It’s been over a year since candidates started running for the Office of United States President. And yesterday, the American public picked one. But the story I just told is so much bigger than the two sentences you just read. Because the takeaway this election showed everyone is that this is how government works. Which logically should lead everyone to ask, is this the best way to solve all the matters we’ve given over to political control? Do we really want matters such as health care, education, economics, etc decided like this?
What the American people went through with all the anxiety and fighting and loss of friendships and family and anger is how laws and government programs are made. What the American people go through to elect members of their government is just the beginning of more anxiety and fighting and loss of friendships and family and anger getting things done.
Senators and Congressmen, when drafting legislation, turn everything into political footballs. They battle and fight and slander each other. They do so because they have so much power over just about every aspect of our lives and the American people keep giving it to them by voting in the same buffoons from the two major parties. Here, from an older piece of mine, I’ll show you how government programs are made:
Before you can turn your idea into law, you have to gather a group of people who feel the same way about your plan and promote it. But since no one person is exactly alike as the other, you’re bound to make a few compromises to retain your support. Then you’re required to bring it to your Congressmen’s attention and if they wish to work with it, you’re going to end up with even more compromises and changes.
Once in government, your idea will go through various committees and debates. All participants in the plan will modify and change it to suite their needs. Your idea is slowly becoming someone else’s and will no longer represent your intentions.
When and if it gets past this point, you will not be the one to write the law, the politicians will. They will be the same politicians who made the many failed programs you object to now. Then once law, you will not be the one to enforce it, bureaucrats will. They will enforce only the parts they agree with and end up using it to appease their political cohorts.
Of course the new law will have its opponents, so it will end up before the courts which will have their way of interpreting it as well.
By the time your idea ends up running the gamete of government, it will not be what you intended it to be. It will now be another political football for the politicians to use against each other and to satisfy their political supporters. And you’ll look back on all that time you wasted asking government to solve your problem.
In other words, the American people went through over a year of election-hell so that important items like health care and education and economics could be solved in a Fight Club, in the most inefficient way.
I think there’s at least three reasons why America keeps voting like this:
1) Again, we were under the impression that this was the most important election of our lifetimes. It’s always sold this way. Each election I’ve been involved in has always been about the sky ready to fall if one or the other major party candidate is or isn’t chosen. So this shies away people feeling out third parties.
2) The American public doesn’t spend a lot of time on politics. Even during an election, it’s all surface research. In this election, they seemed to spend more time on Donald Trump’s Twitter account, pussy grabbing and on Hillary Clinton’s husband’s bad past, her email server and the fact she is a woman. What about policy? Most people do not involve themselves in political theory. It sure can be dry. But it’s an important dry.
3) The American public doesn’t really know how government works. They may think that if we only get the right people into government, those people can handle our health care, education, etc. And that is why they fight so hard for their “right” people. They don’t realize that what I wrote up top, is how it works regardless of who’s at the helm. The solution, is to not let government have the helm of important matters.
So what to do about it? A continued outreach on the part of a small government, libertarian leaning army is in order. Letting people know that what they went through with the 2016 election is what they’re going to keep going through if they leave those important matters in the hands of government.
If the top of the Libertarian Party ticket had won in 2016, if it brought in libertarian senators and congressmen as well, we wouldn’t have to go through this anymore. Who was president, wouldn’t matter much anymore. Who was your congressman or woman or senator, wouldn’t matter much anymore. Because you wouldn’t be constantly fighting to elect someone to do your bidding. You’d be doing your own bidding in the free market where libertarians want to turn over important matters like health care, education, etc. This is the message we should be sending out. And using this awful, angry election as an example of what government is would be the first time in a long time I’ve seen something come from a government program that works.
Freedom Cocktail 