What Do You Want?

I want peace. I want security. I want a roof over my head and food on my table. I want my health. I want good friends. I want some good intellectual stimulation now and again.

I don't think what I want is unreasonable.

The question is: who should provide me with what I want?

Bush and Kerry would have me believe it is the job of the government to provide these things. I disagree.

Yes, it is the job of the government to provide for my security. That's why we have an army. It should protect our borders from foreign invaders. I'd like to know who's watching out borders now, since our soldiers (and sailors and flyers and marines) are thousands of miles away in the Middle East.

Should the government provide me with food and shelter? They apparently think so. We have Section 8 housing to help those who can't afford rent, food stamps for those who can't afford food. Where did the government get the money to provide these things? From the rest of us. And the more money they take to give to other people, the more difficult it gets for us to provide for our own housing and sustenance.

Is it up to the government to keep me healthy? They try to, whether we want it or not. The government decides what health care we should receive, and what we can do without. There are one or two physicians in Congress, but they would be hard-pressed to provide care to all of the U.S. So the decisions fall on the rest of Congress, most of whom know nothing about medicine.

What about friends? Surely the government can't be trying to decide who should associate with whom! At an early age, the goverment does exactly that. The goverment decides which schools our children should attend, and therefore who their classmates (and potential friends) are. Of course each parent has the right to send his child to a non-government (private) school, but then he pays twice--once for the government school and once for the school he chooses.

The public library--the government's attempt at intellectual stimulation. I rarely use it. The library is rarely open when it's convenient for me. The library frequently doesn't have the books I want to read, and doesn't want to acquire them. They provide services, but rarely are there any I can use. Yet we all pay for this, whether we use it or not.

If the government would provide for my security and leave me to provide the rest for me, then I believe that at last, we would finally have the peace we all surely desire.