Typical Government

As Independence Day comes closer, a day most Americans have forgotten the true meaning of, people begin to think about fireworks. My home town government has done something I find extremeley laughable, yet holding true to typical government logic. Setting off fireworks within the city limits has been illegal up to this point. My local city government has decided that from now on, setting off fireworks will be legal. Of-course there is a catch to this change in the law. Whoever would like to participate in the American pastime of lighting black cats and roman candles must first go to the city and obtain a permit for a token fee of twenty dollars. That's right, a $20 permit makes an act which was previously deemed too dangerous to be legal now acceptable. I literally laughed out loud when I read this. A hand full of city council members and bureaucrats somewhere decided that if people are going to set off fireworks regardless of the law, they might as well legalize the acitivity and just make people pay them to do it. Visions of police officers patrolling the neighborhood demanding to see little Timmy's permit for his lit sparkler come to mind. It's disgusting. This is just another example of the abuse of power that comes with the state. They say jump and we say how high.

Christians. You love the state more than God, admit it.

I am constantly wondering how so many of my Christian conservative friends and family are so blindly loyal to the GOP. I don't understand how they can give so much support to a party that supports the welfare-warfare state. They have no objection to the omnipotent state that crushes Christian values to no end. It is that persuasion that has prompted many libertarian Christians to ask of their fellow Christians whether they have more love for the State or for God. I have been thinking about the concept of being saved by God's salvation and how it relates to who we vote for in political elections. Any devout christian will tell you that if you have had the chance to accept Christ in your heart and have not done so that you will not go to heaven. I contend that if my Christian friends have been exposed to the principles that would bring about a libertarian society and still insist on supporting Republicans, then they deserve exactly the type of anti-Christian society that they will get.

The GOP supports an overbloated government that believes stealing the wealth of one class and giving it to another is the proper way to help the needy. Now I'm no Bible scholar, but I think I would remember a passage in which Jesus proclaimes that theft is the way to help those in need.

My fellow Christians are often worried, and with good reason, about the anti-Christian values being espoused in the government schools. Libertarians and Christian libertarians have argued for years that the solution is to take the education of your child out of the hands of the government. As long as we keep sending our children off to the government for education, they will be subjected to the values and indoctrination of the anti-Christian, politically correct crowd. Of-course the best alternatives are either home-schooling or private schools where parents have ultimate control over the situation. Many have cited the expense of private schools and fear they could not afford to send their kids to one. The solution would be for the government to completely get out of the education business and hand it back to the free market. In such a society parents would not be forced to pay for a "one size fits all" type of education whether they chose to send their children their or not, as is the case today. If schooling were completely privatized there would be all kinds of choices with many price ranges of pruducts to choose from just as there are in a supermarket. Parents as customers could really hold schools accountable to the kind of teachings they aim for their children to have. If the school failed to deliver the kind of product the parent wanted, there would always be a competing school to switch to.

The state will never be accountable for the lousy education it delivers. When any government agency begins failing the government usually rewards it with more money. What kind of incentive is that? The free market would deliver much better results and would be much more accountable to the values and demands of parents.