Beaman: Reese's Pieces - Of His Mind & Mine

By Roderick T. Beaman, D.O.

Charley Reese is one of my favorite columnists. He writes for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and his columns are regularly published at www.lewrockwell.com. This is an excerpt from a recent column:

"...What follows are a few of the basic premises on which I base my thinking. You might or might not agree with them, but may I suggest that you make a list of your own basic premises. It will help you clarify your thinking.

1. Government is inherently incompetent, and no matter what task it is assigned, it will do that task in the most expensive and inefficient way possible.

2. The American government is corrupt from top to bottom.

3. If you rely on the mass media to inform you about your community, state and nation, you will, with rare exceptions, be woefully ignorant of what is really going on.

4. The universal franchise is a bad idea. The notion that the destiny of the nation should be put in the hands of ignoramuses, parasites, boobs, party hacks and idiots is absurd on its face.

5. Public education in America is a failure and is so flawed it cannot be reformed.

6. Not much has changed in the past 5,000 years of human history.

All of that might sound cynical, but it really isn't."

I took Charley’s challenge and came up with a few premises of my own. Charley doesn’t think his suggestions are really cynical but there is no doubt that mine are. I have absolutely no faith or trust in government to do anything right.

I plan to expand on several of these. Some of them may seem like the corollaries of Murphy’s & Parkinson’s Laws and the Peter Principle but I do think they are worth stating, even if obvious. I will just comment on some of the others and develop my own. (Actually, when you think about it, isn’t all of government actually a corroboration and corollaries of Murphy’s & Parkinson’s Laws and the Peter Principle?)

There is no doubt that if you rely on the mass media you will be woefully ignorant of what is truly happening in the world. The same with his assertion about public education. The problem is that both of these are actually manifestations of government incompetence. Schools are obviously, even our supposedly private schools. All of them must meet certain government ‘standards’ which, for anyone paying attention, are bogus. And even though mass media may seem independent, when you look more closely, radio and television must also pass some kind of muster with government authorities through the Federal Communications Commission. Print is very intertwined with both. The only completely independent medium is the internet and government in every country is threatening it.

There can also be no doubt that the universal franchise is a bad idea. I never cease to be astonished at how poorly informed most people are and the overwhelming majority of them are government educated. I wonder if that’s what government wanted in the first place, to ‘keep ‘em ignorant and on the plantation’.

During the bicentennial of The Constitution, some people set up a table in a mall in Rhode Island and asked passersby to sign a petition that was The Bill of Rights. A strong majority declined on the grounds that it was too general. The Bill of Rights.

Of course, the level of misinformation that exists is also remarkable. High school graduates and even college students can’t identify who was president during the Civil War, World War II, the number of states in the Union and can’t locate Iraq on a map.

Not only should every voter have to pass an examination at least as comprehensive as that which is required of candidates for naturalization as he suggests, but I think everyone should have to pay to vote. I liken it to a corporation where you have to own shares to vote. If you have no financial interest in the country’s survival, it’s far less likely you’ll have any interest in its survival. Unfortunately, this violates the 24th Amendment but then the 24th Amendment can be repealed.

I do disagree that not much has changed in 5,000 years. Obviously, a lot has but I don’t think human nature has changed at all. We are still the same grab bag assortment of mostly decent folks who just want to be left alone to solve their problems, along with the same types of shysters, harlots and power hungry miscreant slobs who seize power over us and lead us to perdition via their path to salvation. With that, I come to my musings and corollaries.

1. No matter what it sets out to do, government will accomplish the precise opposite.

Examples include The War on Poverty which made poverty a permanent part of the lives of many poor; the Federal Reserve Board which was supposed to stabilize the economy and just one and a half decades later gave us the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression; zoning laws which were supposed to preserve and develop community and neighborhood character and gave us shopping malls.

2. Because all government is corrupt, all government work is inherently corrupt.

Whether it’s regarding something it is or isn’t legally or constitutionally permitted to do, government’s handling of it becomes corrupt. Road building and maintenance, health care, education, postal services, defense and public safety such as police and fire control, financial services such a coining and minting money, are corrupt.

3. Further, because government work is corrupt, those who serve it in any of these capacities will be corrupted by it. No matter how altruistic they are at they beginning, they will either succumb to the temptations of greed, or subvert their consciences to accept things that would have horrified them otherwise. Examples include military forces for defense will be used for things with no resemblance to defense of our land here but rather offense in other lands; policemen who are supposed to protect us will be deployed to finance government’s illegal functions, such as in setting up speed traps; government officials will be used for political harassment.

4. The higher the government official’s rank and the longer he has worked for government, the more likely he has been corrupted, the greater is his corruption and consequently the greater are his chances for inflicting evil on the world.

5. At least eighty percent of government work is unnecessary.

6. At least eighty percent of government workers admit it but only privately.

7. At least eighty percent of government workers wish they were doing something else.

8. When dealing with any government worker, extend no trust. It is best to assume that he is your enemy and you will never be disappointed. You are another notch in his belt for his next evaluation for promotion. That is how government employment operates.

9. Government is not only inherently incompetent and inefficient and American government corrupt but evil. It is evil because it relies on the threat of violence which is necessary to force people to do things inconsistent with human nature. This is in direct opposition to Christ’s message and that of the scriptures.

10. For this reason government must become antireligious and anti-Christian, or pervert Christian churches or Christ’s message. The Soviet Union did all three while The United States of America has done the latter two.

11. The more it tries to do, the greater is the evil it accomplishes.

12. This is why the Founders wanted to have as small a government as possible, to minimize government’s potential for evil.

Well, that’s about all for my list. I know I could go on for pages with corollaries but I think by now the reader has gotten the point. Like Charley Reese, I invite everyone to draw up their own lists, if for no other reason than to clarify your thinking.

August 25, 2008

About the Author
Dr. Roderick T. Beaman is a board certified family osteopathic physician who practices in Jacksonville, Florida. He is a published poet, has composed a blues song and is trying to have his first novel published. It deals with the dangers of big government. He offers anyone who wishes to dignify the trash he writes with a comment, to do so.

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