Even within the midst of the coronavirus crisis, it is possible to find humor, thanks to statists.
A good example is an article entitled “The Era of Small Government is Over” by Jamelle Bouie, which appears in today’s New York Times. I am not kidding. That is really the title of Bouie’s article.
Well, for heaven’s sakes, why didn’t someone tell me that I have been living in an era of small government? i have completely missed it. As a libertarian, I would have liked to have at least been made aware that I have been living in an era of small government, even if it was for just a short time.
Why, all I see is a system of massive mandatory charity, with the two socialist programs Social Security and Medicare as its crown jewels. But of course, they are not the only mandatory-charity programs. There are also farm subsidies, education grants, corporate bailouts, foreign aid to favorite dictators, like those in Ukraine and Egypt, and many, many more welfare-state programs.
And then there is the massive national-security establishment, consisting of the Pentagon, the vast military-industrial complex, the CIA, and the NSA, along with their empires of “defense” contractors and subcontractors, foreign military bases, forever wars and interventions, regime-change operations, torture centers, and state-sponsored assassinations.
And then there is the drug war, the massive deadly, destructive, corrupt, and racially bigoted government program that is at the root of American violence, which statists use as the excuse for their gun-confiscation schemes.
What about our massive socialist immigration system and the massive immigration police state that has come with it, not to mention the death, suffering, and destruction of liberty that they have produced?
And how about the Departments of Education, Labor, Energy, Agriculture, Commerce, “Defense,” Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Transportation, Veteran’s Affairs, Treasury, Homeland Security, Transportation, and “Justice”?
And then there is the Federal Reserve System, the gigantic centrally managed monetary system that succeeded in destroying what had been the finest monetary system in history, one established by the Constitution.
And there are all those thousands of federal agencies that are charged with regulating and controlling the most minute aspects of economy activity.
And don’t forget the Postal Service, Amtrak, and the Tennessee Valley Authority, all three of which are quite sizable socialist enterprises.
Oh, and let’s not forget how the feds get the money to pay for all this “small” government: The Internal Revenue Service, the massive tyrannical agency that wields omnipotent, totalitarian powers to seize whatever portion of people’s income and wealth it deems they owe to the federal government.
In Bouie’s mind — indeed, in the minds of the New York Times editors who accepted and decided to publish this article — all this massive socialism, control, militarism, and interventionism obviously constitutes “small” government. Heck, I wonder what they would consider to be “big” government.
Did I mention the $23 trillion in federal debt that is hanging over the American people? And that the feds are already adding another trillion this year? And that they are now threatening to add another trillion as a result of the coronavirus crisis?
The coronavirus certainly is dangerous. But somebody needs to see if there isn’t some other kind of virus that is going around and affecting the minds of statists.
“Small” government? I’m dying but not from the coronavirus. I’m dying of laughter.