Yesterday, I tweeted:
Everybody sitting around waiting to hear what the government is going to give them next… #whatisgivencanalsobetaken #goliveyourlife
All I see when I watch the news or hear political debate concerns all the ways in which the government is involved in our lives. As if we can’t live without laws. As if we need the government involved in our lives in all the ways it is.
Protect our possessions, uphold our constitutional rights, preserve our liberties? Yes.
Do something with people who violate our social covenants regarding acceptable behavior? Please, do.
Dictate the terms of peoples’ lives? You can go jump back up your mother.
Then, as I scrolled through more, I saw a friend’s retweet of @irin which provided this excerpt from Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s confirmation hearing (read more here):
Her words may have been about abortion, but they apply on a grand scale.
People are waiting on the government to tell them they’re “allowed” to worship the way they want. Umm, hello, nobody is saying you can’t worship the way you want (barring certain practical limitations, like, “Don’t sacrifice a goat in the church yard.”). But, no!, there’s a war on Christianity.
We’ve sacrificed by letting the government control so much of our lives: our dignity, our sense of self, responsibility for ourselves and our world. And what a fine pickle that’s put us in.
Christian conservatives feel persecuted when everyone can get married. Liberals want free college, as if anything is free. And they dig in, boldly going nowhere, pretending to argue over issues when they’re really just talking about different ways for the government to be involved in our lives… like, get a life.
Like I wrote in ‘Land of the Free? You Don’t Know the Meaning of the Word‘: Understand that promoting control, no matter the issue, opens the door to limitations for now and in the future.
If you’ve given authority to someone and ask for more, what dignity is there? When you’ve subjugated yourself, what respect will your master have for you?
The same applies to all of life: good things don’t come to those who wait… leftovers come to those who wait. And asking for more from those in power will get you a swift kick in the ass.