Dems Loving Embrace Cracks Ribs

As an admitted partisan cynic, I have long railed against the ever increasingly constrictive actions of the people we send to Congress to be our public servants. They are ostensibly placed in these positions at our behest and for our behalf, but even the policeman must arrest those he "serves". It is only in science fiction movies that the servants eventually impose totalitarian rule over the masters for their own good. Such a thing could never happen to us, right?

I'm not so sure. Consider legislation that has come to pass in the last decade and a half, and things take on a different hue. In other words, while you glance at the trees on the way out, once in the clearing, look back and see how big the forest has become. While they grew up around you from saplings, you had no idea of what they had become, nor how quickly they had grown.

It began with protecting the children on their bicycles, and then on any other vehicle that children employ. Helmets were first, then knee pads and elbow pads. To be fair, I'm not aware of laws requiring protection for extremities, but the helmet law is paramount. Then, expanding to encompass adults, came the seat belt laws. Then cellphone laws. All were designed to save lives. While it is inarguable that safety is always a good thing, did we really need government intervention and the accompanying punitive power of legislation to get us to protect our kids and ourselves?

Laws were something the Founding Fathers envisioned as protection of citizens from the acts of other citizens behaving in unlawful manner. We were never told that government would one day protect us from ourselves, but now the government is overreaching yet again. How far will they go? Unless a few more trees have populated the forest since last I glanced back, I maintain that they can only go as far as we permit. Yes, I still, perhaps naively, do believe that.

We have been subjected to smoking laws - smoking is still legal - we have been subjected to nutrition laws - eating is still legal - and we are now seeing the federal government attempting to delve into our retirement accounts; for our own good.

Who's to say that once the government becomes the administrator of your retirement account that they won't impose restrictions on your access to your own money? For example: you need to borrow money from your 401k for a child's wedding. The government, as administrator, is concerned about your health and ability to repay the loan. (Repay the loan to yourself. This is key.) They insist that before you can access your own money, you must sign a pledge to quit smoking, or stop eating fast food, or enroll in the neighborhood gym.

Some will ask why this is bad, since any of these acts can only make you healthier. It is a valid question, but anyone asking it has already given up the ideal of personal freedom and cannot comprehend the inherent danger in imposed and coersive behavior requirements. I cannot discern the intent of those who seek to impose these rules upon us.

My position has long been that the intent of liberal politicians was nefarious in nature, but in retrospect, I could have been wrong. It is entirely possible that they are as young children who enthusiastically kill the small family pet out of unbridled and misunderstood love. What really matters, ultimately, is that the puppy dies.

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