“The size of government is a direct function of the number of people being governed.” NBN’s Mother.
There have been failed empires enough to support present-day conservative arguments that big government is bad government. The United States is the exception those same conservatives say, because free market economics provides the governance behind meeting consumer demand, while our constitution protects the governed against threats from within and without. Yet that protection from within is also creating a lot of problems with conservatives these days, as our population expands 100-fold and Main Street USA gets a little too crowded for celebrating our diversity and exercising our individual rights.
How does a fellow who’s six-year-old was murdered in the latest school mass shooting tolerate a neighbor “protecting his family” with an AR-15? Should Appalachian miners stop digging coal denuding Northeast pine forests? Do heartland farmers have a right to a profit poisoning south coast fisheries? These threats from within were once more local governance matters but as our population grows, pursuing the life, liberty and happiness enshrined in our constitution hits ever harder against the free-market system of governance that is not. Ergo, the free markets have yielded to ever-growing federal regulations to where we now pay about 10 times more for these federal “protections” what we shell out at the local level. Something had to give, and in late 2008 it did.
Around that time an every-man Wall Streeter type went on a TV tirade railing against the biggest of big government efforts to fix the Great Recession brought on by…Wall Streeters. Big Business saw and seized an historic opportunity to turn that Every Man anger into a grass roots political force that immediately focused public fury on a government feverishly formulating laws to prevent a new financial crisis. What was sold to Joe-the-Plumber and Soccer Mom as protecting the Little Guy from Big Brother was actually big business deconstructing an administrative state built for very much the same reason.
Of course, those grass roots didn’t—and still don’t—see it that way, because those that do wrapped the movement in so much Founding Father fundamentalism and flag waving that tearing down the US government became synonymous with saving the country. The aim of these organizers never waivers, and it hasn’t since those Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution: Make Mo’ Money. Sharing this ambition with penny-less immigrants flocking to this country when it was still “The Land of Opportunity” was easy. As the country grew and those opportunities shrank, selling the American Dream to those without took ever-more creativity and ultimately duplicity.
Slavery was packaged as freedom to recruit those willing to die in its defense despite not owning any. Happy Days were here again when the nation’s have-nots discovered the easy money ways of Wall Street, and Wall Street discovered the easy money ways of selling their stocks to the have-nots instead of each other. The resulting Great Depression recast the American Dream into a rose-covered cottage with 2.5 kids until 15 percent adjustable rate mortgages opened the door to the every-man McMansion and ultimately the Great Recession. The latest “American Dream” is one where freedom reigns if we just get rid of the government keeping us from Makin’ Mo’ Money. The pitchman is a vainglorious cheater who will stop at nothing to legitimize a legacy of losing, knowing full well those same big businesses will back him to the hilt as long as they are Making Mo’ Money.
Considering that this county has amassed enough private wealth to buy China twice over, this boom-and-bust, free-market economic model can look awfully enticing. Who doesn’t want their own McMansion and private jet? Unfortunately, as those without same work diligently in hopes their kids may one day own same, all the wealth they are generating is concentrating into a tax-law protected black-hole of off-shore, and anonymous corporate bank accounts. Meanwhile, the governance put in place to prevent exactly that is blamed while the cost for that governance is paid by those doing all the work, even as they are saddled with the world’s greatest debt. That’s Trump’s “world’s greatest economy.”
At least it was, until the ugly reality that such governance actually serves a powerful purpose, such as preventing plagues and preventing 1 percent of the population from hoarding 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. The last president to poo-poo that purpose quadrupled the national debt while rebranding the American Dream into a vision where greed is good, bigger is better, waste is wealth and government is bad. Since then the national debt has climbed from $700 billion to $25 trillion or $75,000 for every, every-man, his wife and each of his kids, all while we buy and throw outmore crap than ever.
To package such a nightmare as an American Dream to those doing all the work, you need more than a great sales pitch. You need God on your side. Thus was born, the Christian Conservative, an unholy alliance between church and corporate cheating that started with Ronald Reagan—even as an astrologer operated as the White House spiritual advisor—was weaponized by George W. Bush, then taken to the absurd by Trump. Reagan was an awful president for several reasons but perhaps none greater than selling the idea that government is inherently bad for those most dependent on it. No, not the welfare class. The middle class. People who enjoy sports, card games, backyard barbeques and are content with a rose covered cottage with 2.5 kids. Whenever this national majority amass too much national wealth, they are sold another American Dream and the rich get richer and, well… we all know the rest.
That’s why we have government. To put plans in place protecting those willing to trade their precious time on earth for the chance to Make Mo’ Money while protecting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for those a little less inclined. To say such government is inherently bad is to say planning is inherently bad and that’s risky business in a country that has grown from 1 million to 300 million in 200 years. Continuing to give free markets free reign in a world of limited land, air, water and rose covered cottages means the price of same is unlimited and that’s dangerous business in a country where 10 percent own 70 percent of the money. Eventually, the other 90 percent are going to get very, very angry.
Nobody wants to promulgate more rules telling people what they can’t do. At the same time nobody wants to face the inevitable fact that the only other alternative to more government is fewer people. China strives for both and is now in the running for World Power status. The Christian Conservatives running this country right now are banking on less government, more God and Mo Money to get the job done.
NBN is banking on China. This government, born of a savagery and disregard for human life unequaled in history, also believes deeply in planning. The US is also no stranger to such savagery, but the price others paid and still pay for our prosperity is papered over with paroxysms of profits that keep the every-man ever blinded by an ever new and more exciting American Dream. So, who needs plans when you can Make Mo’ Money without them? But as our public resources diminish and our public debt grows it’s that money that’s going to pay the price. That, the country that prints it and any culture that believes in both and, inexplicably, any God that wants you to devote your precious time on this planet to making Mo’ of it.
