The government is on everybody’s mind right right now, or so it seems. Obama became the president of the United States only three months ago. His election was seemingly followed by much of the world and he impressed many.

Yet now we have senators who are trying to figure out how much they should distance themselves from him so that they can get reelected. There has already been a demonstration called a TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party that conservative estimates place at 3/4 of a million people. This is only half of one percent of the number of voters in 2008, but there are many people who will not yet attend a protest or who were unable to get off of work. Then again, it turns out that the Department of Homeland Security considers attendants to be terrorists.

Anyway, my main point for this post is not to go after Obama. After all, Bush signed the first bailout bill with support from both Obama and McCain. If you are looking for a scapegoat, look at yourself.

Government serves a purpose. You find the basic supporting ideas for it immediately after the flood. Take a look at Genesis 9:6:

Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

In order for this to work, people have to be together in groups of some sort or another. There is some debate over whether families should be the avenger of blood and over other logistics, but there is a rudimentary idea that some collective governing is required because of our fallen state.

I, personally, think that the higher a government gets the less power it should wield. The people at the local level have a much better idea of how they want their community run than someone a couple thousand miles away. The reasoning for that will wait for another post. Basically what I am saying is that anarchism is out. Why? People have a hard time getting along sometimes. The problem with this is that we ought to do our best to get along as well as we can with others. If everyone did that, there would be no need for government at all. Unfortunately there is always someone who refuses to do this. So we run into another problem: How much should the government do? This is the million dollar question that people everywhere have always argued. Let’s assume, for the purpose of this post, that people have fallen into the trap of expecting the government to protect them from their own failures. Nowhere in the United States Constitution is it written that they should be, but let’s say they have gotten this into their heads anyway. What would be the outcome? That protection would have to come from the resources of others, which makes sense because it is where the protection from others comes from. It is the only source that government has. As people come to expect that safety net to be there, they begin to rely on it more. See my last post about how the soles of your shoes cause you to walk differently than if you were barefoot. We instinctively modify our plans based on the cushion or padding available. With more time we become more reliant on that backup plan until we are wholly reliant on it. Surprise, surprise. The biggest government spending right now is to protect us from ourselves. The bailouts are the obvious one that everyone is decrying right now. The argument is that the people can’t run a business and are being bailed out with taxpayer money in an attempt to protect the employees. That isn’t quite true. If you look around for a few minutes, you will find that the government required many of the loans that gave way in the first wave of these recent problems. If you get a chance, read up on Affirmative Action. I know people that have had to fill out a lot more documentation because they passed over a black person than a white person for a promotion. Affirmative Action sounds good (and I am far from being a racist!) but it encourages discrimination in the opposite direction. Many of the people who could not repay their loans were approved anyway. Once this ruse began to fall, so did house prices. Nobody wants to lose their home, but what do you do if you owe more on a house than it is worth? While your food and gas prices are going up? For most people their actions were driven by necessity. But I digress. Our reliance on government has become a self-fueling problem. While everyone else is complaining about the bailouts, why don’t we take a look at the other major expenditures of the government. Our military, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid… and the expenses are expected to keep going up. Military? Isn’t that a good thing? That I will leave for another post. We definitely need a military but what their duties really are might surprise you if you read through the Constitution. We’ve created a lot of threats and then stepped up to meet them. There isn’t an easy answer or solution to this one. Come to think of it, there isn’t an easy answer to any of these. This brings me back to the initial point. How can we say that we love everyone when we vote the money of other men into our own pockets with social security and these other programs? Has the government replaced God and common sense for us? If things are to turn around, you and I have to resolve to do our part rather than expect our share.