I majored in political science in undergraduate school (double major with history), then went to graduate school at three different universities. I picked out areas of emphasis that would get me jobs as a professor - public administration, American government, comparative governments, foreign relations, etc. And because they made me, I took quite a few courses in political theory, and that's what touched off a love for philosophy. That was a sideline thing, something I never specialized in or taught during my years as a professor . . . but I love it. One of my farorite political theorists is Rousseau, and I particularly like what he had to say about how government originated.
Rousseau would have liked government with limited powers, but he lived in a time when just the reverse was true. One of his comments that caught my attention was a lament. He said the first person who erected a fence or dug a ditch around a spot of land and then had the audacity to call it his own was the originator of civil government. We would've been better off had that man been told to fill in the ditch, tear down the fence, because he was the cause of lots of suffering . . . and that's because he forced upon all of us the necessity for government.
In this day and age Rousseau's words still carry weight. He was right, but only to a degree. Government has become mankind's best friend, and our worst enemy. Big Brother is bipolar, and that wears hard on all of us. He gives us liberty, then takes it away. He plows the ground for us to plant seed, and then he burdens us with tax and regulation on what grows from our labors. He can hold us like a babe in arms at times, but he also slaps us around when we don't behave according to his mandates. Big Brother is sometimes a saint, sometimes the devil . . . and sometimes the mean-spirited side of him blinds us to the good he does. I don't like Big Brother. I'd like to send him off to treatment, subject him to a complete overhaul, make him into something we could look up to and be proud of all the time. But is that possible? Probably not, but that doesn't mean we have to like him the way he is.
The first of every year brings about a new tax season. By April, income tax is due, and even before that (at least here in Texas), there's property tax to pay. Some taxes, like sales tax, aren't seasonal, but they're still a bother. I don't mind income tax because it's proportional, based on the ability to pay. I detest sales tax and property tax. If you build it, they will come . . . and tax the crap out of it. And that's not Big Brother doing it because he's not into the property tax business like the state and local governments are. Little Brother is now a bigger problem than Big Brother when it comes to taxation, and most people fail to see that. And even if they do see it, they like it better because it's tax money that home folks take from you for schools, etc. I pay a lot more tax dollars to state and local government than to the federal government . . . a lot more, like at least twice as much. I wouldn't even mind that so much if it weren't so inequitable, but that's another story, and I'm about done with this little rant.
In fact, I am done.
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