The Big Government is an EVIL since it enslaves us spiritually, and sometimes even physically. God led us from Slavery of the Pharaoh’s ancient Egypt to be Free People – the Big Government is leading us back to Slavery.
One of the most divisive questions in preserving Jewish Unity is how we have to treat a government – as a GOOD or as an EVIL. And this is not an empty rhetorical question – one of the most important stories of the Torah is our escape from slavery of the Pharaoh-Government in ancient Egypt.
This paper provides my answer to this question – my interpretation of the Torah commandments.
The Big Government is an Evil while a small government is a mandatory part of a package of Good we should accept and live with.
How to distinguish between the Big Government and a small one?
The size and the power of a government are defined by a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) a government is consuming. The Big Government consumes or controls over 50% of GDP: the government of the Soviet Union consumed 100% of GDP; the government of the USA these days (the three levels of government) consumes or controls close to three quarters of GDP. In the historic past a small US government consumed about one quarter of GDP and used this amount of money (collected through various types of taxation, tariffs, fees …) mostly for defending the country and its people from adversaries external and internal, and for maintaining the legal foundation for individual free-market creative activities.
What’s wrong with the Big Government from the Torah view-point?
The Big Government takes upon itself the role of creator of a code of moral behavior, camouflaging this code as “social justice” or “human rights”, thus playing a role of a human god and violating the First and Second Commandments of the Ten Commandments. The Big Government violates the Fifth Commandment taking upon itself the role of caretaker for the elderly – it has to be done by children in the family and in the community or through the Mitzvah for less fortunate. The Big Government violates the Tenth Commandment redistributing the wealth from the wealth creators to those who are “coveting your neighbor” fortunes.
What’s wrong with the Big Government from the economy view-point?
The Big Government takes upon itself the role of spiritual and material caretaker for everybody not for good moral Judeo-Christian reasons but rather for securing its own well-being which is much better than the well-being of the people the government is taxing. Indeed a monetary compensation of an averaged government employee is about $120K a year while an averaged private-sector employee gets about a half of that. That’s why government bureaucrats don’t want to go back to the private sector. And that’s why they are playing a role of a human god who takes care of its subordinates. The Big Government bribes the subordinates by various social programs that induce them to keep the Big Government in power.
The most spiritually destructive on the list of Big-Government actions is the education under government-controlled programs that in essence is the brainwashing to instill in the kids of all ages the respect and obedience to government-imposed uniformity.
The Big Government is not just a spiritual threat – the Gig Government is an economic threat as well. The Big Government is managing the economy in extremely inefficient way. Indeed through the mitzvah/charity about 80% of the collected money goes to the needy while this number goes down to about 20% if the Big Government takes care of the needy.
So the Big Government is EVIL and as an EVIL it wants to confiscate your guns – just to preserve its devilish power if you decide again to revolt against a contemporary Pharaoh-Government and return to the era of God-given freedom.
You have been reading my many emails and letters to my elected politicians about which you wrote in your blog post.I read an article yesterday enumerating the constitutional rights that we have lost under recent Presidents.The problem is that the US citizen does not keep informed of current events and could care less about politics leaving those people to ravage our country .
In my apartment complex of 27 units I am the only tenant to subscribe to a newspaper.Since all of our elections are now by ‘mail in’ ballot I was able to confirm through my mail carrier that I was the only registered voter.I very seldom find a person who watched the newscasts on TV.Not that all these media sources are totally reliable but at least it gives us some information.I read four US newspapers and I search through eighteen foreign sources via the internet and I still don’t have the complete picture.
Our government will continue to practice their misguided agenda because of a lack of power base at the grassroots level.”Knowledge is power”,as the adage goes but knowledge without action is useless.
I admire you for speaking out.It wasn’t all that many years ago when this wasn’t possible for you and I am of the feeling that you take your citizenship seriously and responsibly.
Lawrence, I am in full agreement with you on this issue. I see around me what you describe you see around you. Sad! That’s the brain-washing work of the Big Government. But I still hope …