The world is made of governments
Opinion/Culture and Government - 12 minute read
Earlier this year, I had to do something stupid because of government. I had to take time out of my day to give my money to the government so I could get a sticker for the license plate on my car. There is no reason for me needing to do this as it doesn’t actually help anyone in any meaningful way. Nobody is safer for me having done this, except for me, and that’s only because if I don’t do this, I run the risk of being stopped by an armed government official as I go from point A to point B, whether I’m driving recklessly or not. They could then fine me even more money, which could snowball into even more trouble with the government if I am unable to pay the fine and update my license plate.
This might seem like a trivial thing, and you may have even read the above paragraph and think I’m being ridiculous. Personally, I don’t think I am, as I genuinely see this as one of many ways the government bullies people out of their property. I also use this particular instance as, while I was there, I had an exchange with a young woman who was working there.
I informed her that I was a political journalist to which she replied, “I don’t do politics.” This is something I hear that frustrates me, and I wanted to inform her that her government job only exists because of politics, that I was there with her, not because I wanted to be there, but because of politics, and that the police officer being helped at the desk beside us does not arrest people because they are dangerous to themselves or others, but rather because of politics.
If you regularly read my articles, you likely “do politics,” but whether you do politics or not, politics will always do you. However, if you “don’t do politics” and still somehow came across this, I want to make you think differently, if just for a moment, so I can explain to you that, regardless of who you are, you do, in fact, “do politics.”
The Government of Self
In today’s political climate, there is a lot of “we,” “us,” and “our.” People coming together as a collective for one reason or another. If you know me, for most of my life, I have said that I don’t do groups. I do not like them, and I rarely trust them. This is the main reason it took me a year to become an active Convention of States volunteer despite having attended so many meetings. There is no government more powerful than one’s own self-government. You have the greatest control over your own actions. Your morals make up your laws, and breaking such laws lead to punishment in the form of guilt. There is also no other government that knows what is best for you better than your own self-government, and, this next point is the most important, nobody cares about you as much as you care about you.
Interestingly, this is the only government you cannot currently escape. You are forever tied to you. In other forms of government, unless you are held as prisoner, you can choose to leave for another body of government of the same likeness. However, the self is the government you can most readily change.
Of course, this government can be corrupted by mental health issues, but as a whole, this idea of self-governance stands true and it is for these reasons it is the most important form of government that exists in this world.
Social Governments
What I mean by “social governments” is the things you actively partake in as a member of polite society that is really a form of “casual government.” This would be things like your work environment, your friend group, your family, your neighborhood, your church, your classmates, and so on. These are the people who, outside of you, know you the best. Though they may not know what is best for you as well as you know what’s best for you, these are the people who are capable of making the most accurate estimate of what is best for you because of how well they know you. Also, because these people are going to be the closest people to you, they’re going to care about you and your wellbeing in a way that no one else in society will.
With them, there also comes a set of “laws,” things that are deemed socially acceptable for the group and, depending on the group, these laws will change, and there will be different dynamics and punishments for each group.
A few examples of this would be:
In a family dynamic, the parents are going to be the authority figures. If a child misbehaves, they can be punished by being grounded.
In a work environment, there is a boss and an employee. If the employee is constantly late, the boss can fire the employee.
In a friend group, one friend betrays the trust of another friend. This results in the betrayed friend taking time away from their betrayer friend, possibly forever.
Each of these groups have their own set of rules and forms of punishment, but they also go a lot deeper than that. The above three examples are all wildly different groups with different hierarchies, and this is important to understand.
In the family dynamic, the parents are the authority figures who make the rules and punishments. The children cannot punish their authority figures, nor can they punish their siblings, meaning when there is a conflict amongst themselves, they have to either tell the authority figures, fight, or settle the conflict reasonably on their own.
In the work environment, the owner of the business is the highest authority figure. However, in business, depending on the size, there can be many different levels of authority. A supervisor, who does not own the business, but works closely with the employees could have the authority to fire a poorly performing employee. However, an employee cannot fire a supervisor the same way a supervisor cannot fire the owner of the company. Likewise, as with the children in the family example, employees at the same level cannot fire each other, meaning if there is a conflict, they have to either tell their authority figures, fight, or settle the conflict reasonably on their own. Furthermore, the bigger a business is, the less likely the owner is going to know of or care deeply about all their employees as, like with any government, the bigger it gets, the less the people at the top will have knowledge of those lower on the totem pole.
A friend group is also really interesting, because in a true friend group, there isn’t really a hierarchy. There are just people who choose to hangout together. Due to this, their is no authority figure to tell, only other friends in the friend group. If a conflict is to rise they can have their friends help in the decision process, fight, or settle the conflict reasonably on their own.
There is something important to take away from these examples, and that is the amount of power an individual actually has in each of these situations. You are dealing with other people in each situation, making you have less power than you do under self-governance, however, you still have a great deal of power as you are able to more readily voice your thoughts and opinions to the authority figures and your actions affect a greater portion of the group, if not the entire group. These groups are also easy to get away from. You can move away from your family, change occupations, or find a new friend group that you feel fits you better. Regardless of the situation, your influence over these governments will be felt more than in larger governments.
State and Local Governments
Here, in the U.S., the smaller the government, the greater the influence the government has on your day-to-day life. Despite the Pledge of Allegiance being socialist propaganda meant to undermine the Constitution and get Americans to think of the U.S. completely differently than the Founders intended, the U.S. is still not a nation, but rather a federation, hence why we have a federal government and not a national government. It is because of this fact that smaller governments throughout the U.S. have so much power, and this is a good thing.
A city government can make city ordinances that affect only those in the city limits. Those in the city will also have more of a say on these issues, and if you don’t like how the city is being run, it is very simple to pack up and move to the next town over. A county government will have power over a greater area and amount of people and will have their own set of rules that people must abide by. Again, if you want to move away from a county’s government, it’s pretty easy as you would probably only need to move no more than a half hour in a particular direction. Likewise, state governments make laws for their state and, again, if you don’t like the laws, moving out of the state, while it’s more of a burden, it still isn’t that hard, as it’s not supposed to be.
The bigger the government, the larger the area it governs, the more people it governs, and the less power and say the people have. Also, the less the government cares about the people as those governing will not know or even interact with most of the people they are governing over.
National and Federal Governments
National and federal governments govern over large areas of land. National governments govern over countries while federal governments govern over states that have joined together while still maintaining their own set of laws. While these large governments create laws for all the people in their nation or federation, the people being impacted have very little influence over the decisions these politicians make. Not only this, but because these politicians are governing over such a massive size of land, it’s hard for them to truly know what is best for the population, and they likely don’t care what is best for the population. They don’t know you. They don’t live where you live. What happens in your area doesn’t affect them in any major way. And this is why our Founders made sure when coming up with the Constitution that we were not “one nation, indivisible,” but a federation that is capable of being divisible through secession; something that areas governed under national governments can’t legally do. These governments are also much harder to move away from if you dislike them, so if they hold too much power, they become extremely dangerous to the greater population.
One-World Government
A one-world government is being pushed for by elites with creepy ideas of globalization. The World Economic Forum (WEF) envisions such a world by 2030 where “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy,” as they stated in their 2016 video of 8 predictions for the world in 2030. They also predict in the video that the U.S. will fall as a superpower as “a handful of countries will dominate.” If countries come together to rule over the world, this would spell disaster for humanity. As you should hopefully understand by now, the bigger a government gets, the less those doing the governing know or care about the people or understand the needs of the people because they are simply not affected by the things affecting people in certain areas. Big governments have a tendency to imprison people and let people die preventable deaths, if not just outright murdering people. This is a reality that has been seen over and over again throughout history. In the 20th century alone an estimated 262 million unarmed people were murdered by governments in mass killings termed “democides” by Prof. R. J. Rummel.
“This democide murdered 6 times more people than died in combat in all the foreign and internal wars of the century,” Rummel wrote.
Rummel summed up his 1997 book, Power Kills on his website quite nicely, and I believe it is something everyone should read and understand:
“It is true that democratic freedom is an engine of national and individual wealth and prosperity. Hardly known, however, is that freedom also saves millions of lives from famine, disease, war, collective violence, and democide (genocide and mass murder). That is, the more freedom, the greater the human security and the less the violence. Conversely, the more power governments have, the more human insecurity and violence. In short: to our realization that power impoverishes we must also add that power kills.”
The Government of God
Not everyone believes in God, and if you don’t, that’s fine, but if you will, just for a moment, say that you do. We consider God as “King,” a very government-oriented term. God, I would say, is the perfect ruler because He grants us free-will. He does have laws in the form of the Ten Commandments, and disobeying God leads to punishment. However, while we are on this earth, He is not forcing us to follow Him or do the things He wants us to do. He gave us self-governance, the most holy of governments. God’s ideals are rooted in Freedom. Freedom to obey. Freedom to disobey. He is the only ruler to give His laws and then still allow us free-will and free reign. He is the biggest of governments as He rules over the entire universe, and if you look through the Bible, you can see He has punished people before. He gave Adam and Eve free-will, a warning, and a punishment. However, after flooding the earth, He delivered a promise to never do that again in the form of a rainbow, signifying that He can and is willing to adjust how He governs over us. With the death of Jesus, it seems He has taken a new approach to governing, allowing our greatest earthly punishment to be the ones we are willing to inflict on ourselves in a push for a false savior in the form of a one-world government.
Conclusion
Regardless of whether you “do politics,” you do “do politics” on some level. You, yourself, are your own government with your own set of rules that you follow for no other reason than because you determined that those rules were right for you. It is up to you to be involved in your governments while understanding the importance of limits on power.
Thanks for reading. Be sure to like, share, and comment. You can also help support independent journalism in Kansas by buying me a coffee at buymeacoffee.com/kscon.
The Kansas Constitutional now has its very own website. You can find more stories at ksconstitutional.com
YOU are awesome and so is your opinion!!