How Silly Of Me...The Problem Is Government!

How often does a politician say something like this quote from (of all people Tom DeLay) about Newt Gingrich:

In fact, DeLay speaks of Gingrich with undisguised contempt. “He’s got this new shtick now—‘solutions,’ he calls it, like government is the new solution. Government isn’t the solution; it’s the problem.” DeLay smiled.

I just heard Republican presidential candidate Milt (or Mitt, or whatever the hell he's calling himself these days) Romney say the same thing.

What do those words mean? Do people that say this really believe government, especially what they call BIG government, is the problem? Big government is by its nature corrupt, inept, inefficient, and unfair, and there's nothing anyone can do about it? How many have noticed that the ones who say this loudest and most often are politicians?

If the government is rife with corruption, pandering, special interests and ineptitude (it surely is, and more so), who should be held accountable for that? The people, to a certain extent. But who are the ones that pull the strings, have the hand under the table, have the lobbiests paying their bills and providing trips with luxury accomodations? Sure as hell isn't the people, for if it is someone's been hogging my share.

So if government is vile, perhaps we need different people in the government. Get rid of them. Especially the ones that crow about the evils of government while they ride on the cash cow that it provides. But wait...we've done that. Time and time again. And the same thing happens. Ah, the problem of government again! So the blowhards would say, and point out how this makes their case. It's nonsense. It's pandering to folks who've had a belly-full of government, by politicians that have no intention of changing it. And why should they? It's working out pretty damn good for most of them.

It is not government in and of itself that is the problem, contrary to what the paragon of virtue Mr. DeLay has to say. It is the ones that have leadership roles in government that are a lot of the problem. It is the virtual monopoly of that leadership (forget the lies about a two party system) on elections, cash flow, influence, pork barrel pandering, and out and out lying that create most of the 'government evil' they so crow about.

This has been going on for a long time. Power at first was given to these pseudo-leaders by the people in good faith, and that good faith has been rewarded by the stealing of most of the rest of it. It is not government that is the problem. It is corrupt government. The ones that are the most accusatory are the greatest corrupters. For them to say it is not possible to have a more efficient, more honest, more equitable government is a lie. If that were true, there would be no cause to have any hope for our country and this world at all.

Humans for sure cause many of the problems in this world. But if there was no hope that humans can also solve many of those problems, what would be the use of even trying? The trick in making things better through positive change is to finally learn how to live together, to realize that if one of us goes hungry or is subject to injustice, we all can fall to the same fate. Doesn't make it any easier when the same professional liars keep throwing up walls and ravines to divide us.

Here's the quote from DeLay that I started with:

In fact, DeLay speaks of Gingrich with undisguised contempt. “He’s got this new shtick now—‘solutions,’ he calls it, like government is the new solution. Government isn’t the solution; it’s the problem.” DeLay smiled.


Notice the 'DeLay smiled' at the end? Of course he's smiling. He's been run out of Congress on a rail, endicted for lord knows how much wrong-doing, and is still part of the Washington good ol' boys club. Why not smile? Playing the anti-big government card while you've helped create it, and are still reaping the rewards from it, is quite a trick if you can pull it off. But that's what happens with big government, you know.