Simple reason – Government has grown so large that it:
- we Citizens can no longer have enough proper oversight so that it does what WE want it to – versus what IT wants to do.
- has become its own special interest group all unto itself. And in lobbying their bosses (our elected officials), it drowns out Citizens’ voices (e.g., see California)
- can conspire with and within itself – for itself over the best interests of those they are supposed to serve – Citizens
Yes, I have been on a rant tonite – 4th post of the nite on the same theme. Certainly the progressive wings of BOTH the Democrats and the Republicans have encouraged and enabled this super-sizing; to them, the strength of America is in its Government’s might. They believe that Americans need this guidance – and are hellbent to provide it in all ways possible. More and more, the Bigger the Better. We are to be mere cogs in their Machine.And many of us resent it to the core. If anything is true, they are the cause of the object of their hatred – the TEA Party movement. We are denigrated, we are reviled, we are spit upon, we are marginalized – and that is just within the Republican Party. All for the three simple parts of the TEA Party philosophy:
- a frugal government that spends within our means
- a belief in Free Markets and not in the Crony Capitalism in which success is measured by not the meritocracy of goods & services but in who you know and where to spread the “grease”.
- a limited Government that sticks within Constitutional bounds…
…and lets the two other legs of America, Civil Society and its Citizens, decide for themselves and solve the problems of the day. As de Tocqueville observed, Civil Society used to be the greatness of America – not its Government. This, of course, is anathema to Progressives. And in charge of Government, they are fighting back the best way they know how – with the levers of found within itself. Like the IRS.
Yes, a long rant and a long run-up to the actual point made at the Daily Caller – you aren’t paranoid when there really is someone out to get you – especially when it IS Government (emphasis mine):
Top Internal Revenue Service Obamacare official Sarah Hall Ingram discussed confidential taxpayer information with senior Obama White House officials, according to 2012 emails obtained by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and provided to The Daily Caller.
Lois Lerner, then head of the IRS Tax Exempt Organizations division, also received an email alongside White House officials that contained confidential information.
Ingram attempted to counsel the White House on a lawsuit from religious organizations opposing Obamacare’s contraception mandate. Email exchanges involving Ingram and White House officials — including White House health policy advisor Ellen Montz and deputy assistant to the president for health policy Jeanne Lambrew — contained confidential taxpayer information, according to Oversight.
…Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code forbids a federal employee from “disclos[ing] any return or return information obtained by him in any manner in connection with his service as such an officer or an employee.” Federal employees who illegally disclose confidential taxpayer information could face five years in prison.
We see, out in public, the actions of the Federal Government’s National Park Service targeting the Public to make them miserable – a misuse of power and appropriation of what belongs to Citizens to itself. A Federal entity, ostensibly acting “under orders” taking that which does not belong to it – does a steward act in this manner? Now we see, from the darkness of the back rooms out of the sight of the public, Political Leaders all too willing to use the terrifying power of the IRS turn against those Citizens that merely disagree with the direction of the Government. A “special interest group all unto itself” –does a steward act in this manner, actively deciding to put itself over Citizens.
So the Government attacks its Citizens – again. What kind of Government did the Framers bequeath us at our start, and what has it now become? A Leviathan of a Big Government can do this with ease – for as we have seen, there is little downside risk to the “new courtiers” doing such. There is little to no effective response to mal-behavior, not even from “Republicans in charge”. Words, perhaps, but little concrete action.
In a limited Government, could you see this continue? I do not – which is why I advocate for it. It really doesn’t matter which Party would have the power – the Rise and Power of the Bureaucrat would slow and then fall. Again, we would return to the time that our elected officials would truly hold the power – which is as it should be.
For it is a FEATURE that ordinary citizens be able to, once again, make decisions for themselves and not Government intrusively taking that away from us.
And then we Citizens would not fear that our Government would turn on us again – it just wouldn’t be large enough to do so.
when it gets so large that it . Democrats have obviously enable and advocated for this –
