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Be that as it may, the electoral Silly Season seems to bring this tendency of the human race to the forefront. You would think that the CEBBTOs were the only ones with the voting franchise by the way that politicians cater to them. "Control drugs!" "Lock up violent criminals!" "Stop abortions!" "Stop abortionists!" "More prisons!" "More police!" Oh, by the way, "Balance the budget!"

Forget that the United States of America already incarcerates more people than the rest of the world combined, although we have only 5% (one twentieth) of the world's population. Forget, also, that we spend TRILLIONS (one trillion is a number that looks like this: 1,000,000,000,000 and consists of a MILLION times a MILLION!) of dollars annually in the exercise of State power. One would think that this is more than enough to control what needs to be controlled, build what needs to be built AND pay all those politicians and government workers living wages. But, no. We need more, say the CEBBTOs and the politicians are more than delighted to comply.

How can this be? How did we get ourselves into such a pickle? I would lay the blame, in its entirety, at the feet of CEBBTOs. These folks are not just liberals or just conservatives, but ALL OF US. Each of us humans finds it easier to call for the control of those who differ from us rather than taking the time and trouble to control our own behavior. For example, it is a fact that a smaller proportion of the public favors the decriminalization of drugs than actually use these drugs! How can this be? First, alcoholics and potaholics feel that heroin should be criminal. Heroin users think that cocaine should stay illegal and alcohol should be (re-)made illegal. Everybody who doesn't smoke (and some who do) hates smokers. "Don't control you and don't control me, control that fellow behind the tree!"

Liberals favor the confiscation of one person's wealth to redistribute to someone else, less "fortunate." Why confiscate it? Because they "know" that people would not voluntarily help the poor and they have "studies" to prove it. Conservatives say that we must control the behavior of the poor because they "know" that left to their own devices, the poor would all become criminals, deviants and perverts. THEY have studies to prove that. Make 'em pray. Preferably do it in public schools, where the children of the poor are forced to congregate anyway.

What then am I proposing to do about this? Control the controllers? No, all I am saying is control YOURSELF! I am not just talking about the obvious things, that is, don't lie, cheat or steal, which we have all agreed to abide by since time immemorial. External control of these universally agreed upon rules is certainly a legitimate function of the State. It also makes sense to have the State enforce a certain degree of orderliness (as in, don't frighten the horses or shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater). But, beyond that, why do we need volumes and volumes of arcane rules and regulations, all requiring some degree of enforcement by SOMEBODY, about things that only a few of us can agree are "necessary?"

I believe that we must soon return to a system of governance that depends upon common sense and common law, rather than statutory and written rules. A good step in that direction would be to review ALL written laws and remove any that can not be agreed upon by a VAST majority of people, say 85%. Furthermore, allow no government body to pass new rules that can not get this kind of support up front. By doing this one simple thing, we can remove all the "special interest" laws, all the stupid victimless criminal laws, all the crazy tax laws, etc., etc. Yet, I am confident that we could still agree to lock up violent criminals, still agree to protect the environment, still agree to preserve the common good. But, we would put disagreements about morality back in the churches, disagreements about education back in the schools, and let people go about changing things for the better the one way that is certain to work...by changing their OWN behavior.

I know that each of you reading this is saying to yourself, "But what about {fill in the blank}?" Will people really be willing and able to control {fill in the blank} without some coercion from government? In response, I ask you, "If those others, who do not behave as you wish they would, will not, on their own volition, obey the rules without coercion, what makes you so sure that they will do so when we try to coerce them?" After all, somebody has to do the coercing. If not you, then who? What if they don't stop? Why then, we WOULD have just what we DO have, an out of control government that can't control anything, but spends obscene amounts of money pretending to do so! It's time to stop this nonsense, don't you think?

Talk to you later...

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