Government “Of the People”

James O’Keefe, the dude who famously went undercover to expose ACORN, recently did a hit piece exposing fraud and waste in the census program.  In it, official after official was shown to be dishonest.  As part of the growing movement to reform government, this reminds us of our goal.

The prevailing problem here is individual, not institutional, behavior.  We must remember that our government is a reflection of who we are—it is “of the people” and “by the people” before it is “for the people”. Any one of those people in the bureau could have stopped the buck and redeemed the whole organization.

Small fraud over a large scale, like that depicted by O’Keefe, is death by a thousand paper cuts. If we want a government that is above such fraud, we must first be a people that is free of it in our personal lives and work.  Similarly, if we want a sustainable (#buzzword!) federal budget, then we must be people who are responsible with their own personal finances. 

FACTS:

2008 federal budget deficit = $.46 trillion

2009 deficit = $1.4 trillion

Total U.S. revolving debt (98 percent of which is made up of credit card debt): $852.6 billion, as of March 2010

Average credit card debt per-household-with-credit-card-debt: $15,788

Another example: Amtrak officials deceive Congress about bankruptcy

Furthermore, we’ve seen that, unfortunately, private fraud also damages our belief in free markets (‘corporation’ now being somewhat of slur in the press and public sphere, undeserved or not).

The point: it is our responsibility to be a moral society, and it starts with each of us as individuals.  Otherwise, freedom doesn’t work—period.  Government cannot create moral people, and attempts to do so tend to lead towards totalitarian police states (#Iran).  We have to pursue this as a free people, as a matter of pride, honor…and survival.  It must arise organically (#buzzword!) from within.

This is why I drop kudos on Eric for his great blog, which G.K. Chesterton personally read and summed up nicely as: “The only objective of Liberty is Life”.  More Chesterton:

“The position we have now reached is this: starting from the State, we try to remedy the failures of all the families, all the nurseries, all the schools, all the workshops, all the secondary institutions that once had some authority of their own. Everything is ultimately brought into the Law Courts. We are trying to stop the leak at the other end.”

  (#oilspill)

The final word:  we live in a society based largely on trust.  The money system itself is based on trust—credit, loans, investment, the stock market, the very dollar bills themselves.  It’s printed right on the money: “In God we Trust”.

[kudos to Dad29 for Chesterton quotes]