Thread by @Doc_0

The U.S. central government grew relentlessly larger, richer, and more powerful during the decades that every problem faced by Americans got worse. Why does anyone think making the government even bigger would *solve* any of those problems instead of making them even worse?

This is not just a matter of government ineptitude and corruption, although both of those are major factors. Our problems get worse as the government gets bigger because the Leviathan State and its clients have a vested interest in making them worse.

One of the biggest lies of statism is that government and its employees are utterly selfless and immune to the incentives that drive people in the private sector. This is absurd. Every government agency seeks to increase its "business" and "profits," just like corporations.

The key difference is that government increases its "market share" by giving BAD service and FAILING to provide value for money. Its "revenues" grow through coercion, not customer satisfaction. Agencies go out of business if they succeed too well at their tasks.

Time is money and money is time. The more of its time and money a nation pours into the fundamentally corrupt and inefficient engines of the State, the less it has for the private enterprises and VOLUNTARY cooperative endeavors that could actually resolve society's problems.

Government agencies also tend to be captured by interests that profit from social problems, and thus have zero interest in killing their cash cows by "solving" them. This capture becomes inevitable as the amount of money flowing through government grows.

Look at just about any big government agency, and you'll find it working closely with special interests that desire more money and power. Agencies naturally gravitate to partnerships with outside interests that agree the agency's mission is vital and it needs more funding.

The result is a massive government/special interest fusion that blasts a unified message into the faces of American citizens: "Every problem is getting worse, and it's all YOUR fault." Naturally the public comes to accept this message and internalizes it.

You will never see one of these State/Special Interest fusions admit it might have been wrong about the extent of its pet problem, or that more freedom for private citizens could be the best way to make progress, or that the problem has been solved and we can have our money back.

You hear nothing but variations on the same theme: we spent trillions and the problem got worse, so obviously it's the fault of the stupid, greedy, short-sighted public for failing to implement our agenda. The only solution can be more money and power for us.

Reducing our power and funding would instantly make the problem unbearable worse, they say. They'll even manufacture reports that "prove" X number of people will die if their funding or regulatory control are reduced the tiniest bit.

Everyone who studies Big Government for any length of time is accustomed to this perpetual shuck and jive, this mechanism for perpetual statist growth, and all the little tricks that go along with it, like "budgeting" that portrays slower funding increases as "cuts."

But we don't think enough about the effect that years of this garbage from statists, special interest, and their courtier media has had on the American psyche. They've been blasting "IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT FOR NOT GIVING US ENOUGH POWER!" message in our faces for generations now.

The deleterious effect on American culture has been enormous, in every demographic, every income level, every ideological group. We've all been corrupted by the unstated but inevitable corollary of the constant demand for government growth: we are an unworthy and broken people.

The statists treat us like criminals and fools, like damaged children who can't be trusted with even the reduced wealth and liberty we retain after decades of staggering government growth. Even the smaller free market playground they allow us to toddle through is still too big!

I think we've internalized that message after generations of remorseless repetition. Told incessantly that we are criminals, bumbling fools, selfish bastards, helpless infants, and dangerously irresponsible maniacs, that's what many of us have become.

Clearly many of the dependent populations in American society have accepted and internalized the message that they need Big Government to survive, their fellow citizens cannot be trusted, and they're helpless victims who can't be held responsible for anything.

As the government became "greater," the people inevitably became smaller. Statism is fundamentally incompatible with the ideal of dignified sovereign citizens. If you must be "forced" to do the right thing, YOU are not great - the people forcing you to live "correctly" are.

So here we are, with a State huge beyond all reason, gigantic beyond every shred of fiscal sanity, spending trillions more than the trillions it rakes in - and we're about to be told it must get even BIGGER, that every problem got worse because we "selfishly" reveled in tax cuts.

The greedy statists who push these messages never stop for a moment to think about what their demands are doing to the spirit of the people they dominate and loot. They care only about squeezing the next nickel from our pockets, not what they've done to our souls. /end