It's for your own good

We've all watched the Cold War era movies showing  armed guards approaching ordinary citizens and demanding to see their "papers." The "security forces" were there checking paperwork to make sure everything was in order. In the US, American (legal) citizens scoff at the thought of that sort of thing happening here since we don't have to answer to government authorities as we move about and enjoy our day-to-day life. Oh, sure we have our driver's licenses, other forms of identification and that Social Security card we have locked away back home but, we rarely have to show them to anybody. Our government respects our freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom to move about and freedom to live the way we like so long as we do not harm others in the process. Of course, that would never change, right?

There are at least three areas where we seem more and more willing to cede our freedoms for "the greater good":

Our health
Our "safety"
Our environment

At least three major efforts have been underway for some time now by the government limiting our freedoms in the name of saving us from ourselves, saving us from terrorists/ other general bad guys and saving the environment. They all sound altruistic..after all, the government is providing salvation and that must always be a good thing. We hear phrases like "it is for your own good" as if we really don't need any say in the matter. We're told, "we are doing this to protect you." And finally, "we are doing this to keep you from harming the planet" (or harming some little obscure amphibian that isn't winning the survival-of-the-fittest-contest.) Our government feels obligated to provide us more and more protection and security...

The Dept of Health and Human Services...FDA...Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare)
The Department of Homeland Security...Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
The Environmental Protection Agency

Sure, we need reasonable regulations and government oversight to prevent abuses and unnecessary dangers. It is not unreasonable to ask people when voting to show that they are registered voters. Certainly there are times when showing an ID is reasonable. But what is happening to our freedoms? TSA agents rifle through our belongings and grope our children and senior citizens to make absolutely sure that no terrorist gets on an airplane. There must be lots of dastardly 80 year-old Lutheran women from Wisconsin that have been hijacking airplanes in recent years so we better X-ray them or pat them down in case one is wearing an explosive girdle. We are prodded along like mindless goats in the gate area line and, admit it, you feel like you are under suspicion simply because you purchased an airline ticket. I keep waiting to hear "show me ze papers."

I also can't be trusted to not buy / eat food that meets some government expert's opinion of what is "unhealthy for me." I used to eat eggs because my grandmother said they were good for me but then the experts said that eggs were bad for me so I stopped eating them as much but then the experts changed their minds and said it was OK for me to eat eggs again but just don't eat 12 at a time. Darn, I love eating that 12-egg cheese omelet four times a week. I wait on pins and needles for the next food alert that will keep me from dying before I can collect my Social Security check. If the government can't convince me to change my eating habits, they just turn around and pound the food providers into submission and make them remove all those nasty ingredients that will do me harm. Hey McDonalds, you want to put those toys in the Happy meal bags? Well, you better change your recipes to conform with what McGovernment says. When bacon makes it onto the banned list, I'm personally marching on Washington. You'll see what a million man march looks like for sure. And Obamacare? Since when did you think you had a choice about your health insurance?

The big government groupies gush and clap and say, "Oh, look how the government (Republican or Democrat government...doesn't really matter) is watching out for us!"

If we could only find that guy that invented the internal combustion engine we could drag him into a Senate oversight hearing and ask him where did he get the crazy notion that he could invent something that was going to use up all that dead dinosaur goop that is buried beneath the ocean floor and under those Polar bears up in the frozen Palin land. Didn't he also know that all the exhaust gas from those engines was going to cause more problems for the ozone layer than even those volcanic eruptions and methane filled cow farts? If the government could just figure out how to eliminate all that bovine flatulence then we could go back to using our Homelite weed whackers. But no...those cows are sacred and deserve to be treated without prejudice. They have as much right to pass gas as you do. And don't even get me started on the environmental and social impact of "BS", while we are on the topic of the southbound output of a northbound boy cow.

Hey, I've got an idea... let's just take the corn crop...you know the stuff we used to grow to feed animals, make grits and to make Orville Redenbacher's 300 flavors of popcorn and now use it to put in our automobile fuel tanks. We can just feed the additional starving people all that crude oil we are no longer turning into gasoline. Sure, food prices will skyrocket but we will feel good about how ethanol is going to keep the ice caps from melting and changing that movie "The Day After Tomorrow" from a riveting action film into a real life prophetic documentary. Whew, saving the planet is hard work. But we sleep well at night knowing that the government has it under control. Oh, and these are the people that brought you the US Postal Service, Freddie and Fannie and dozens of other government success stories.

Our Declaration of Independence (oh, by the way those old guys in bad wigs were trying to break free from an overbearing government that trampled on freedoms) says that I am endowed by my Creator with certain unalienable Rights that, among them, are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. My Constitution spells out all the ways that my federal government has NO SAY over my life and liberties.

Do you feel safer, healthier, more secure and more protected? What liberties are you willing to give up for that? Whatever the government decides? If we stay on this course, the storm troopers at the checkpoints will be asking to see your papers. After all, you might be one of those weed-whacking, bacon eating, SUV driving troublemakers. You wanna see my papers? They are on display at the Library of Congress.