“If physical force is to be barred from social relationships, men need an institution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules.
This is the task of a government—of a proper government—its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government.
A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control—i.e., under objectively defined laws …”
“… The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is a nightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality: such a government reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of man’s deadliest enemy, from the role of policeman to the role of a criminal vested with the right to the wielding of violence against victims deprived of the right of self-defense. Such a government substitutes for morality the following rule of social conduct: you may do whatever you please to your neighbor, provided your gang is bigger than his.”
— Ayn Rand, author of “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged”
Today’s government (both parties, especially the DemComs) are NOTHING like what Rand described, nor what America’s founders envisioned.
Today’s government is a glorified, legalized gang of mobsters — who grow fat, rich and old (none of them seem to die) as parasites on what’s left of the productive public (rich or poor, the productive are now a minority in our floundering culture).
Sad. So sad. It never had to be, and America was once such an admirable place compared to now.
Voting won’t resolve the problem. Voting has to do with the officials in the government — and the government is way too far gone. It’s rotten to the core. Donald Trump’s unsuccessful attempt to contain the politicians and bureaucrats only made them worse, in the end. It’s like stirring up a rattlesnake without the proper poison to swiftly destroy it.
Sure, vote. It might make you feel better. The mobsters will still be in charge, either way. Until more of us become good people– self-responsible, active, rational, honest, liberty-loving people — nothing will change. We must not look in futility for politicians to rescue us. That’s not what government is for. First, we’ve got to rescue ourselves.
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