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Voluntary Government Slavery

By gradually embracing more and more government programs and restrictions we are slowly giving up our freedoms. We are making ourselves slaves to our own government. We also are increasing costs of services and goods. Some programs are necessary, such as the military. Others provide infrastructure which can at times be better provided through the government than by private means. Some programs are very useful and provide assistance which would otherwise be difficult to obtain, such as basic welfare for truly needy people and many emergency services. Some provide reasonable protection which otherwise might be hard to obtain, such as securities disclosure laws and food and drug safety laws. Beyond minimum services, however, we continue to expand programs and restrict choices at our own detriment.

This country was founded on the basic principal of personal freedom. Government is supposed to have limited powers, and citizens are supposed to be free to do what they want except for proper governmental exercise of police power and exercise of defined government powers. Since the 1930's such has not been the case. Government programs have expanded at all levels, Federal, state and local. The big move came first at the Federal level, and it was not based upon the exercise of police power, but the use of the commerce clause. The major case which allowed for this expansion was Wickard v. Filburn, 371 U.S. 111 (1942), a case which allowed the Federal government to control a farmer's raising feed for his own cattle. The Court reasoned that raising such feed for purely personal purposes could affect interstate commerce because the farmer would not buy the feed, and the feed might have been shipped from out of state. It takes little thought to realize that this decision essentially laid the groundwork for the Federal government to control every aspect of our lives. If a farmer's raising feed for his own cattle can be controlled by the government, your backyard garden can also be controlled by the government. Saying "They would never do that" is not a solution, because government does exactly that in some instances at the local level.

We now have extensive social programs which go far beyond just helping the most needy who cannot otherwise receive help. Social Security and Medicare, for instance, are nothing more than welfare programs for the elderly, but they are not based upon need. You get them just because you are old. They may be very helpful to the people who receive the benefits, and they are definitely helpful to those who would otherwise have a hard time making ends meet without the programs. However, they add a tremendous cost to the government and also to the private healthcare system. Medicare in particular also cuts into our freedoms. There are limits on what a doctor who is in the Medicare system, i.e., receives reimbursements from Medicare, can do for a patient if the procedure is not approved by Medicare. The doctor can avoid these service limitations, but doing so then cuts into the insurance coverage of the patient and limits the patient population the doctor can serve. Neither Medicare nor Medigap insurance can be used to pay for any of the services not approved by Medicare, even though Medigap is private insurance. In short, the doctor and the patient effectively go outside the system. If your doctor participates in Medicare or has done so in the last two years, you cannot enter into private pay contracts for services which might be covered by Medicare, but are not approved for you.

Federal government funding of roads is very useful. However, it is often misused to limit freedoms. Seatbelt laws and helmet laws originally came about because of restrictions imposed for obtaining Federal highway funds. States were not required to enact the laws, but states would lose some or all of their Federal highway funds if they did not enact the laws. Obtaining Federal highway funds also often comes with strings that substantially increase the costs of projects. If a park or historic site is impacted, there can be expensive requirements for replacement of property or moving rights of way. Such requirements and the extensive regulatory approval process also become an avenue for dissatisfied minority groups to stop desired local projects which are partially funded by Federal highway funds.

On the local level we see increasingly more zoning restrictions in many places. These restrictions often lead to greater cost in many different ways. People who want to do something with their land cannot do so without extensive government applications and hearings which normally require help from experts. Additional regulators are needed to handle the processes. People moving into communities often want to control the lands they do not own regulations supposedly preserving a community's views and rural character. Large lot sizes in rural areas are enacted. Restrictions on where growth can be placed are enacted. The building of new roads and infrastructure to accommodate those who have moved in are stymied in hopes to limit the movement of more people into a community. Then we find that the we have some transportation limitations and increasing housing costs. To deal with these we extract more money and add requirements further driving up the costs and limiting the availability of affordable housing.

Another way in which we give up freedom is by enacting ever more criminal laws to limit what people can say or do because they might offend someone, not hurt someone. To some extent these laws are driven by the social stigma upon criticizing a person's behavior. When you cannot criticize to make people more civil, then laws become the only means of enforcing some minimal level of civility.

All of the above leads to gradual voluntary enslavement by using - or abusing - government powers, something that none of us should be willing to do. We would stop this voluntary servitude if we just learned a few lessons from history. Market forces generally provide better regulation of the availability and quality of goods and services than do government regulations. This lesson should have been learned from the past failures of centrally controlled economic systems and the current failures of socialist systems in Europe and Canada. Morality beyond a minimal level to maintain a civil society - such as criminal sanctions for murder, theft and the like - cannot be legislated, but is better enforced by personal morality buttressed by personal freedom of association and social ostracism. This lesson should have been learned from the failures of prohibition and theocratic systems seen in Muslim countries.

We all - whether liberal conservative or libertarian - should want to roll back government regulation and to oppose increasing government regulation. Doing so will cause us to put up with some things we do not like from time to time. But doing so will also lower costs, increase choices to avoid some of what we do not like and ultimately improve civility. It is not perfect, but it is better than voluntarily making ourselves slaves to our government.