"And when I'm gone, who will you blame?"

A lot has been made of the proposed health care overhaul, a measure many individuals see as providing basic rights for American citizens and other claim to be the denial of civil liberties. I will begin by saying I am firmly planted in opposition to this legislation, but instead of giving specifics of the bill I'd prefer to go on and speak on the bigger problem.

U.S. taxpayers currently finance an empire. It can be propagandized as providing safety and stability for Americans, promoting the common good for the world society, or any other of scores of pseudonyms, but at the end of the day the truth remains that United States is a nation stretched far beyond its borders and as a result, its means. I'll avoid the issue of The Fed authorizing the change in interest rate and subsequent printing of dollar upon dollar to control prices and debt, as that's another issue entirely. The matter at hand is that as a nation we are currently $11.4 trillion in the red. Let me put that another way: $11,400,000,000,000. That's practically an entire year of real GDP. A completely astronomical and unacceptable figure. And in the wake of an announced foreign policy of achieving peace and stability with our neighbors, we have military presence (troops) in 130 countries. Our military presence costs a trillion dollars per year to maintain. And this is being financed by the American public. How? Taxes, of course. The American people support this presence, our current federal government's actions, and all other manners of frivolities by our consent to pay taxes and never raise a protest. I'm not saying we shouldn't pay taxes, because there are certain things that can only be accomplished by some sort of national tax, but here's the more important question: Why have the American people accepted the growth of the federal government as progress?

American citizens and corporations are being taxed higher than ever before. And for what? The elections want our focus to go on $10 million pork-barrel projects, which are less than a drop in the proverbial bucket. The bulk of our taxation goes not to building bridges and parks (pork) but to funding bullshit departments like Education and Homeland Security. And raising taxes on our corporations to finance these atrocities does nothing to encourage American manufacturing. Why should it? When companies must cut costs to turn a profit because of regulation and taxation, do they have any incentive to offer benefits to their workers? Absolutely not. It's easy to blame the free market on our domestic issues, but that mistrust is simply pre-engineered hate pushed on the American public by government media outlets.

Before you say, "James, you're an anti-government anarchist who seeks to blame our problems on Washington," I'll say, "This is not my government."

We are not in danger. We are not helpless. But by playing off that mentality with which we have been inculcated the government is allowed to prosper and grow; our bureaucracy is exponentially larger than Constitutionally authorized. My personal opinion of why is that people who have government jobs want to keep their jobs, and to keep their jobs they provide their supporters with jobs. Makes sense, doesn't it? Feed the hand that feeds you. Meanwhile, we're shown the insignificant arguments of the day, what Ron Paul calls the "False Choices of American Politics." We do not know what's going on. For too long the American public has had the mentality of "Why should I do it if the government can instead? It saves me worry and I'm sure they'll do a good job. And even if they don't, it won't affect me." We're staring calamity in the face, my friends. Inflation is ballooning, Anti-American sentiment is still sky-high (thanks to our Team America: World Police mentality that is still prevalent, despite Savior Obama's reputation), and financial bubbles are being inflated constantly. There are government checks in place, because everything is regulated, but it would take unpopular decisions to fix these issues: reduced government programs, a fat-trimmed bureaucracy, tax cuts for manufacturing (global warming, OMG!), and the sense to stop printing money until we can stabilize the dollar's value. With those propositions would come decreased voter support and lost jobs for the friends of fat cats. So they have no incentive to make those changes. Just like American employers have no incentive to provide quality health insurance for their workers.

Change.