Republicans are always talking about "big government" and how they don't want it: "We don't need all those regulations. The market will balance out itself without regulations."

This is true. The market will balance itself out, but not like a weight scale. Instead it will balance itself like an electromagnetic force, creating two polar opposites. It will become two extremes. The people on the top get richer and stronger and the people on the bottom will become poorer and weaker. There is very little between those extremes, so anyone who is currently "middle class" will need to either claw their way to the top, crushing everyone else as they go, or give up and submit to a life of peasantry.

I can understand the fear of "big government." I don't want to live a in a country where the government controls everything. I wouldn't want to live in communist North Korea or Nazi Germany or Taliban Afghanistan. But I don't want to live in a government-free country either because ultimately a nation without regulation quickly devolves into barbaric structures based on bullying.

The United States was founded on the idea that the government was "for the people." Sometimes, we "people" must establish rules and boundaries and protect the innocent from the stupid and greedy. Children must wear bike helmets and go to school. Nobody is allowed to drive while intoxicated. Companies aren't allowed to sell products that can harm people even when those products are used properly. Regulations are good as long as they're designed to protect people and don't take away the rights of the individual to direct his/her own life.

The economy needs regulation. The social security system needs regulation. Businesses need regulation. Governments need regulation. The regulations ensure that the people at the top don't get too powerful and the people at the bottom don't get too abused.

When I talk to people who insist that all regulation is bad, they're usually talking about any regulation that keeps them from having lots of power or losing the power they have. These people are usually the ones at the top who already have power and wealth and people in the middle who want to kick and bite and claw their way to the top and knock everyone else off their mountain (and these are exactly the sort of people who shouldn't have power because they're most likely to abuse it).

Then there are the people who are against regulation because they believe that everybody should be allowed to fully regulate themselves. They believe in survival of the fittest, and if anyone isn't fit to survive it's their own damn fault. Worst of all, they can only see things from their perspective; they lack the ability to imagine other points of view or relate how their own actions influence others. They say things like, "Why should I pay more taxes for education? My kids are going to a private school. Why should I pay more taxes to help lazy people on welfare? They should get a job. Why can't I charge my customers $10 for a gallon of water after a hurricane? It's just the law of supply and demand." (Then they complain about how much crime there is. It's strange how they never see the connection.)

And for the past 8 years we have had a president who says he believes in less regulation. Less regulation for businesses. Less regulation for polluters. Less regulation to protect endangered species. Less regulation of social security. He even deregulated our rules concerning war and traded our regulated military for unregulated mercenaries who can rape and murder freely. And then he tried deregulating Congress with the Sunset Commission (a Bush appointed panel of people who terminate any federal programs that they deem wasteful, such as environmental and social programs). He deregulated the legal system by using "signing statements" to change the laws that Congress passed. He deregulated our civil rights policies, so he could torture people and invade the privacy of American citizens.

But Bush isn't against regulation. He loves regulations that directly benefit him and his buddies. It's all about selfishness, greed, power and money.

And now that Bush is getting ready to leave office, the economy is falling apart, the military is suffering, our veterans are abandoned, the world hates us (even our allies don't respect us anymore), and American lives are being destroyed family by family. The Bush administration has spent trillions of dollars, our money, while he swore an oath to financial conservativeness. He condemned "big government" then proceeded to create one of the biggest, dominating, dictator-like governments in the history of the U.S.

His supporters, whom he lied to, still support him. Are they really that gullible? Or are they too somehow benefiting from his tyranny while everyone else suffers? Are they trying to climb and scratch their way up that mountain of power?

Then Bush says that he's going to freely give billions in tax-payer money to this giant companies that are folding under the weight of the slumping economy, so he can save the economy. (Well that's what we get for having a president who got a D in economics and spent his college years drunk.)

So where exactly is that money going to go? What are they going to do with it? Are the millionaire directors of those companies going to keep getting their millionaire paychecks and bonuses even though they ran the companies into the ground?

I think we do need to step in to help those companies, to take over those mortgages and business loans, but let's not be stupid about it. You don't give a greedy person a billion dollar check and expect them to do the right thing with it. No, they'll just take a big cut of it for themselves and continue to let everything else around them fall apart.

It seems that what we need is a bit of regulation. Imagine that.

Labels: Activism