The Government is a Business and Should be Treated as One

Grandpa told me once that he would like to hear a politician speak the following words or words similar to them. He told me that if people really understood the purpose of his own existence and the purpose of the existence of government then we would not be so divided as a nation. These were the words that grandpa would have liked to hear as he spoke to me in a very saddened manner knowing that he would never hear them.


“People, if you value your independence and liberty then realize this. Every law written demands that independence is lost. With every law written you no longer act voluntarily and consensually. You are acting in obedience to the law regulating that behavior or you are breaking the law. That is the nature and purpose of laws.

This does not mean that a person would have acted outside of that law if it was not enacted. In fact, one criterion of a good law is the fact that, in my opinion, 90% of the people would not have committed the act even if the law was not enacted. Of course there are exceptions to this observation. The paying of taxes would be one instance that this criterion would not be applicable.

People, if you value your independence and liberty realize this. What is yours cannot be taken away by your government. If the government has the right to take it away from you then it belongs to the government, not you. The government does not spend your money, it spends its own money that it had the right to confiscate from you.

People, stop looking at the purpose of government as if it was a charity organization. It should be looked at in the same manner as you view a business, any business. It exists to provide a service not a charity and you pay for that service. You pay the price that it demands for those services. When you look at government from that prospective then you'll realize that it should only provide those services that each and every individual needs in society. And since all persons benefit mutually from that service than each and every one of us should pay equally for that service.

We, the people, elect those who run this government. If we were to judge the performance of those elected would we judge them as running a successful business or a failing business? Are they abiding by a budget that recognizes the need to be in the black or are they accumulating debt that would result in the bankruptcy of any business? If debt is your answer then are they abiding by the principles of good business so as to make our investment in that business profitable for our children?

As to the tax structure, is it such that each of us must pay for the services rendered by our government as each of us should pay or does the burden fall upon the shoulders of the less fortunate? If the answer is the latter then what right do the rest of us deserve to benefit from the services that the government provides? Business would declare that if you cannot afford to pay for the services of that business then you have no right to those services.

And just like any business government has a specialty service of which only a government can provide. And the service that government specializes in is the service of force in order to bring about a peaceful and prosperous society. And as long as governments limit themselves to the issues necessitating using the tools of force then it will have served its purpose in a society just as any other business serves its purpose. It is when it begins to provide services that should not necessitate the use of force that it no longer can justify its existence.

It is when governments begin to provide services outside of its specialty that governments no longer are governments of the people, by the people and for the people. It then becomes a government of the majority of persons or a government of the minority of persons. For it will be one or the other that receives the benefits that government will be providing. And when that occurs then it can only occur at the expense of the other and you have a nation divided, one side in resentment towards the other instead of a nation united by the principles of good government.

In closing a little history should remind us of what occurs when a nation is divided by irreconcilable differences of issues. That history will remind us that those differences on issues resulted in two wars. One war was the revolutionary war and the issue was taxation without representation. The other war was what is called the Civil war and the issue was slavery. And both wars were the result of one thing. One side wanted to impose its will on the other side in regards to these issues and the other side was defending their right to make their own decision in regards to these issues.

When we understand this we will understand the real meaning of the free will of a individual and its importance to a people where liberty is such a cherished right. If we do not come to that realization we are dooming our children to a life governed by the principle of determinism where liberty can not exist and the meaning of life itself is degraded. Is that what you want for your children?”

When his words trailed off into a whisper I could not help but think that with every lesson in life that grandpa tried to instill in me were lessons that drew upon these thoughts as their cornerstone.