"There Ought to Be a Law"
“There Ought to Be a Law”
Along the campaign trail, countless people approach me to complain about the government intervention they don’t like, while seeking to brainstorm about the government intervention they do like.
“You know, it’s lousy that I can’t smoke in my own bar anymore, it really rubs me the wrong way” might be found in the same conversation as “Thank goodness that the federal government is bailing out my favorite Wall Street companies. They should focus on bailing out banks and insurance companies first by guaranteeing the first 30 billion dollars of loans from each major company, don’t you think?”
“There should be a law against speaking badly against the President in public. We can imprison anyone who does it on a regular basis either spoken or in print. In fact, it’s just downright unpatriotic to challenge the president...” can be found in the same conversation as “…All I want to do is to be left alone and to be allowed to own my gun in case someone doesn’t understand what it means to leave me alone.”
“The government needs to stop its abuse of people’s rights at traffic stops…” can be found in the same discussion as “Government must force people to only purchase cars that have greater fuel efficiency standards. I propose that government insist everyone have 30 mpg cars by 2015, everyone have 40 mpg cars by 2017, and everyone have 70 mpg cars by 2025.”
“We need to end unconstitutional oppression of people by sending our troops into undeclared wars all over the globe…” can be found in the same discussion as “…There ought to be a federal minimum wage of $15/hour. If you hire someone for less than that, you go to jail. If you agree to work for less than that, you go to jail. We will have it phased in over a six year period.”
Everyone has great ideas and I believe everyone should share their great ideas with others. Where those ideas cross the line is when you tell me that you are going to violate my rights, or the rights of someone else in order to implement your “great idea.” Freedom is freedom. You cannot separate personal freedom from economic freedom.
Whenever I am looking for good examples of foolish bigger government projects that seek to protect us from ourselves, I just take a look at this website: http://www.house.gov/kirk/ It’s filled with hair-brained ideas.
Then to find out what nanny state issues he really believes he can convince people of, I go to this website: http://www.kirkforcongress.com/?q=issues. It’s also filled with hair-brained ideas, which wouldn’t be posted there if a significant segment of voters didn’t believe them. That’s frightening. Thank goodness, only 15% of human beings in my district even vote for the guy. It lets me sleep easy at night imagining that there can still be as much as 70% of the population out there who still loves Freedom. 15% of the population is often enough just to get a person into office, however.
Of course, we just need to step across the aisle to see that there is not another side to the debate. This guy wants a bigger nanny state too: http://www.dansealsforcongress.com/issues.php
Yes, in our allegedly polarized political climate, we get to choose from “I support Bigger government” or “I support Bigger government.” The founding fathers would be horrified at the monster they created. Of course, they could also comfortably say “I told you so.”
It’s almost enough to make a guy put his writing career on hold and run for Congress. Wait, actually, I think this guy actually did that: http://www.StevoForCongress.com
“There ought to be a law against that!” should be a concept we entirely remove from our thinking on the federal government. When using that phrase locally, we ought to be pretty careful about it too.
“There ought to be a law against that” is the ideal big government catch phrase. Under this way of thinking – you give up some of your freedoms and I’ll give up some of my freedoms. Also, when your people are more powerful than my people, I will give up a lot of freedoms. When my people are more powerful than your people, you’ll give up a lot of freedoms. When we engage in this system we end up in this ridiculous tit-for-tat, forgetting the concept of individual liberty upon which our nation was founded. Anyone who tells you otherwise, is entirely missing the point of the US Constitution, and the role of government in protecting individual liberty.
You are able to act according to your rights. I’m able to act according to my rights. If government gets in the way for either of us, we band together and say “Hey, I might not agree with the way he’s living his life, but you leave him alone. What he does with his life is none of the government’s business.”
In a free country you agree not to abuse the power of government in order to force the hand of your fellow countryman. (At least that’s what you do if you want it to continue being a free country).
In place of muttering “There ought to be a law against that,” I’d like to propose that you do any of the following:
- count to ten when someone does something that bothers you, proceed with your day
- confront the person immediately, tell the person whose behavior is bothersome to you why you think he or she is wrong
- get involved in an organization that tries to convince people of the error of their ways
- ask the editor of your local newspaper if you can write an editorial about this behavior you dislike
- if that idea is rejected, then take out an ad in your local newspaper
- if that idea is rejected, then go to the competing newspaper
- still no luck? start your own newspaper
- ask the person whose behavior is bothersome to you why he or she is engaging in that behavior, do so with an open mind
- get together with like-minded people to make your argument more influential
After all of your hard work, you will need to accept at the end of the day that one of the downsides (and upsides) to living in a free country is that not everyone will agree on every issue and that not everyone will behave the same way. Yeah, I guess it can be tough to accept that at times, but it’s a whole lot better than the alternatives. Extreme examples of the alternatives include statist societies (Russia 1950, Germany 1939) and theocracies (Iran 2008). Statism is a direction that we, as Americans, too often lean towards, and it is dangerous how close we come to it at times.
In order to play your own little role in keeping us far away from statism and keeping us a free society, I’d like to ask the following favor from you:
1. Refuse to use the phrase “There ought to be a law…”, esp. in reference to federal laws.
2. Reject the “we need the government to save us from ourselves” thinking that accompanies the usage of that phrase.
3. Keep a keen ear for this kind of talk and this kind of thought.
4. Openly disagree with that kind of talk and thought whenever you encounter it.
With Liberty and Justice for All,
Allan Stevo
Allan Stevo, a teacher and a writer, is a candidate for US House (IL-10). Allan is the author of three books and has lectured in a variety of topics in a number of countries throughout the world. Currently, he is the plaintiff in the case of Stevo v. Keith, being argued before the US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals (the Second Highest Court in the Land). To learn more about Allan and his campaign, visit www.StevoForCongress.com.
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