-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- I'm beginning to see the benefits of being a Neanderthal... http://www.etherzone.com/test022300.html GOVERNMENT: IT'S BIGGER THAN YOU THINK By: Kitty Testa When we speak of Big Government, it is not just the size and cost of government, but the scope of government that comes to mind. Have you considered the reach of government into your life? What, on a daily basis, do you do that is not touched in some way by a governmental entity? How much power does the government wield over your daily activities? Let�s take a look at a typical day in a typical American life, which happens to be mine. It�s 6:00 AM and my radio alarm goes off telling me to wake up for another beautiful day of liberty in the United States of AmericaThe waves that carry the transmission through the air are technically owned by the people of the USA, so the use of those waves is regulated and controlled by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC grants licenses to people who want to use the airwaves, making sure they know how to operate the necessary machinery to use the airwaves, and then makes sure people don�t swear on the radio. I drag myself out of bed to the kitchen to make breakfast. With the exception of the can of coffee I pull from the cabinet, every food product in my kitchen is labeled by mandate of the US Food and Drug Administration. The FDA makes sure food is food, sometimes working in cahoots with the US Department of Agriculture which makes sure that food is as big or as pure as it claims to be, defining categories such as large, small, A, and AA. (I think the original appointees to the FDA got their start in intimate apparel.) But the FDA makes sure that food is not medicine and vice versa, and makes sure that the purveyors of food tell you what�s in it and what its nutritional value is. This helps us because a lot of the ingredients in food have scary names that you need a Ph.D. in chemistry to pronounce, and provides an appropriate scapegoat for the scourge Attention Deficit Disorder. It also helps us by taking the guesswork out of assessing the level of evil in our diets. Gone are the days when a person must resort to the overused generality, "I ate one too many potato chips." That�s 1 gram of fat, 1/4th of a gram which is saturated fat, 18 milligrams of sodium, 1.4 grams total carbohydrate. I wake my children up to get ready for school. Like most children, they don� t wear real pajamas to bed. They wear T-shirts or their underwear or sometimes the clothes they wore the day before. The government doesn�t really like that because it went to a whole lot of trouble to make sure that children�s sleepwear is made out of flameproof material. Of course, most people who die in fires die from smoke inhalation, but that is, apparently, beside the point. With their lunches packed, the kids head off to a school run by the government. I am fortunate that I live in a district where the parents are very active and nosy in the affairs of the school, and hence the school is run right. It still irks me every time I see the placard in front of the school which reads like an advertising marquee: "Recognized for Excellence in Education by the US Department of Education". Now if it read, "Recognized for Excellence in Education by the Citizens of This District Whose Funding Makes Such Things Possible," it might mean something. After the kids go off to school, I will head for my job at an accounting firm. My job, in fact the whole industry I work in, would not exist but for the government. The Internal Revenue Service, the individual state treasury departments and the Securities and Exchange Commission have created a several billion dollar industry by inventing codes and regulations. In fact, the easiest way for the government to create new jobs is to create new rules that require additional manpower to execute compliance. I need to run a few errands before work. I am driving down the main drag in my town on my way to the post office to mail my income tax return. My car displays a license plate, a village sticker, a decal that says that my car passed Environmental Protection Agency emission standards. In my wallet is a driver�s license. In the glove compartment is my Proof of Insurance card. I am wearing my seat belt. The speed limit is 30 mph, and I obey. I have not consumed alcohol prior to my journey. My actions now are under a few dozen laws, statutes and ordinances, and I am in compliance with all of them. A cop pulls out behind me. I am afraid. Why? I am afraid because I know that the mars lights can start flashing behind me and change my life forever. The law says that the cop behind me must have cause to stop me, but I know better. If he�s feeling particularly ornery today, he might pull me over. If I happen to look like the date who ducked behind her front door last night without so much as a goodnight kiss, he might write me up for something or other. This will place me, 30 days from now, in front of a local judge who understands that traffic tickets are a great source of local revenue, and also understands how important the support of the current local administration is to his re-election. If I argue with the officer, claiming to be in compliance with the numerous rules he is empowered to enforce, he might arrest me for resisting his authority. On the other hand, if I look like the girlfriend over whom he�s swooning, he might tip his hat and say, "Have a nice day, ma�am." It�s his call. He has a fast car, a gun at his side, a nightstick on his belt, and a badge on his chest. He has power. He is an agent of the government. The policeman mercifully passes me as I turn into the gas station to fill �er up. I buy $15 worth of gas. Well, I buy about $9 worth of gas; the rest is various taxes. On to the post office. I arrive and park at a newly constructed building. The Post Office used to be in the main business district, but they decided that it would be too expensive to remodel that building in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. So, a rather large piece of prime real estate was purchased for the construction of a new post office, and the old post office was purchased by the village and renovated to be a senior center, complete with ramps, wide bathrooms with aluminum rails, and push button doors. Go figure. The line is long, and I have a bit of a wait before I will be served by the civil servants behind the high, Formica desks. I spend my wait looking at all the fun things the post office sells. I can buy T-shirts, earrings, sticker books, stamp collecting supplies, and stamps with all sorts of really cool designs on them. The cost accountant in me is thinking that it would be much cheaper to print one style of stamp per denomination, rather than sell all this fancy stuff. But I am the people. The government runs the post office. When at last it is my turn, I am chagrined because the man who will serve me is one who is frustratingly slow in his duties and remarkably uncivil. Although he is the human equivalent of a tortoise with a chip on his shoulder, he has worked for this post office for well over ten years. I have asked him for 1 cent stamps to compliment my 32 centers which have been useless for a few months now. "I would have been head of Chrysler if it wasn�t for that summabitch Lee Iacocca!" he says to a co-worker as he rifles through a drawer. "I don�t have any one-cent stamps," he tells me. "But you�ve never had any," I tell him. "I�ve been trying to get one cent stamps since the rate increase." "We had �em," he insists. "You missed �em. Just use two thirty-twos." He�s a company man. "I�ll take ten thirty-threes," I say. "When will you have more one-centers?" "I�m not sure they�re going to make anymore," he answers gruffly. I wonder for a moment if they�d still make one-centers if Elvis were on them. Then my private sector inner-demon says, "So this is what happens to people who are dismissed for being unproductive and unpleasant." My altruistic inner-angel says, "C�mon now, be nice. Everyone�s got to make a living." And that�s something government does very well: employ the unemployable. I arrive at work at 9:00. I am an hourly employee, and the good news is that my compensation is actually 7.65% higher than its stated rate. The bad news is that money gets forked over to the federal government as the "employer�s share" of Social Security and Medicare. I will work 40 minutes to pay my share of FICA and about another 80 minutes to pay income and property taxes. By 11:00 I�m working for my money, but an hour later I have to take a lunch break mandated by the department of labor. There is extra work this week, it being tax season and all. I�d love to do the work. The trouble is that if I work over a certain number of hours, the firm is required by law to buy me health insurance as it does for its full time employees. When I get home from work, I go through my mail. Several utility bills have arrived, including the telephone bill. All of the utilities are regulated by the government, and all of these utilities are padded with taxes. On an $87 phone bill, over 10% is federal and state charges. My electric bill has a 5% state tax charge. My water bill contains a $60 per month charge for a new water main the local government decided we needed. Also in the mail is a reminder to my 18-year-old son that he must register for Selective Service. I find myself amazed at governmental linguistic wizardry. This is about drafting bodies to die in the front lines of war; there�s nothing selective about it. We have a cozy dinner of USDA and FDA approved items. Then we load the dishwasher and put in some detergent. The detergent has little in the way of warning labels, except for a mandated blurb telling me that its "formula averages not more than 5.6% phosphorus, in the form of phosphates, which is equivalent to 1.5 grams per two tablespoon use level". Let me tell you something: before the government made them tell me that, I really felt like my rights were being violated. That evening I go on the Internet to engage in a little free speech and I find several instances of the federal government looking into ways of policing or regulating the World Wide Web. If they don�t have their hands in it now, they soon will. During homework time my 5th grader shows me some coloring books she was given at school in an "anti-drug" program run by the local police department. A cheerful little mascot explains that coffee and alcohol and tobacco are terrible drugs, like marijuana, cocaine, heroine, and amphetamines (with the pronunciation key: AM-FET-A-MEENZ so the little tikes say it right). I explain to the child that coffee and alcohol and tobacco are legal drugs, that the others mentioned are illegal, and further explain that there is debate about the decriminalization of some of these drugs. I know I�m getting a call from the teacher tomorrow! Before I go to bed I fold a load of clean bed linens and decide to change my sheets. Soon, at last, I can drift into my government-free sleep. I pull off the used sheet, and there, staring me in the face, is a warning: WARNING: FEDERAL LAW PROHIBITS REMOVAL OF THIS TAG. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Kitty Testa is our newest contributor to Ether Zone's growing family of conservative writers. Kitty Testa can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Published in the February 23, 2000 issue of Ether Zone. Copyright � 2000 Ether Zone (http://etherzone.com). Reposting permitted with this message intact. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soap-boxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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