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A Government Shut Down is Ok With Me!

- by Scott Rohter, April 2011

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!” – FDR

A government shut down is ok with me followed by a massive government "draw-down" of large scale proportions. The United States Government is desperately trying to frighten the American people. Both the Congress and the President are engaging in scare tactics. This is a form of mind control, or emotional warfare.  They are trying to scare Americans into not supporting a nationwide government shutdown.  In the military this type of tactical warfare is called Psy-ops!  And there has been a lot of fear mongering going on in Washington in the years since 9/11.  Over a decade later we still have soldiers stationed in Iraq, fighting in Afghanistan, and carrying out supporting operations in other countries in the Middle East and around the world!  The Terror Threat Alert which is enforced along with the Patriot Act was passed and signed into law in October 2001. It was supposedly passed in order to protect the United States from any more terrorist attacks.  But it is inexplicably still involved in monitoring all of us, and restricting our individual liberties, over a decade later during peacetime! 

I would like to paraphrase from an American President, who has become an icon of the Left.  His words may seem a little bit out of style and context but they still resonate today because the original quote is timeless!  “If we give up liberty for a little security, we don’t deserve either liberty or security” [and we will probably lose both]! – FDR.  It is about time to sunset the Patriot Act!  It has served its purpose very well, but the reluctance of government officials to remove it concerns me!  In addition to that quote there is another even more famous quote from Franklin Roosevelt “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  FDR was no fan of limited government!  Actually he was a huge supporter of Big Government.  He took an expansive view of the entire Federal Bureaucracy.  But both of these quotes indicate that we should not let our fear motivate us.  Fear should not be a motivating factor for either our actions or our behavior! 

Just look at the advice of the official government spokespersons in Washington today, and most of the talking heads in the news media, as well as our own representatives in Congress.  They are all trying to scare the American public into supporting drastic increases in government and government spending with horrible scenarios of what will happen if we allow the government to shutdown.  Frankly I’m more concerned about what will happen if we don't shut the government down, or at least scale it back!  They are all predicting doom and gloom for our entire country if we allow the government to run out of money.  Excuse me!  Don’t they know that we have already run out of money? We are already more than $16 trillion dollars in debt?  What would happen if they turned off the lights, closed the doors, and just got the hell out of town?  Probably nothing, except that out children’s future might begin to look a little bit brighter as all of the lights begin to dim in all of their closed offices!  Hell, they all take a week off between Christmas and New Years, don’t they?  And when they all get back to their desks after the first of the year, nothing has changed has it? 

But I do actually want something to change!  I want my government to get smaller, much smaller in fact!  And to tell you the truth, I think that they are more afraid of that idea, the idea of smaller government ever catching on, than the rest of us are afraid of what will happen if the government actually does shut down! There are fifteen executive departments: Department of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, HHS, HUD, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs. In addition there is the EPA, the SBA, and the OMB. There is just way too much government. And that is just in the Executive Branch. And this list isn't even complete... So I welcome a Government shutdown with open arms, the open arms of a patriot, who is rightly concerned about the future of our country and the size of our government.  A lot of government employees are just going to have to get used to the idea of not working for Uncle Sam anymore because the non-governmental employees of this country are just not going to be able to keep pulling the government donkey cart down the road anymore.  It’s too damn heavy and too loaded down with government bureaucrats from the ever-expanding Administrative State!  There just aren’t enough donkeys and jackasses left in the whole country to continue to pull that cart down the road anymore! 

But there sure are a lot of jackasses who believe that the world will stop turning if the government shuts down.  Just don’t count me in with that group! I actually hope they do shut the government down!  A lot of government employees really do need to get used to the idea of not working for Uncle Sam anymore!  They need to find a job in the private sector, the actual productive, wealth creating part of our economy, instead of working for the Federal bureaucracy, the wealth sucking part of our economy!  The American People are coming for some of your jobs!  No, not literally.  We don’t really want your jobs.  We just want to eliminate some of them!  They are pulling the entire country down, and along with big unions, they are making it very difficult for the United States to compete in world markets!

Personally, I don’t think that they will shut down the government. They know from the polls that most Americans are actually looking forward to a government shutdown in spite of all of the fear mongering.  The majority of Americans are ready, willing, and able to live with less government!  But the thought of having even a little less government actually scares the heck out of the bureaucrats, and those in charge of the government!  So for that reason, they are trying to stir up a lot of unfounded fears in the public’s mind, in order to round up support to prevent this looming government shutdown from happening!  They exclaim, “You can’t shut the government down!  You need us.  Remember just how much we do for you."  If that doesn’t work, then they will scare the heck out of you with prophecies of doom and gloom, and very alarming scenarios of what will happen without them.  And they will keep hammering away at that message of fear, until you believe that you can’t live without them!  What a Machiavellian strategy!  But in reality it is our government officials who are experiencing the real fear of a government shutdown! They are afraid of losing their jobs!  They are afraid of a growing number of Americans who are coming to the realization that we don't really need many of them!  Their first order of business is the prime directive, which is their own self-survival.  That is understandable enough, but it is completely intolerable as long as the Nation is $16 trillion dollars in debt! And it would still be intolerable even if the national debt was only $5 trillion dollars!

I’d like to point out some of the actual advantages of a government shutdown.  First of all, it would challenge Americans to rediscover our innate abilities, that reservoir of ingenuity, resilience, and self-sufficiency that resides within many of us.  This challenge would test our mettle, spur ingenuity, and try our resolve.  Is there anything to fear about that?  A nation-wide government shutdown might wean many of us off the government pap!  It would challenge us to rediscover the spirit and the greatness of our uniquely American heritage, the spirit of industry and hard work that built our great country before we ever got lazy and reluctant to take care of ourselves.  One of America’s greatest generals and Presidents, Ulysses S. Grant said, “Whatever greatness there is in the United States exists because of hard work.  Work is the creator of all of this wealth.  Without work there would be no government, no wealth, and no greatness in America!”  Now it appears that with government there is no real work, no real wealth building, and no real greatness left in America!

If the Government actually did shutdown, it would show us that we didn’t need Big Government as much as we thought we did, or at least as much as they want us to think that we do.  Then we might actually be able to begin to defund Big Government, and try to corral it back inside of its Constitutional cage.  Maybe we could even keep a little more of our own hard-earned money to use as we see fit. Do you think? Do you understand now why the Government fears a general shutdown more than “We the People” do?  Now think of all of the wasted electricity that we could actually save with all of those bureaucrat's lights turned off, and all of those government thermostats turned down!  Think about how much less coal we would have to burn just in order to generate the electricity to keep them all warm and comfortable in their offices!  Maybe we could even stop sending foreign aid money to third-world countries that hate us! Do you think?

"The truth, the political truth, and nothing but the political truth. A journalist has no better friend than the truth." - Scott Rohter
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