your perusal.
- Government is necessary – Some government is required for a thriving society. The size of the government will always be a challenge as it will always try to grow, and a growing government is anathema to a healthy society.
How big should the government be? This seemingly philosophical question holds significant implications for our society. Some may dismiss it as unimportant, but such a stance overlooks the profound impact of government size on our lives. Let’s explore this crucial question using the American government as a reference point.
The United States of America is a Constitutional Republic (if we can keep it), meaning that the US Constitution is the ultimate governing document for government size. Detractors will then claim that the US Constitution doesn’t cover all the eventualities of modern life. Yet, what if it does? This is a crucial point to remember, as it underscores the importance of individual rights and the role of the Constitution in protecting them.
The IRS had to be determined in a court of law to be “constitutional,” the same for the Department of Education and many other Federal alphabet agencies. In contrast, some federal alphabet agencies were created by executive order. Each of the alphabet agencies has restricted freedom, robbed responsibility from the individual states, replicated itself in the individual states, and increased the taxpayers’ costs for the government robbing, stealing, and returning a small amount as compensation. This should raise concerns about the extent of government interference and its negative impact on individual freedom and societal well-being.
- Government is a nonproductive expense – The overhead costs of a society.
Consider this momentarily: what happens to a business when overhead costs exceed what can be charged to customers and still compete in the marketplace? Nothing good! Where the government is concerned, why do we accept expenses that we would not accept for businesses providing similar goods and services?
There is a genius in understanding government costs as the overhead costs for a society. In this light, why should the Federal Government of the USA be the largest employer in the world? We cannot afford these overhead costs, especially when considering the social program costs, the costs of a standing military, and the continuing burden of deficit spending. This inefficiency should be a cause for concern and a motivation to advocate for a more limited government.
Using California and contrasting it with Florida, we see the nonproductive government costs ever more clearly and the lack of trust in government. How many taxpayers in California trust the government to keep crime down, to look after the public health, and to be as unobtrusive as possible in their citizens’ lives? What we see in Florida is the exact opposite of California, and the situation is changing for the better in Florida and the worse in California.
- Government is Frequently Evil – A point that cannot be stressed enough!
Consider the case of San Francisco, where the city’s streets have become a symbol of government negligence. The authorities’ failure to address this issue has led to a surge in diseases that were once thought to be eradicated in America. This situation begs the question: are the consequences of government actions always benign?
For example. In the criminal code for the US Criminal Justice System, the crime of murder is pretty severe. The Department of Veterans Affairs is regularly the culpable party in the death of patients. From poor communications to improper care, the federal employees of the VA are killing veterans and doing so with impunity. Is this not a prime example of the evil inherent in government?
- The government is an enemy of individual freedom. – This point should be obvious but remains hotly contested by those who want and profit from “biggering” government (apologies to Dr. Seuss)!
The First and Second Amendments to the US Constitution, as amended into the US Bill of Rights, are regular examples of how the government is always trying to destroy individual freedoms. However, while these are important, they are not the most egregious examples of how government is an enemy of individual freedom. The most egregious examples are:
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- Inflation – Where the value of your money earned is constantly devalued.
- Deficit Spending – Drives inflation up.
- Taxes – The overhead costs of government that rob you of your fiscal upward mobility.
- Debt —It is said that when you owe the bank $100, the bank owns you. But when you owe the bank $34 Trillion, you own the bank. This means the government is robbing all the bank’s customers of their fiscal freedoms.
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While not all of the most egregious examples of how and why government is always an enemy of individual freedom these are the most important, as many of the powers of government to be an effective enemy stem from these four points. When the government owns the bank, it becomes subservient, as does your money, to the whims of bureaucrats, who then work tirelessly to protect themselves while increasing the theft of individual freedom.
- Whatever the government does will cost more than it would cost an individual or a business. – The question is, WHY?
Why does it cost a manufacturer $100 to build a product on an assembly line for sale to other businesses and individuals, but for the government, the cost of producing a product is 15 to 100 times more expensive? Did the government get a better product? The answer is mostly assuredly, no. Did the government receive preferential pricing as they bought a product more regularly and in higher quantities; most assuredly, the answer is no.
When a government contract manager contracts for a road or bridge, why must the government pay premium wages? I was working as an independent contractor for a general contractor. I charged $30 an hour for my time, no benefits, and paid my taxes. When my contract was accepted, the General Contractor said I had to edit my contract and increase my wages to $75 an hour due to government restrictions. Plus, he had to pay me medical, dental, and vision benefits and a host of other costs because it was a government contract.
Why? I never got a suitable answer, but this is why taxes are so incredibly high in cities, counties, and states across America!
- Government, by its size, momentum, and authority, will perpetuate its doctrine and policy longer than its acceptance. – This means that what a government deems right will live long after society has forcefully told the government to stop!
Consider with me the recent government flip-flop and the redefinition of marriage. Let’s clarify: The government licenses marriage, and this is done on the local level. SCOTUS has supported the fees and government intrusion in legal marriage. SCOTUS supported laws and individual states’ rights to define marriages acceptable in their states when the government needed it to, then flip-flopped under a different SCOTUS. The states passed laws declaring that marriage is between a man and a woman, legally licensed by the state and approved by the societies in that state.
What happened was that SCOTUS changed, and a Federal Mandate forced states to abandon their laws and constitutional amendments many times over the objections and desires of their citizens. The doctrine of the Federal Government changed to embrace marriage as between a man and a man, a woman and a woman, a man and a woman, a person to themselves, and a host of other redefinitions of the term marriage. Then, employing authority, momentum, a complicit media, and a host of judges forced the doctrine changes upon all of America. Not through the legislative process, which would have made these changes constitutional, but through the abuse of the judicial branch and the pattern described.
- As society settles, the drive always begins to have the government become the manager of the social enterprise. – Remember the “Disinformation Governance Board” as a Department of Homeland Security office?
People who considered themselves “more equal,” in terms of “Animal Farm,” thought it would help to have a government agency armed and authorized to govern what is and is not proper, truthful, and appropriate speech even though the US Constitution as amended in the US Bill of Rights holds that the government cannot govern Free Speech.
Here is what the First Amendment says:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Is the interconnectedness of each point discussed more clear? By violating the First Amendment, the Federal Government wanted to set up a way to protect itself, commit evil acts, use changes in doctrine and momentum, and exceed authority to force social change as it gave itself the power the US Constitution reserved for the people.
- As the government increases in power, it will sacrifice the middle class to increase its power. – Killing upward fiscal mobility.
America was built on the principle that you must work hard and play by the rules, and you will achieve. Your children will achieve more through your achievement, which means that Americans practicing upward fiscal reach built the largest middle class of any country in the history of this planet. What was the government’s response to the freedoms expressed by the middle class, to tax them into poverty, create debt slaves, rob them of savings through inflation and the devaluation of the dollar, and every other action they could invent?
They cover fraud waste and abuse in social programs in terms of empathy, sympathy, and feel-good actions that only increase fraud waste and abuse of the taxpayer. Consider the Social Security fund; where did all the money go? Congress raided it multiple times for cash, leaving IOUs, fraud, waste, and abuse claimed a sizable portion. Criminal mismanagement and malfeasance have claimed what was left. Who is hurt the most by the destruction of Social Security: the middle class who expected there to be money in the retirement fund and who have paid for benefits their whole working lives and will never see remuneration.
- The form of government is less important than its quality. – Monarchies have historically been truly terrible and phenomenally successful!
Have you heard of Queen Tamar of Georgia? She won accolades and brought her people the greatest prosperity in recorded history. Her government has never been surpassed. Sometimes considered the Lion of the Caucasus, her leadership is barely mentioned in history regardless of the power it held and the good it did.
A constitutional republic is an experiment in global government history. It started with high quality and small quantity but has now reversed itself into low quality and high quantity. Is America honestly better for this change? Of course not, but the people barely understand the role of government, let alone why they are struggling and the government’s hand in their struggles and pain.
- Form and quality are less important than government quantity. – When government quantity exceeds citizen control, the citizenry must forcefully reduce the government’s size or make unpunished sacrifices to the government that has grown too big!
Quantity, or the size of government, can be detailed in many ways. Still, it always comes back to the individual freedom to achieve desires, goals, and ambitions. In the early 1900s, welfare was something an individual or a church called helping others. States had some welfare programs, but mostly, it was a city/county action mainly left to individuals, families, extended families, and churches. In comes the Federal Government, tripling in size, all in the name of welfare, and through the baby steps of welfare, socialism became the dominant government system in America. It was suppressing capitalism, overthrowing individual accountability, destroying the family, and ripping the social fabric of America in shreds.
Freedom means individuals act without government thumbs and boots. As discussed in the basic generalizations above, government is the ultimate enemy of the people and must be fought at all times, in all places, and at every opportunity! Freedom is found in an individual’s upward reach to achieve as much as they desire legally. Yet, the government has supplanted the upward reach to the detriment of those who want bigger government and equally to those who want to be left alone.
Every man, woman, and child must work to correct the government and build Americanism! Faith, moral codes, nuclear families, and enthusiasm, which is nothing more than faith in action (Henry Chester), must be the weapons we use to fight government intrusion. Faith is not specific to one religion; morality, integrity, and the purpose of religion are more critical and must be the bedrock of the faith we need in America today. We must be anchored to eternal truths!
The first and most crucial eternal truth is that there is a purpose to men (and women) that cannot be denied or interfered with by the government. Even though communism, socialism, and even republicanism will deny this and beat the person possessing this purpose to death, be reverently bound to save the purpose of man. What is this purpose? As quoted by Harry Kemp in his poem “God the Architect,” “Thou hast put an upward reach in the heart of man.”
God the Architect
By Harry Kemp
Who thou art I know not,
But this much I know:
Thou hast set the Pleiades
In a silver row;
Thou hast sent the trackless winds
Loose upon their way;
Thou hast reared a colored wall
Twixt the night and day;
Thou hast made the flowers to blow,
And the stars to shine;
Hid rare gems of the richest ore
In the tunneled mine —
But, chief of all thy wondrous works,
Supreme of all thy plan,
Thou hast put an upward reach
In the heart of Man.
Demand your rights to reach upward. Protect your rights to reach upward without the boots and thumbs of government interference. The simple truth is that the government of America is several thousand times too big, too expensive, and unwieldy. Until we acknowledge a problem and admit that the problem is the quantity of government from the city/county to the White House, we will not be able to achieve our upward reach!
© 2024 M. Dave Salisbury
All Rights Reserved
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