By Bradley Harrington
“The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature — the parasite’s concern is the conquest of men.” — Ayn Rand, “The Fountainhead,” 1943 —
It’s clear, upon considering the issues surrounding the financial indebtedness and political dependence currently attacking all our levels government that we discussed last week (“Local, state leaders keep doing 90 mph down dead-end street,” WTE, Sept. 24), that the American Republic is now facing the greatest — and, perhaps, the final — threat to its existence.
Consider Illinois, for instance, and the wonderful financial and political achievements of its tax-and-spend “welfare” state: “The [Illinois] State Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability estimated last year that the state’s pension plans were just 37.6% funded. Put another way, they were underfunded to the tune of $130 billion. That’s more than $10,000 for every person in the state. And some private estimates put the shortfall at closer to $250 billion.” (“Illinois pension problem: Coming to a state near you,” “USA Today,” July 12.)
Clearly, Illinois is giving the rest of us a harbinger, an advance warning if you will, of continuing the folly of “helping” others at the point of a gun. The “welfare” state, allegedly promulgated as a “safety net” for people the state claims can’t do for themselves, has landed Illinois flat on its back, bankrupt to its core, unable to cough up on its promises.
This kind of political and economic mayhem is what happens when you start viewing some men as tools to be used by others; this is the fall-out from individual rights not being acknowledged nor respected, much less encouraged and protected. Illinois, in short, is what you get when the thinkers and producers, the people who make everything else possible, no longer stand between the looters and the consequences of their actions. Take a look, if you dare, at the streets of Chicago, and observe how such social principles become applied in the real world: Institutionalized thuggery and the rule of brute force.
And that’s it, Dear Readers, that’s the “welfare” state’s goal, clear and unmasked for all to see: Death, political control and destruction … And all in the name of “love” for man.
So, if America is to survive, it is precisely these collectivistic advances on its institutions, at work now for well over a century, that have to be reversed. Here’s a few things that are going to need to happen, just for starters:
(1) Abolishing the 16th (Income Tax) Amendment; (2) dismantling the Federal Reserve; (3) re-establishing the gold-based dollar; (4) privatizing Social Security and other government pension schemes; (5) de-commissioning meddlesome and destructive bureaucracies such as the Department of Energy and the EPA; (6) nullifying any and all market regulatory activity not pertaining to the enforcement of contracts or the protection of life and property; and (7) enacting massive tax cuts, based on the speed with which this “welfare” state abomination is dismantled, thereby returning that plundered wealth back to its source.
That’s a pretty ambitious program, no doubt; it is GUARANTEED to work, however, in the sense that should those measures be enacted, the problems they address would cease.
And the greatest obstacles to such a pro-freedom, pro-America, pro-individual-rights agenda? Two of them, actually: The “dependent” class and the “political” class.
The “dependent” class is that group of people who have now been forced to rely on government largesse of one form another, whether it’s Social Security, health care, SNAP, “welfare” or any other “free lunch” nonsense.
The only crime of such suckers, though, consisted of foolishly believing that “government” would take care of them. Instead, they now find themselves both economically AND politically beholden to that government … Which is now flat broke.
When it comes to the “political” class, however, we have a horse of a completely different color: This is the group of people who administer the “welfare” state system. These are the folks that believe they’ve got some inalienable “right” to steal your property and control your life, regardless of your feelings or opinions on those topics.
This is the group that has grown, like dead-weight barnacles on the bottom of a busy ocean liner, to assume positions of power and authority over our society and culture. It is this group, in particular, that needs to be de-legislated out of existence, as it is by far the more deadly of the two.
OR, we can continue to watch the federal and state bulls destroy what’s left of the China shop — because, what’s going for Illinois is soon going to go for the rest of us as well.
Bradley Harrington is a computer technician and a writer who lives in Cheyenne. Email: bradhgt1776@gmail.com.
NOTE: This column was originally published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on October 1, 2017.
