Pasadena Politics

One of the methods government uses to restrict monopolies, apart from breaking them apart (think AT&T decades ago), is regulation.  Monopolies are dangerous – not because they are inherently bad, but because they can be abusive with the right leadership.   So how is Government, a monopoly by nature, managed?
“Government a Monopoly?” you might ask.  Yes, government is a monopoly.   Does it suffer any other governments to compete with it within it’s boarders?  The Founders of this great Nation knew Government abuse.   They knew that Government, without check, would micromanage the citizens under it to the point of despair – civilian despair mind you.   You can find a list of direct grievances iterated  in the Declaration of Independence by the Founders against the King of England.    As a result of careful reflection and knowing that corrupt and power seeking men would eventually attempt to take over a nation if given the opportunity, the Founders decided to restrict government with a form of regulation.  They called this the Bill of Rights.
Yes, that very same Bill of Rights and Constitution which Obama refers to as Negative Liberties and as flawed:

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.

I’ve never seen the connection between Civil Rights, which are based on the Declaration of Independence’s Inalienable Rights, and redistribution of wealth nor “political and economic justice”.  We have certain inalienable rights such as Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of (but not guarantee of) Happiness.   Too many people today seek out guarantees of happiness from the government.

The point is that the Bill of Rights and Constitution were to limit the power of government in order to protect the people it served from individuals or groups who would abuse the power the government can wield.   Incidentally, that is the point of Negative Liberties: the limitation in exercise of powers over others.    From my brief research on the subject, Liberals love Positive Liberties because it opens the door to government intrusion into the daily life of citizens.

Given all that, I can understand why Liberals such as Obama, Pelosi, and Reid love the majority power they currently wield.   They believe they can foist one over the American people and ‘get around’ the Negative Liberties of the Constitution.  They more than likely would have succeeded with Health Care “Reform” if it were not for the few major news sources that do not reflexively turn a blind eye to the administration’s goals and actions due to similarities of world view and to the “alternative” media thriving on the Internet and Talk Radio.    They would like to introduce a Second Bill of Rights, a one full of Positive Liberties, allowing them to take care of you the way they think you should be taken care of.

Regardless of your political affiliation, Government managing your life should concern and trouble you.   Unless you presume that the people in Government will always be interested in your best – the best you think of, you should worry and be greatly concerned whenever someone says, as Reagan famously said: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”   Government is a Monopoly and bad people; even ‘good’ people with good intentions, are drawn to the power government has.    But when they wield that power over you, what can you do?   What can you do when government controls your access to self-defence – ala Gun Control or to Health Care – ala Health Care “Reform”?  What can you do?  Who can you turn to?

Monopolies drive competitors out of business or buy them up.   Microsoft was greatly criticized for it’s business practices and has barely escaped a few episodes of being broken up by the Federal Government in the name of free enterprise and capitalism.    But what is to be done when Government itself, the ultimate monopoly, gets into your business?   It can regulate it’s competitors – something Microsoft could never do.  It can undersell it’s competitors to the point that the competitors go out of business for a lack of customers.  Certainly the Health Care “Reform” bills don’t outright eliminate the insurance industry, but the government is never a legitimate or honest player.  It can subsidize itself in a way no other insurance company can with money it never earned  and in so doing, drive customers to it’s door.

And what better climate to drive customers to your door than when they have limited incomes such as in a recession or in a depression?   What a better way to capture a Nation than to prey on and exploit their weakness?    The difference between self-governing and being governed can often mean little to people in seemingly desperate situations.  Socialism, as governed by the Government, dictates to you what you can do with your money and, in the end, your very life span.   You can already see the operation of Socialistic control being exercised by the Administration via Kenneth Feinberg.  Your worth is determined by a government bureaucrat: unelected and thus unaccountable to the people they are supposed to be serving.

Is this Freedom?  Is this what men and women have fought to preserve?   Was blood shed in the purchase of the Constitution and the form of government we have all in order for it to be thrown away because we are too lazy to take care of ourselves?  Too lazy to elect people to government who will serve the public and not their own re-election campaign or power hunger?  Too lazy to demand that their representatives change the laws and eliminate the bureaucracy that restricts and prevents them from having decent paying jobs, affordable health care, and freedom from government intervention in their lives?   Do we really want to throw that sacrifice away?
We need to elect people into power who will tear down the ever increasing edifice of Federal and State government before it falls under it’s own weight and crushes us.  We need to be wary of any hand that dangles a pretty thing before us because there is always a price to pay.  Nothing is ever truly free, not even Freedom which has to be purchased in blood.  The cost is always paid and eventually the people who think they would benefit the most will be harmed the most by a government that says it will take care of their needs.

Is “free” health care that important that we would give up our right to privacy, to keeping government out of our homes, to keeping our rights to teach our children, to keeping our rights to live long lives or to live at all; that we would give it all up to the Government to manage and oversee?  Do you trust government to always be benevolent when it has such power?    The Monopoly of Government must be regulated and we as stakeholders best exercise our vote to keep it limited in size, scope, and power.

A note about Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize: he won it based off of his ‘Good Intentions”.  Let us not forget what the road to Hell is paved with.