Shades of Gray (Umbrae Canarum) on "Statism and Decay"

Shades of Gray (Umbrae Canarum) is back and better than ever with this takedown!

He pounds the hopes and dreams of outrageous Reasonable statists everwhere with the obvious analogy: the big government as a credit card. Sooner or later, someone's left with the bill:

Let me give a hypothetical example. Let's say I run for federal office (God save the Union). I say to you, the voting citizen, "If you vote for me, I will subsidize all your medical costs, make sure your gets go to college for free, and ensure that you have enough cash to buy that new car."

Now, if I said that to you as an individual, offering my own money to bring this about, it would be vote-buying, a crime and an affront to our political system. But I said the exact same thing to the electorate at large, and offered the taxpayers' money to bring this about, I would be campaigning.

And it would be good campaigning, indeed. Might actually work. After all, it's no pain to my checkbook to promise all my potential constituents free medicine, free education, free cars, free houses, free paychecks, and, heck, free gardening as well. I would be a politician who "cares" about the little guy, who wants to help you all out. The question that should be brought up is, do I want to help you too much.

If governments, especially the federal government, is permitted to be so involved in life that it can offer so many things, what effectively we see is bribery on a mass scale, vote-buying with the nation as the subject. As for the government itself, rather than keeping within its bounds and enumerated powers, becomes expansive, and does so too often with applause. Why? Because the government has become in the minds of many a magic goodies creator, and the politician who offers the most goodies is too often considered the best.

This, in many ways, is the key problem with statism: it debases the political culture, in terms of the government's own aims and in terms of the dependence created in the populace.

The government that can give can take away, as Phil points out. The trouble with the Government as goody dispenser is that the government can only spend other people's money. Either the government taxes or borrows. In both cases, people part with what's there's. That means that, sooner or later, people will no longer want to part with resources. Or no longer have resources.

How does the government continue to be the goody dispenser then?

A people dependent upon continuous government expenditures face a painful withdrawal. Meanwhile, like junkies that seek the next fix, the polity continue to empower those that keep the goodies flowing.

Phil's call for all of us to re-examine the constitution is a good start. We all need to believe in why those articles are good ideas. When we do, we may all decide we're better off without the "free" goodies government gives.