I am not anti government because it's "cool" or "controversial", I have been anti government for 45 years. I cannot grasp why this philosophy isn't more wide spread. The world we live in is a perfect example of why government is not a civilized or acceptable answer to our fears and concerns.
Statists and collectivists always argue that government is necessary for these reasons: protect borders, create and maintain infrastructure, protect and serve citizens, project force to deter attacks, help the needy, create laws, mete out justice, create and maintain currency, postal system, universal weights and measurements, inspect and maintain food supply, provide free education, and insure the efficacy, safety and consistency of medical treatments. I am sure some will want to add to this list, remove from this list or argue the wording. So be it.
I find none of these compelling, they do not seem to me to be valid and seem to fall into three categories: actions that interfere with things that are human rights, things that are or could be better accomplished by others (especially when unhampered by interference), and things that should not be done.
Our borders are not controlled, we just elected a president with that as one of his major platforms.
Our infrastructure is in bad shape, the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Report Card for America’s Infrastructure for 2013 gave our grade as a D+ meaning we need an "immediate" investment of $3.6 trillion dollars to get us the infrastructure we need.
Do you feel protected? Our privacy, our constitutional rights are being infringed upon in the name of security but Americans are being killed by armed individuals while they are being denied the basic right of all life forms to defend themselves, the very right an amoeba exercises is devalued and declared unnecessary. This is an untenable situation.
We certainly can project force, $598 billion worth, more than a third of the entire worlds defense spending, but we may not be the leader when it comes to innovation. Those who evaluate such things say Russia and China have developed systems that shift the balance of power with smaller budgets, Russia's updated armored vehicles and China's new ballistic missile systems far outstrip what we can field and areas like cyber attacks are obviously being invested in efficiently by multiple powers world wide. Our incisions in the affairs of other countries have created an environment in which American citizens are hated, targeted and attacked for a policy that most of us find distasteful at best and downright atrocious in general. Isoroku Yamamoto, Japanese Marshal Admiral in the 1940's is often quoted to have said, "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass." although this appears to be bogus and shows up in no known writing or recorded speech, but it does highlight an interesting truth about war. Invading powers do not want to deal with an armed populace. If you question this idea I encourage you to read the history of Afghanistan and the cost to every world power that has invaded there including Alexander the Great, the USSR, and the "International Security Assistance Force".
My liberal friends see my stance as unethical and consider me selfish for my not supporting government welfare programs, they call me uncharitable. Forcing me at gunpoint to surrender a portion of my hard-earned money to provide food stamps and welfare payments to those in need is NOT charitable but is theft. Charity is a choice, a desire to help those in need. Americans donated almost $360 billion to charity in 2014, despite being taxed to fund welfare and other social services. I have donated thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours and hundreds of pounds of clothing and blankets, but I am still considered selfish for detesting the welfare system. Humans are not unique in having empathy, many animals display that trait and it is insulting to claim we must be forced to assist those in need.
Laws are tricky, once you accept the proposition that others may know better how you should live, you have relegated your freedoms to others to dispense and prohibit. Any law that curtails how you behave outside of your impact on another's rights is extraneous and detrimental to all sentient being's rights to live as they please and pursue their own happiness. Laws that try to prohibit behavior that is victimless are self-contradicting, if their is no victim then there is no crime.
The justice system in place presently is a catastrophic mess. No one knows how many "laws" exist at the federal level, there are approximately 20,000 laws concerning the ownership of firearms, just one issue, that is actually listed in the Bill of Rights as a right that must not be infringed. The sixth amendment provides for a fair and speedy trial, yet citizens accused of committing a crime will often be imprisoned for years before receiving a trial. In 2012, in the borough of the Bronx, the AVERAGE jail time awaiting trial for a felony crime was 988 days. This does not seem to be a "speedy trial" to me. According to Newsweek, "Since 1973, 144 people on death row have been exonerated. As a percentage of all death sentences, that's just 1.6 percent. But if the innocence rate is 4.1 percent, more than twice the rate of exoneration, the study suggests what most people assumed but dreaded: An untold number of innocent people have been executed. Further, the majority of those wrongfully sentenced to death are likely to languish in prison and never be freed."
In 1973, the United States officially ended the gold standard but the US dollar has, in fact, been a fiat currency, meaning it is legal tender for all debts and purchases but has no intrinsic value. The introduction of the Federal Reserve, which is unique in world banking created a strange, hybrid system that is half federal government agency and half private bank. The Federal Reserve System considers itself "an independent central bank because its monetary policy decisions do not have to be approved by the President or anyone else in the executive or legislative branches of government, it does not receive funding appropriated by the Congress, and the terms of the members of the Board of Governors span multiple presidential and congressional terms." Yet the Fed does not print the money it controls, the US Treasury prints the currency. This situation gives us a currency that is only worth what we say it is, a dollar = a dollar.
In 2014, the USPS lost $5.5 billion. UPS posted a profit of $3.03 billion in the same year and FedEx posted over $2.2 net profit. This is a very telling situation, when an organization is not responsible for its operation and financial viability. USPS is a perfect example of things government agencies do that they shouldn't, that could be done by private industry more effectively and at a profit.
Universal weights and measurements seems like a function that does not require governmental intervention, as it is we have a strange hybrid system of metric and Imperial units.
The USDA is tasked with inspecting products for consumption, educating producers and consumers, and providing food stamps for those who are unable to provide food for their families. I am not even going to try explaining the problem with food stamps, that fiasco has been discussed ad nauseam. If you want to see the potential problems with a government agency and the potential for abuse, look up the delightfully named case of Pigford vs. Glickman.
The public school system should be at the top of some list of America's Greatest Bloopers. Anyone with the ability of critical thought should be appalled at the state of this farce. Things like "common core" math, teaching to the test, dismissing cursive, and a lack of any learning of a practical nature has resulted in a collection of ill-informed, entitled, individuals who can't count back change, form a coherent statement without filling it with "like", "know-what-I'm-sayin" or an expletive. There are exceptions and they give me some hope for the future. The failure of a system that forces parents to work like dogs to provide for their family reduces their ability to teach their own children and the system developed to replace their tutelage has become a machine designed to churn out consumers properly propagandized, fed carefully abridged history and a knowledge of English that pales in comparison to some who have learned it as a second or even third language elsewhere.
And finally, the FDA, a particularly evil and corrupt entity. One hundred ten years ago to insure the safety of food, drugs and cosmetics. It was primarily a response to patent medicines, snake oils that promised health benefits but contained ingredients as diverse as actual snakes or their venom, large amounts of alcohol and cocaine, morphine and heroin, which certainly made you feel better until the bottle was empty and the monkey showed up. To judge the efficacy of this agency I suggest you watch one hour of commercial television. You will be flooded with ads promoting products to deal with everything from weight loss to erectile issues with microscopic verbiage explaining the failures of the FDA as well as ads for law firms explaining how every drug, procedure or implant is killing people and you better get in on the lawsuit. They have, through legislation and select pressures, managed to create monopolies, big Pharmaceutical corporations who create massive profits from human suffering. They deny researchers to experiment with certain substances which could benefit billions of people while promoting drugs like opiates that destroy lives. As author L. Neil Smith said, to make America great again requires the total separation of medicine and state.
Your views will differ from mine, that is the nature of sapience, but remember that my philosophy respects your beliefs and freedoms as long as you leave me alone. I would willingly fight to protect your rights as long as you leave me alone. All I have ever asked of society is to be left alone, to live as I please, to keep the pay I earn, to say what I want, to eat, drink, or smoke anything I please as long as I don't infringe on your rights.
Thomas Paine