Is the US headed towards a socialist government?

[kandrathe]

Enforcement is the arm of the law, and my guess is that this law is not going to be enforced to 1/10th the degree it could be, nor 1/100th the degree that people are freaking out about. Raiding libraries across the country, scouring them for childrens' books with too much lead in them? Let's check back once that actually happens.

I don't see the SWAT teams hauling the librarians off either, but I do see most people who are "freaking out" as people who want to be 100% law abiding citizens. Otherwise, we have finally attained what I've said before, an anarchy of law where every citizen is guilty of something, and enforcement becomes an arbitrary mechanism of the state to repress the unpopular, to punish the enemies of the state or make political theater to win elections. The other demoralizing aspect to this situation is that "average citizens are expected" to be in knowing violation of the law. This leads to moral ambiguity where behavior is condoned as long as you are not caught, and then eventual moral decline. And, in other words, a police state. So, along with the other "socialist" leanings, we are moving away from liberty and closer to despotism. Or, as Ben Franklin said, "...I think a General Government [is] necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well administered; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism as other forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other."

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal well meaning but without understanding. ~ Louis D. Brandeis

Here is an interesting article by a poet from Iowa who agrees with me.

When laws become so numerous and arbitrarily enforced that citizens are faced with contradictory dictates the net result is not a nation of laws but a nation engaged in anarchy. There can be such a thing as too many laws. There can be laws that are not enforced and laws that require being ignored ( such as the black market for goods and services that the government has created shortages for, such as the long lines waiting for health care in Canada). A nation of laws must be by necessity a nation of understandable objective laws that are enforceable and affordable. ~ Dale Netherton, American Chronicle, April 29, 2009

I heard an interesting statement today on CNN, where someone commented that the latest "bail out" bill passed by the House of Representatives is the largest spending bill by any government in all history. It is enough to give every person in poverty in the US, $50,000, or enough to give every man, woman and child, in the US $5,000.