printWe all live on the “plantation”; we are all “moocher-hiddeen,” says Barely A Blog contributor, Myron Pauli.
Who Will Be Our ‘Massa’? The Mormon Or The Mulatto?
By Myron Pauli
Unless you are hiding in the Unabomber’s Montana shack and consuming rabbits and berries, we all give to and take from the government. However, some give more than they take and some take more than they give.
Just how large is the sector that depends upon government?
Children and the elderly have become virtual wards of the state – so that 50% already falls into the “moocher-hiddeen” (to use an Islamic term!). That leaves the “working age population” of roughly 25 to 65 supporting the rest. Of course, if “Joe the Plumber” has kids or elderly parents, then the government acts as a conduit from him to his extended family. Even addressing just those working age people with neither children nor parents – are they the ones who pay more than they receive? Maybe.
Remove government employees and the government contractors from that. Then you have the governmental corporations such as Fannie Mae and academia who are funded via government largesse. And what to make of GM, Chrysler, the bailed-out-financial sector, etc., kept afloat by government? Public utilities are governmentally regulated monopolies. Automobile Dealers function only thanks to governmentally legislated monopoly. Pharmaceutical firms, publishers, and the entertainment industry function on patents and copyright for their financial status. Sectors in agribusiness, health care, insurance, energy, and transportation (Amtrak!) are so heavily regulated that those employees are de-facto governmental workers even if there is a semblance of profit. The less said about lawyers and lobbyists, the better!
Truly private workers such as waiters, plumbers, and preachers are quite independent of government; but in locations like metropolitan Washington DC, nearly all their customers come out of the “oink sectors.” Even worse is that when Americans invest their money, the Roth’s, IRA’s, 401k’s, 529’s, HSA’s, “cafeteria plans” are so controlled by governmental rules that one wonders who owns the money – you or the government – or is that even a distinction?
The sad and pathetic truth is that we are all living on a large plantation with a quadrennial democratically elected “Massa” and a bureaucracy of overseers. It is to the credit of racial and religious tolerance that we can have a Mormon vs. mulatto fighting for the job of “Massa”.
The fact is that government has entangled itself from cradle to grave like a metastasizing cancer. Rhetorical flourishes aside, the only government programs downsized in the last 40 years was transportation deregulation under Carter and welfare reform under Clinton (nothing eliminated under Republican presidents), and the budget was in near-balance (ignoring raids on the “Social Security Trust Fund!”) by Clinton. I mean, this not as an endorsement of the unabashed big government Obama but merely to point out that the odds of Romney downsizing the Federal Government is smaller than the odds that the Chinese politburo will make Yom Kippur a Chinese holiday!
So when “Tea Party Conservatives” start bitching about Obama endangering their Medicare, it is because the addiction to government is nearly universal. Some of us on the plantation may be more productive than others, but we all live under the rules and, regrettably, most inhabitants (or inmates) generally support the system.
A few libertarian “nutcases” like Paul or Johnson may point the other way, but even most billionaires are as happy to have the Warfare-Welfare state as the poor. Who do you think pays for the TV commercials and the spin doctors and the political “think tanks” – Christian coalminers and Hispanic gardeners, or guys named Koch, Adelson, Soros, and Spielberg?
Nothing short of a major non-violent libertarian revolution” (Constitutional restoration) is needed – but until then, we can all stick our hand out for our share of the public gruel.
******
Barely a Blog (BAB) contributor Myron Pauli grew up in Sunnyside Queens, went off to college in Cleveland and then spent time in a mental institution in Cambridge MA (MIT) with Benjamin Netanyahu (did not know him), and others until he was released with the “hostages” and Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1981, having defended his dissertation in nuclear physics. Most of the time since, he has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He was NOT named after Ron Paul but is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli; unfortunately, only the “good looks” were handed down and not the brains. He writes assorted song lyrics and essays reflecting his cynicism and classical liberalism. Click on the “BAB’s A List” category to access the Pauli archive.