The Dependency In America Rant

Americans have historically been known and even defined by such characteristics and traits as rugged individualism, self-reliance, risk-taking, and a “Get-R-Done” attitude. As a people we have always been imbued with a boundless sense of optimism, pride, and an overwhelming measure of self-confidence. We have had, like no other people on the planet, an absolute belief that the future is filled with unrivalled opportunity for those who took advantage of the blessings with which our nation has been endowed. Endless possibilities could be found and realized here and no dream need be left unfulfilled. In addition, we have always been extremely pragmatic and practical in all of our undertakings and have been imbued with a supreme sense of hopefulness. Show us an obstacle, and we’ll find a way to go around it, over it, under it, or right through it to accomplish any given goal or end. Behind all of the above traits lay an overwhelming sense of glorious independence and a belief that we are in charge of and responsible for our own destiny and future.


We have become so steeped in our sense of independence that we have come to despise and abhor anything remotely resembling or smacking of dependence for that condition wreaks of weakness and failure which Americans are just not familiar with. Dependency is seen as a character flaw which must be rectified if we desire to live lives that are satisfying, productive, and meaningful. Dependence, most of us have been taught, means that one must rely on others in order to achieve what we perceive to be our goals, dreams, and aspirations. It means that our future is not in our own hands but rather rests with others. Additionally, dependence necessarily means a lack of freedom to do what we feel is in our own self-interest and to accomplish what we deem necessary and fulfilling in our lives. The more independent we become, the more complete we are as individuals and as we give up our independence the less fulfilling and satisfying our lives become.


Can any of us, however, achieve complete and utter independence in our highly technical, complex, and hectic 21st Century existence? Of course not and this is for the best. Infants and children, for example, by definition are dependent on parents and older family members to provide for their material and other needs. It must be so for throughout the history of civilization it has been the duty of the older generations to prepare the “young-uns” to become active, contributing members of society. They must be taught the requisite survival skills whether it be in the era of hunting and gathering or in the era of computers and rocket science. The young are and must be dependent on their elders whether in the human or animal kingdoms. We are, obviously, not born out of whole cloth but must be shaped and molded so that at some future point the young become the leaders and providers who will guide and shape those behind them to one day take their place in society. If raised properly, the youngsters as they mature into adults will naturally seek their independence, live their own lives, and make their own decisions. Until that point, however, dependence is a natural condition.


In addition, the complexities of life itself force us to depend on others in a myriad of ways. We live in a highly specialized society that by definition precludes any of us from becoming one hundred percent, totally independent and self-sustaining. Most of us today cannot, for example, grow our own food or slaughter animals for meat. We must rely on others who specialize in these endeavors to do so. Most folks today cannot repair their own vehicles or self-diagnose serious illness but rather rely on the talents of highly trained and skilled others. The vast majority of us cannot build our own domiciles or replace or repair faulty wiring. How many of us can make our own foot-gear or other articles of clothing? It’s probably safe to say that very few amongst us can build, repair, or fly commercial airliners that have become such a familiar and necessary part of our lives. How many of us have the skill and knowledge to install or fix a broken boiler in the middle of a record-setting winter or do the same with an air conditioner when the temperature hovers at just under one hundred degrees? We are, then, obviously dependent on others in many ways just to get through an ordinary day and to deny this aspect of our existence is to blind oneself to life’s realities and necessities. The types of dependence thus far enumerated are normal, natural, and beneficial. They promote and foster human interaction and engagement, provide huge numbers of Americans with employment and profit, and are a mainstay of our Free Market Capitalist economic system. They are nothing but positive.


The dependency that must be feared, avoided, and destroyed at all costs and by any and all means is anything but beneficial or benign and that is a growing and overwhelming dependence on government to provide our every want and need from cradle to grave! This flies in the face of our history, traditions, and institutions that made us the freest, most opportunity-laden nation in the history of the planet. In no small part, our historic lack of dependence on government has made the United States the shining beacon it has become. It is this lack of dependence on government that has made America the wealthiest nation in the history of nations and changing the relationship between the governed and those who govern will send our country crashing to its knees and will constitute a fall from which we can never recover! The men who founded this great nation knew full-well that to maintain freedom, government must be extremely limited in scope, size, and power. After all, they had lived under a tyrannical system where freedom and liberty simply did not exist. They experienced first hand and up close the ravages imposed on a populace by an all-powerful, all-encompassing centralized system of government.


This is precisely why the Constitution they crafted limited and severely restricted the powers given to the Federal Government. If you haven’t read it in a while, or perhaps not at all, then do so. It’s worth the effort. Pay special attention to the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to that amazing document. It is replete with restrictions on the powers of our government and lays out in the clearest and most unambiguous language what the government CANNOT do to us! At the time, this was truly radical and totally unheard of. To limit the power of government had never been seriously suggested or attempted at least not out loud in front of God and everybody else. To even suggest such a course of action was tantamount to a death sentence as the signatories to the Declaration of Independence were all too aware. They really did pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of independence and they meant every word of it! They knew that an all-powerful, all-consuming centralized government meant the utter and absolute destruction of any kind of freedom or liberty. They understood that government by its very nature would always garner more and more power unto itself at the expense and to the regret of the citizenry. It had been so for thousands upon thousands of years and those great men of vision and character were determined that it wouldn’t happen in the United States.


If those long dead “white guys” could but see what has happened to their creation over the centuries, they would collectively demand a second American Revolution for our government has become at least as tyrannical and intrusive as that of King George all those years ago. It seems that in the 21st Century, there is virtually no aspect of our lives that is not in some way touched, controlled, or affected by the heavy and arbitrary hand of Big Brother. This is not accidental or caused by mere happenstance. This is the result of a perniciously planned, well thought out, and brutally implemented policy of the Far Left in our nation and has been going on since at least the 1960’s. The Far Left in America, the LFE (Liberal Fucking Elite), wants an all-powerful, omnipotent centralized government that only they, of course, will control. They view the citizenry as no more than unthinking, witless, and mindless boobs who must be led and controlled by their “betters.” We obviously are not capable or intelligent enough to make decisions and adopt courses of action that will move America forward.


We do not possess the requisite vision or enlightened attitudes to qualify us to navigate our country through turbulent and stormy seas. We must leave such weighty matters to those on the Far Left who don’t merely want to govern but desire nothing less than to rule as did the monarchs of yore. In their arrogant, condescending, and paternalistic attitude we are the children to be led around by the nose and told what to do, how to do it, and when and why to do it! We, you see, are not capable of making reasonable and rational decisions as to how to run the country or even, for that matter, our own lives and those of our children. Only the Anointed Ones, the Chosen, possess the wisdom and intellect to do that! This kind of extreme hubris is obviously brought on by some form of mental illness or instability and it might make for an interesting seminar topic or round table discussion were it not for the fact that these Bastards are destroying America as historically envisioned and currently constituted!


Yes, yes, I know. I seem to be stuck somewhere between extreme paranoia and out of control hysteria! Is it really possible that those on the Far Left actually want and demand to destroy all that has made the United States the greatest nation in the history of the world? Can it actually be that the saboteurs want to see an America that is weaker and less influential on the world stage? Can it really be that many of our own citizens actually believe that we are no better – and probably worse – than the cruelest of regimes like Communist China, Nazi Germany, or nations controlled by Sharia Law? Sadly, even tragically, these people do exist and have been very patient and effective in implementing their nefarious plans and machinations. Their collective goal is the very destruction of the United States and all it has historically come to represent and stand for. To them we are no better than the Evil Empire identified by Ronald Reagan or the Axis of Evil that old “W” spoke about so forcefully and eloquently!


They want to turn America into but one more failed Socialist state whose citizens will be literally dependent on government for everything in their lives. You name it and those on the Far Left want us to come crawling, begging, and groveling for our hand-outs from Big Brother! They are all about power and control and absolutely nothing else. If you don’t think so, just take the blinders off and open you eyes really wide. Who, for example, are some of the Socialist-in-Chief’s most powerful advisors? That’s right, his various “Czars” who are elected and approved by no one and accountable only to him. They serve at his pleasure and there’s not one damned thing we can do about it! Government, if you recall, is supposed to be accountable to us and not the other way around! His wife, the First Queen, wants to dictate the types of food we can and can’t consume from salt to trans-fats to red meat and to anything else She Who Must Be Obeyed deems dangerous to our health and well-being. Hey, Michelle Baby, I got a request. Keep your grubby mitts off my burger and fries and I won’t make fun of that bogus garden of yours! How about it?



Just in case it has escaped you, the cost of oil and gas are approaching levels that can only be described as freedom-killing. Does this bother old Barry and the Boys even slightly? Nope, for this is exactly what they want and desire to succeed in making Americans completely dependent on government. The President’s Secretary of Energy stated recently that he and the administration were not at all interested in reducing our nation’s energy costs but rather want to wean us off of oil altogether so we will be forced to go to unreliable and as yet unproven “alternative” forms of energy. One of the Great Leader’s most recent suggestions is that we turn for our energy needs from oil to pond scum – you know, algae! Yeah, that’ll really work. The point here, of course, is that the more successful the Bamster is, the less free the rest of us become and remember, that’s his ultimate goal! Fuel prices have a great deal to do with our freedom of mobility and our freedom of choice. The more expensive the fuel the less free we are to travel, the less free we are to find employment, and the less free we are to even choose the types of vehicles we will purchase!


And, of course, he lies! He’s not merely mistaken or misinterpreting the facts as they exist. He’s not reading it wrong, he just lies! His latest claim is that we as a nation have about 2% of the world’s energy reserves but consume at least between twenty and twenty-five percent of the same. Crap, Hooey, and Balderdash! In fact, the percentage of the world’s energy reserves that lay beneath our feet in our own country is at least 60 times greater than what he claims! At present, we have at least 1.5 trillion barrels of oil and natural gas at our disposal, we know where it is, and have the technology to harvest it. That’s 1.5 trillion with a “T.”! We have enough energy at our disposal at current levels of consumption to last us at least for the next 250 to 300 years! The problem, then, is not with the supply of energy at our disposal but rather with ideology. This Bastard is such a whore to the “Environmental Lobby” that he will do their bidding no matter the harm it does to our nation. Additionally, our technology has reached such an advanced level that we can recover these resources without harming the environment even slightly! Oil and the products refined from it are the cleanest and most efficient forms of energy we have. This is not merely an opinion but is a matter of fact. Why, then, will our Vaunted Leader not allow us to go after it? Do you know that since he became El Jefe he has issued exactly no permits to allow additional exploration or drilling for the stuff? The Evil President Bush granted over 40,000 such permits and during his tenure the price of gas went down! Doesn’t this tell you anything? It’s a clear signal that the last thing he wants is to see this nation achieve any sort of energy independence. He’d rather keep importing the stuff from other nations and thereby keep us dependent on them. American independence is just not part of his mind-set or world view!


The price of fuel should be dictated by the tenets and laws of our Free Market Capitalist economic system for it has proven over the centuries to work brilliantly! Not so for Obama and his Quislings. While we are literally awash in such things as oil and natural gas, the price of those commodities continues to sky-rocket. Well what then is the damned problem? Obama and his Bunch won’t allow us to go after it, bring it out of the ground, and refine it. This is all part and parcel of his grand design to bring this nation to its knees and keep us dependent on foreign sources of energy. Does this sound like independence to you? The Bastard killed the Keystone Pipeline, grants virtually no permits to drill in the Gulf of Mexico, and has steadfastly refused our energy companies from exploring and drilling in ANWR! Additionally, we have more coal reserves than any other nation on the planet and yet this Silly Son Of A Bitch has publicly declared that he will put that entire industry out of business!


The aforementioned pipeline and the Alaskan reserve can literally provide tens and tens of thousands of well-paying jobs for American citizens and quite literally hundreds of thousands of ancillary or related instances of both employment and entrepreneurship. Yet this Huckster has the utter cajones to tell us how concerned he is about the country’s current state of unemployment! To this I say a whopping Bullshit and Balls!! The higher the unemployment rate gets in America the more people must depend on the government for their unemployment checks and their very survival and we know that eligibility has been extended to an unprecedented 99 weeks. Does this sound like independence to you!?! Yeah, me too.


It is inconceivable to me that our nation has moved so far and so fast away from its heritage, traditions, and founding and yet that is apparently the case. To give up one’s independence in favor of dependence on government smacks to me of a complete and utter lack of pride and this is singularly un-American to its very core. Pride in country and pride in accomplishment and progress constitute two of America’s outstanding traits and both seem to be in shamefully short supply under the Bamster’s tenure. A willingness, even an eagerness, to depend on government largesse also displays a lack of personal pride that will, if left unabated, completely and forever destroy the very fabric of our society and way of life. How much pride in self does it take to shamelessly stick one’s hand out and say gimme, you owe me, I am entitled?(see related video)


How much personal pride does it take to demand – not ask for – food, housing, clothing, transportation and all of life’s other necessities and feel absolutely no sense of shame or remorse in the process? Yet this is what has happened and continues to happen in modern-day America. I give you as merely one small piece of anecdotal evidence a recent lottery winner from the state of Michigan. A woman there won a million dollars! Nice pay day and return on investment, huh? After the government finished taking its rapacious cut, she was left with over half a million – all hers. She bought a new house and car with part of the loot and no one I’m sure begrudged her one little bit of her new found financial good fortune. So, what’s the problem? Before her windfall, she was receiving about two hundred dollars a month in food stamps from the generous folks in Michigan and the rest of America. She wholeheartedly continued to believe that she should still be entitled to her stipend. After all, her convoluted reasoning maintained that she was still unemployed!


An article entitled, “Dependence on Government Highest in History (http://blog.heritage.org),” is depressing in the extreme. It notes, for example, that when JFK was in power about 25% of all federal spending paid for some 21.7 millions of Americans to be dependent on government. Today, however, government dependence has literally exploded, “with one in five Americans – more than 67.3 million – depending on Washington for assistance.” The piece continues that we have seen, “an alarming trend under the Obama administration of a level of dependence on our government that has never been seen before. Today, a full 70 percent of the federal government’s budget goes to pay for housing, food, income, student aid, or other assistance, with recipients ranging from college students to retirees to welfare beneficiaries.” Does this give you just a slight insight as to the direction our country has taken? Additionally, “government dependency jumped 8.1 percent in the last year, with the most assistance going toward housing, health and welfare, and retirement,” and that the, “federal government spent more tax dollars than ever before in 2011 to subsidize Americans.” Author Mike Brownfield quotes Representative Allen West saying that, “this disturbing trend does not bode well for our country and, in fact, will ultimately lead to an America where dependence – not independence – becomes the norm.” Furthermore, the Congressman insists that those, “in Congress need to do our part to aid the struggle for more personal responsibility. We need to reduce government spending levels so we are taking less from America’s producers of economic growth.”(see related video)


Sounds good, doesn’t it? Makes sense too. The problem is that as more and more of us relinquish our independence to government programs and assistance the more difficult it becomes to do without them. It seems that dependence has become our collective drug of choice. West warns that the, “federal government is about to burst at the seams. The United States simply cannot afford to continue fostering a society when a growing number of people are dependent on the federal government and not themselves.” He further warns that if, “this trend continues, America will see an increasing division between those who pay for programs that advance dependence, and those who accept – and expect – the assistance from those programs.”


The points thus far enumerated merely scratch the surface of just how dependent the American people have become on our out of control and virtually omnipotent central government. It seems that there is literally no area of our lives into which the government does not intrude. This is entirely understandable from the point of view of the Statists who are Hell-bent on socializing every single aspect of life in America no matter how seemingly insignificant. How else can we explain the fact that in less than one full term in office the Brother-in-Chief has added something like 80,000 new regulations and restrictions on our freedom and independence? This is what Socialism requires. While you can still, for example, own a business in America the regulations imposed make it almost impossible to successfully run it let alone make a profit. Profit, you see, is a dirty word to those of the LFE!


The inability to realize a satisfying return on one’s efforts and risks make it less and less attractive to even attempt to do so and that will over time spell the death of our glorious Free Market Economic System. This is no mere accident or the result of happenstance. This is part of a purposeful and nefarious plan designed to destroy our nation as we have come to love and cherish it. Destroying Capitalism will so change the nature and structure of America that it simply will not be recognizable to those of us who were born, raised, and educated here. We will have become no more or less than that liberalized, feminized, and socialized entity known as Western Europe where freedom has all but disappeared and government reigns supreme. This is exactly and precisely what’s coming our way if Liberalism is not soundly, thoroughly, and decisively defeated!


An article entitled, “20 Signs That The Culture Of Government Dependence Has Gotten Completely And Totally Out Of Control (http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com),” speaks eloquently to the unsettling fact that ever more Americans are succumbing to the seductive lure of increased government intrusion and dependence and thus a loss of freedom. It has been going on for so long now that too many of us recognize it as natural and normal and thus no longer understand the threat that it actually is. The author points out that, “there are now tens of millions of Americans that would not be able to survive without government assistance,” and that, “we have created a culture of dependence in this country. Americans that are now in their prime working years have been taught all of their lives that the government is going to take care of them from the cradle to the grave.”


In fact, this “culture of government dependence has gotten completely and totally out of control and now nearly half of all American households receive some form of government benefits. As a result, our debt is absolutely exploding, everyone looks to the government to solve our problems and very few Americans seem to possess a very strong work ethic any longer.” There is no way that any reasonable observer of the United States in the 21st Century can honestly disagree with the above conclusions. The only disagreement with what is happening to our country is whether or not one welcomes the direction we have taken. Unfortunately, it seems that more and more of our population looks forward to the changes being wrought by the Socialists among us or at least feel helpless to prevent them. This does not sound like the country I was born and raised in.


The author correctly insists that the, “truth is that the government is not your mommy and daddy. The government is not there to take money away from someone else and give it to you. The government is supposed to be the referee – not your own personal care taker.” The fact is that far too many of us view the government exactly and precisely as described above and that is because, “from the time they were babies millions of Americans have been taught to be completely dependent on the government. If we suddenly just cut them off they would not be able to make it. They simply have never been taught how,” and that a, “growing percentage of Americans have never learned how to make it on their own.” Whatever happened, I wonder, to time-honored American traits and characteristics like self-reliance, rugged individualism, and independence? What happened to our national character and psyche that permitted this culture of dependence to flourish and thrive? What caused us to morph into a nation of whiners, takers, and blamers? What has caused our obvious lack of shame and utter dearth of pride? The answers are not all that complicated and it is no more or less than full-blown, out of control, radical Liberalism as espoused by the LFE and its minions. Liberalism constitutes the absolute antithesis of proud and proven American values, traditions, and mores. Unfortunately, at this juncture in our history that thoroughly evil and destructive philosophy seems to be winning the culture war that has been raging unabated for decades!


The writer of the piece runs through a litany of indices that illustrate our nation’s growing dependence on government which by definition high-light our inability or refusal to depend on ourselves, our initiative, and creativity. He explains that 48.5% of American households receive some form of government aid or benefit and that far, “too many Americans believe that the government should just swoop in and solve all of their problems.” The article explains that the amount paid by government to individuals is both staggering and rising and that when, “you total it all up, American households are now receiving more money from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes.” We learn that we spent more than 50 billion dollars in “housing assistance” in 2009 and there are a stunning, “45 million Americans on food stamps,” which means that, “approximately one out of every seven Americans is dependent on the federal government for food.” Additionally, since 2007, the number of us receiving food stamps has increased by a whooping 74%, that 25% of children in America rely on food stamps and that, “64.3 million Americans depended on the government (read: their fellow citizens) for their daily housing, food, and health care during 2009.” The article concludes that we, “need to stop waiting for the government to fix everything,” and that the, “government is not going to fix our lives,” or those of the people around us. The piece correctly maintains that we, “need to start taking responsibility for our own lives and for our own communities.”


That’s damned sound advice from someone who appears to have his head screwed on right and his priorities in order. The question we must ask ourselves, however, is it already too late? Have we reached the point of no return, have we gone over the cliff of dependence so far that we simply can’t reverse the trend? Is this spirit-destroying dependence now a permanent feature and characteristic of our being and existence as a nation and a people? Have we changed so much from the days of our founding that the lessons taught and learned way back then are no longer relevant in 21st Century America? There are those of us out here who fear that the answer is yes and that our country as we have learned to love it has been lost to us forever. We trace it back to the time in our history when the Charity Mentality turned into the Entitlement Mentality. We believe that this is a major factor in what can only be termed as the demise of the United States of America!


Charity as defined by the Oxford Dictionary of Current English is the, “voluntary giving of money or other help to those in need,” and it has been one of our most defining characteristics as a nation and a people since our founding. It was help freely given and without any hint or trace of government coercion or involvement. It was given from individual to individual or perhaps from a voluntary organization set up freely by like-minded citizens. It was an intensely personal and individual experience and was done out of a sense of duty and obligation to help ease the plight of those who were temporarily down on their luck and needed a hand up. It was never meant to be a permanent condition or serve as a drain on our national well being.


Those who found themselves on the receiving end of charitable hand-outs borne by their neighbors did so with an extreme sense of shame and guilt. To have to receive charity meant to admit you were a failure – a total and utter failure! You could not support yourself or your family. You could no longer afford life’s necessities and had to rely on others to do so. Charity was received and accepted with a palpable sense of extreme gratitude, thankfulness, and utter humiliation! With it came an absolute determination to become once again self-supporting and proud in the shortest possible time. To assume this would exist for life and that you would be dependent on others in perpetuity was too horrific to even contemplate. To receive charity was to be stigmatized for it meant that the recipient was seen as anathema. To be forced to beg for one’s sustenance was the most shameful of all shameful situations. It showed one and all that you no longer possessed the least little iota or shred of self-respect and pride. What’s more, it worked. Charity was actually a short-term if extreme fix and most folks did whatever was necessary to correct those problems that were holding them back. It had always been so in this country, until fairly recently. Family took care of family and neighbor took care of neighbor. It was an intensely personal relationship and an extremely painful one for the recipient.


Not so anymore. What was once charity gratefully received has become “Entitlement” belligerently demanded! Entitlement means, “to give someone a right to do or to have.” The poor – those that cannot do for themselves – now have a right to get what they need from our nation’s productive class. This is easily one of the most arrogant mind-sets on the planet and it has been foisted upon us by the Far Left in our midst. All sense of shame and guilt has disappeared and those with their hands out whole-heartedly believe that they are entitled to the fruits of the labor of others. This condition has been institutionalized and fostered by government in the form of food stamps, housing credits, the welfare check, medical care and medicine, and so very much more.


As referenced earlier, 70% of our national budget is eaten up by our current entitlement programs and we as a people are forced to participate. We have no choice for the poor are supported almost exclusively by our tax dollars which the vast majority of us dare not withhold for fear of government reprisal and punishment. We have been coerced into giving our hard-earned and limited personal resources to those whom we may not deem worthy of our generosity or largesse. We no longer have anything at all to say about who gets what we have earned and the concept of wealth transference and the entitlement mentality have become permanent fixtures of American life. This defies everything America has come to represent over the centuries and unless reversed in one big damned hurry spells the death of this nation!


An article entitled, “A Nation of Government Dependents (www.americanthinker.com),” explains that our government, “at least as older citizens know it, is nearly extinct. Politicians are killing it by encouraging government profligacy and dysfunction at the federal and state levels and in many local jurisdictions as well.” Dependence on government has become systemic and has reached the point where it is literally strangling the freedom right out of us. So many Americans, especially the younger generations, have never known anything else so to them a Big Brother existence is the norm. They have no yard stick with which to measure how much freedom and thus dignity they no longer have compared to those of us who have been around for awhile. Care for just two seemingly innocuous and minor examples? Sure. I give you mandatory seat belt and helmet laws. Yes, I know. You think I’m being silly, ridiculous, and that I’m grasping at straws.


Really? I remember many years ago when I got into my 1968 muscle car that would easily hit 200 MPH, I rarely chose to use the seat belt. It may have been stupid, reckless, and dangerous but the point is it was MY CHOICE to make! I wasn’t forced by government to wear the belt and seriously, if I hit that bridge abutment at 95 miles per hour and went crashing through the windshield straight to my demise who the Hell else was I hurting? You got it, nobody. Wearing that contraption was my personal choice and responsibility and if I ended up dead or permanently injured I had no one to blame but myself and I alone paid the price. I enjoyed the freedom to make my own choice and live or die with the consequences.


Similarly, the same was true when I rode a Harley. If I chose to go helmetless, fly over the high side at 85 MPH, and go splat that was nobody’s damned business but mine! I was free to ride without the thing and no one could care less. Not anymore. Going sans helmet or not “buckling up” is now a violation of the law because I, obviously, can’t be trusted to make my own decisions or live my life the way I so choose. Only the government can do that because we common slobs, us little folk, are just too incompetent! Do you have any idea how FUCKING insulting and demeaning that is?!? Even kids riding their two-wheelers are impacted by the heavy, over-bearing hand of government run amok. The decision as to whether or not a child must wear a helmet while tooling around on his Schwinn should be left to the family and not to some pencil-pushing beaurocrat holed up in some government office! Yes, we are losing our freedoms from the smallest to the largest and that is due to the mentality of dependence on government that has steadily but surely deprived us of our liberty and our choices!


Government dependence is quite literally killing this once great country. It has changed us in ways never intended or envisioned by our Founding Fathers or those American that shaped and molded our core values and traditions. According to a piece entitled, “A Nation of Takers (http://patriotpost.us),” there was a time when Americans prided, “themselves on being a self-reliant people. We know that the freedom to make our own fortunes sets us apart from many other nations. It’s what has drawn generations of Americans to our shores – men and women risking their lives to live a life in which they, not the government, are in charge.” Look around and ask yourself whether or not this is still the case. If you answer honestly, then you must reply in the negative. The article continues that with, “each passing year, that portrait flies more and more in the face of reality. The numbers plainly show that we are becoming a people dependent not on ourselves, but on government. We are evolving into a nation of takers, not givers.”


How bad has it become? Let’s see, the piece continues that, “Americans who rely on government receive an average $32,748 worth of benefits. How high is that? Higher than the average American’s disposable income: $32,446.” Why sweat, toil, and work when Big Brother will simply give it to you? Remember, however, that in the process you are literally selling your soul, giving up your freedom, and becoming a slave to an already out of control and far too powerful central government whose only goal has become garnering unto itself as much power as it can at the expense of our liberty and freedom.

The Heritage Foundation deems the problem of dependence in America so important that it actually analyzes and assesses it. In a piece entitled, “The 2012 Index of Dependence on Government (www.heritage.org),” is particularly disturbing. It notes, for example, that “dependence on government by an increasing portion of the American population, and soaring debt that threatens the financial integrity of the economy – worsened yet again in 2010 and 2011.” In fact, “The United States has long reached the point at which it must reverse the direction of both trends or face economic and social collapse.” The study points out that more Americans than at any time in our history depend on the federal government for housing, food, income, student aid, and other assistance, “once considered to be the responsibility of individuals, families, neighborhoods, churches, and other civil society institutions.”


The study warns that dependence, “on the federal government for life’s many challenges strips civil society of its historical and necessary role in providing aid and renewal through the intimate relationships of family, community, and local institutions and local governments.” In fact our nation’s, “republican form of government, with its finely balanced mixtures of civil and political institutions and charitable roles,” is seriously threatened as more and more Americans go on the dole. The report ominously continues that perhaps, “the greatest danger is that the swelling ranks of Americans who enjoy government services and benefits for which they pay few or no taxes will lead to a spreading sense of entitlement that is simply incompatible with self-government.” The Index asks are, “Americans completely indifferent to history’s many examples of republican government collapsing under the weight of just such populations? Are Americans near the tipping point in the nature of their government and the principles that tie it to civil life?” Unfortunately, the answer is obvious and anyone who can’t see the writing on the wall is blind to the reality that America has become.


It seems, according the Index, that “Americans have reached a point in the life of their republic when the democratic political process has become a means for many voters to defend and expand the benefits they receive from government (read: their dependence).” The report further queries, “Do Americans want a republic that encourages and validates a growing dependence on the state and a withering of civil society? Do Americans want to further accentuate class lines between those who pay for programs that advance dependence, and those who unquestioningly accept – and expect – the assistance from those programs? Are Americans ready for the new class warfare, the battle lines of which are drawn by these dividing lines?” The report concludes that these, “are questions increasingly in need of urgent answers,” and that how, “Americans answer them may well determine the ultimate fate of their political system – and society.”


As more and more Americans reply in the affirmative to these and other salient questions, the more quickly we will lose the America we love. How do you answer them, HMMMMM?

Much Luv Y’all and Have a Great Day!

The Fifth Horseman
(Dr. David M. Rich, Ph.D.)