What A Government Should Be

Just like any week in our country the past couple of weeks have been very interesting. The protests in Egypt that resulted in the resignation of the President brought to light the foreign aide we have sent to Egypt and the misuse of that aide. The President, or should I say former President of Egypt amassed himself quite the fortune over the past 3 decades. No one can say for sure if his fortune came from the foreign aide that we sent over to help the people or not, but amassing a fortune of over 70 Billion in 30 years without having a business is pretty impressive, you can decide for yourself where it came from. The protests in Egypt were the spark that was needed for more protests across the Middle Eastern countries; it also shows how our involvement in foreign countries can backfire on us. Our involvement with Israel, which is spoken of as if we had always been aligned with Israel, is now in jeopardy. Israel is feeling the threat of the increase in radical Muslim power in the Middle East and the current United States administration is not pro-Israel, in fact, my opinion only, the current administration is pro-Muslim. In truth they should be neutral, always should have been neutral and should remain neutral. Our history with Israel is actually quite short.

It was not until after the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 that the United States formally aligned themselves as a supporter of Israel. Prior to that administrations had gone back and forth with their support, some offering help and funding and others distancing themselves. Since Lyndon B. Johnson took office it has become the duty of all Americans to support Israel, or at least to believe we have always been in support. I’m not knocking the Israelis as much as I’m knocking the intervention of other countries by our country, it can only breed problems for the United States. Admittedly Israel is the home of the Christian faith and regardless of what anyone says, the United States was founded with Christian principles.

The point being is we supported President Mubarak for 30 years only to have our current President throw him under the bus only to open the door for the Muslim Brotherhood. We supported the leader of Iran until his people rose up in protest and now we have the war state of Iran that we have to worry about. We supported the freedom fighters of Afghanistan against the Russians because they were the enemy of our enemy and ended up with Osama Bin Laden, an American trained and armed guerilla fighter that is now supporting and planning attacks against America. Hasn’t America learned the lesson? Keep you nose out of the politics of other countries, if not it’s sure to get bloodied, maybe not now but eventually. Our founders believed this also, they believed we should have trade with any country we wanted to or needed to trade with but align ourselves politically with none. You will arguments that we can’t be that way, we have to have political and military involvement in order to protect our place in the world, really!? Other countries have survived just fine without being the policemen of the planet, without being arrogant enough to think we can tell other countries how they should lead or how they should act.

This arrogance has carried over into our own States, States that are suppose to be sovereign are being told their laws must conform to the Constitution of the United States; sorry but no, they must conform to the Constitution of whichever State we are talking about. What’s worse is the President of the United States is openly supporting the protests going on in Wisconsin right now, protests against the State Government actually trying to balance their budget which goes against local unions having the upper hand. I’m not totally against Unions, I can see where they would protect workers, at the same time I can see where they get to uppity and forget that in some cases, like Government workers, the money is not coming from the State, it’s coming from other tax payers that are having the same struggles. This is not about Unions, this is about what a Government should be, how it should function and how much power it should have. It’s also about my own personal opinion of what the framers of the Constitution thought about Governments.

A Government should be from the bottom up, not the top down, which is what we are seeing now. We are supposed to be a Union of sovereign States that come together for the common good or all. Instead we are a bunch of serfs just trying to please the master in Washington; we are bowing and scrapping at his feet so he will throw us a bone in the form of Federal money. We are suppose to support only the absolute minimal requirements of the Federal Government with equal apportionment to the States; instead we have allowed the Federal Government to run rampant spending money it doesn’t have and we can’t raise all the while begging for more. We have elevated past Congressmen as being great Statesmen because they received more money for their States then their States paid into the Federal system. Just where did that extra money come from? According to various articles I have read for instance, the late Senator Ted Stevens was able to get $1.80 in Federal support for the State of Alaska for every $1.00 that Alaska paid to the Federal Government. So where did this extra $.80 come from? It came from all the other States in the Union. If all States were to receive this kind of Federal funding where would we be? Wait, we are there, we are writing annual budgets were nearly half of it is deficit, in other words, money that we don’t have. There is a solution to this, sure it won’t be easy, but neither will the path we are headed down now.

A Government should work from the bottom up, from the smallest possible group up to the largest entity. Let’s look at it starting with the community I live in. We are a small community with nothing but families and a Volunteer Fire Department. We literally consist of one road that comes off a State Highway. If we were to do things right anything to do with our community would start with the residents of the community. If we wanted our road paved we would get together and have bake sales, raffles, or whatever it took to get the money together to pave the road; if we didn’t want it paved we should get together to decide who would take care of keeping the road passable, jointly, as a community. We should decide whether or not we needed a Police force and how to pay for it, we should decide whether or not we needed something more then the Volunteer Fire Department. If we determine that we needed more then we are capable of then we should go to surrounding communities to try and work together for things like common defense (where have I heard that before?) or fire protection, or emergency medical response. The surrounding communities would not have a say in what we as a community did with our road anymore then my neighbor should not have a say in what I do with my land, as long as it is not something that affects my neighbor, or the next community. Yes I know there can be a lot of discussion and disagreeing on where that line of thought would end, but be reasonable, this is not the final word, only a rough draft of what I think. This process would be carried up as needed to each subsequent level, always the costs would follow. If my community wanted to join with other communities for police protection, we would share in the cost, if we agreed to let the County handle the police protection then each community should have the right to review the cost and each community in that county would pay their fairly apportioned amount. The money should always flow up, not down. Take this to its top conclusion for us, the United States. The United States Government should write a budget and submit it to each of the States. The States in turn should look at the budget and then pay their fairly apportioned amount. At no time should the Federal Government ever pay money to the States, there should be no Federal Income Tax. Is this perfect, the answer to all the problems? No, this is just a rough sketch of what a Government should be.

We have gotten to a point, driven by technology mainly, where we believe everything has to happen yesterday, every product has to be available yesterday, every answer has to be given yesterday. If not then we are behind other countries, we can’t keep up with the Jones’. In some cases I can understand this attitude, if we are not ahead on the technological jobs curve or the technological education curve then we could lose industries and jobs to other countries. OK, I’ll but that, except that Americans as a whole get real attached to the County, their State, shoot, even to their home county and town. I really think the jobs and the workers will be there if the Government will quit trying to fix things. I really believe America can be the greatest country on the planet again if the Government will get out of the way and let things work from the bottom up. Will it happen, unfortunately I don’t believe it will, at least not any time soon.


Steve Avery
2/20/2011