Brett Rogers/Contributing writer
The government is a gun, which can either be pointed at you – to take your things and your decisions away from you. Or it can pointed away from you, defensively, to protect your property and your life.
We constitute government to defend us, but increasingly, government is used instead to take from us.
This is why Thomas Paine, in his revolutionary book “Common Sense,” declared government a “necessary evil.” Necessary, because the protection is important. But evil, but mankind’s selfishness will too often leverage government to take from people what they’ve earned rather than protect what they’ve earned.
Government, in this past year, declared itself “essential” while declaring thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of jobs “non-essential.” Government workers in Texas received every paycheck, whether they were on the job or not. Some of you didn’t. If we’re going to identify privilege and call privilege bad, then there you are: Government treats itself first.
Let’s dissuade ourselves of the term “public servant.” While there are some government workers who are essential and truly public servants (police, firefighters, etc), others clearly are not. In fact, many who are elected to office are self-servants. They come into their positions with the goal to enrich themselves at the expense of the taxpayer, and they use the force of government to back their every grab for power and taxpayer money.
Those on the left – let’s be honest – don’t consider this true about anyone in government. They like big government. They applaud big government. Greed and enrichment through government is only bad when Republicans do it and rare is the progressive who will call out their own. The truth is that it’s always wrong and always bad, no matter who does it.
Texas government should never be a force used to take property or decisions from Texans. If I ask you whether you trust a government bureaucrat to make health decisions for your life, most of you would emphatically tell me “No.” Yet, the hard-core left constantly wants to give government more and more say over your individual health care.
We’re currently living through a quiet revolution. In some urban areas, it’s not so quiet, but for the majority of the country, it’s a quiet revolution that steers America into a period where government is a force used to remove our hard-earned money and property and our decisions from us. That is evil. It is greedy. It is wrong. And it’s wrong no matter which political party does it.
The “pursuit of happiness” is a phrase about how we invest our very lives. Everyone knows that we serve the federal government from January 1st until sometime in mid-April – because on average, about one third of our time is spent working to give money to the government. That’s what they call Tax Freedom Day: t5he day after about 105 days spent working to hand over that hard-earned money to the government to do as it thinks is best. And Biden wants more of that time from you. More of your life.
When you work so much for the always “essential” government, it’s not they who are the public servants, it’s you. You serve the public sector. You work a third of your life to give them their unstoppable paychecks – whether what they do is valuable to you or not.
Yes… government is a gun, either turned to point at you or away from you. It is offensive or defensive. Just as the word “live” can be turned around into “evil.” Just remember: we get the government we allow. It’s up to us to determine who populates government and how government will be used – for or against – us.
Brett Rogers is a well-known political activist throughout Texas and resides in Marion County by Lake O The Pines. He publishes NETX.News and believes that smaller government is better government. He can be reached at brett@rightrally.com. His opinions are his own and do not reflect those of the Jefferson Jimplecute.